Let's get real, there is nothing so misman­aged as the federal Government. Now both sides of the aisle can't show the courage to take an honest look at the failures from years past.

While I lived and worked in Arkansas I pointed out there were people from all seg­ments of society cheat­ing on government entitlement programs.

There, in a county in which food stamps were the largest pay­roll, the people of the area would speak of the program as an evil destroying the fabric of this country. This was the pot calling the kettle black. Being the largest payroll in the county meant a num­ber of people depend­ed on food stamps, not because they received them, but because they worked in local grocery stores and those stores depended on that rev­enue.

The real "evil" of food stamps was the black-market operation running out of the ally behind my office. This has gone on for years and years all over the nation and the Feds do nothing. Believe me when I tell you, it goes on right here in Monroe County, right now. People sell the stamps for cash at below face value, and those paying for them redeem them for full face value. People lie on their applica­tions about a variety of things, so they can get more assistance.

Even some farm­ers came in to this is with subsidies paid some farmers. One Arkansas farmer had thousands of acres divided into smaller farms. He then named members of his fam­ily as owners of those farms. Then, there had to be farm equip­ment for that land to be considered a farm. This farmer would put any old (really old) piece of equipment on that land to make it qualify for federal assistance. Because he broke his farm into four farms, he quali­fied for four times the Federal assistance he normally would have received. On top of all that three out of the four "farms" his family owned, lost money and thus, got a huge tax break! Actually, I do not think the farmer in this example was doing anything illegal but he was breaking the spirit of the law and the gov­ernment did nothing to stop it.

Now, if I knew that, how did it slip through the eyes and ears of the Federal government? Do not get me wrong, farmers need help but we do not need to be paying wealthy farmers four times and allow­ing the tax advantages from losing operations. Big operations get away with these things and the smaller, inde­pendent struggles to do the right thing.

Then, there are the stories from some years ago, of $800 toi­let seats and stacks of money being literally lost in foreign coun­tries. There is hardly a Federal program that allows contracts of any kind that is not mis­managed.

There is nothing wrong with Medicare. All the government needs to do is stop turning a blind-eye to fraud and abuse of a program that insures senior citizens have the medical care they deserve. The recent revelations concern­ing The Scooter Store's fraud is a perfect example. Someone is not doing his or her job.

Congress, if you want to cut spending, cut the billions of dol­lars being either wast­ed or stolen through agencies being mis­managed or not man­aged at all! You do not need to make citizens suffer and industry fail just to feed your egos or to buy votes with useless programs that do few, if any, citizens any good. Do your job and demand it of those heading departments taking bids on government contracts. We will save billions!