This is a legit question.

[paindonthurt]

Yeah it is until you can prove it.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Oops ! The gunslinger may have to head for the border **

https://nypost.com/2022/09/02/brett-favre-questioned-by-fbi-in-mississippi-welfare-scandal/

 

[mstateglfr]

I havent proven your point, you asked a question that contained a false presupposition and I replied. If my reply aligns with your views, OK then. If it doesnt align with your views, OK then.
As I clearly stated in that post, where I live is different from Jackson and we each have our own challenges(age of infrastructure, size of customer base, geographical concerns, environmental concerns, etc) so a direct comparison is largely meaningless. You then chose to take that meaningless comparison and directly compare. Again, it is not meant to be directly compared for all the reasons stated and re-stated.

As for your view that they should not be given money because of course they will waste it...well if you want to apply that viewpoint evenly to all public funding projects, there will be little money left for anything to be worked on.

 

[paindonthurt]

You absolutely proved my point.

It’s insane you would be ok with giving more money to someone who has proven they can’t manage money.

Insane, stupid, idiotic, all of the above.

 

[patdog]

Yeah it is until you can prove it.

The same can be said for the City of Jackson corruption you’re talking about.

 

[maroonmadman]

The same can be said for the City of Jackson corruption you’re talking about.

As of now the audit into Jackson's misspent money does not show the level of corruption shown in the TANF funds misuse. That does not mean it didn't happen, just that the audit hasn't gone far enough into the situation. In the TANF deal, money was channeled to certain people, whose politics aligned with those in charge, and then those recipients of the money made donations to the political campaigns of some well-heeled politicians. This has not (at least as of now) been shown to be true in Jackson's case. What has been shown in Jackson's case is gross incompetence in managing the money they received, principally the Seimens settlement money. As of now what we're seeing is corruption with the TANF funds and gross incompetence in the case of Jackson. These two items are not quite the same but we should not be accepting of either. More in depth audits are necessary, without any interference from government officials trying to cover folks asses. Then we will get a better picture of what actually occured. In both cases it is a hurricane level **** storm and we the taxpayers will probably be left holding the bag.

 

[johnson86-1]

$77mm in misspending/theft is ok because you don't feel ripped off due to the money already having been taxed and collected from the public?
Curious take.

Did I ever say it was ok? I said Republicans didn't rip me off. Probably should have clarified and said republican state officials if that wasn't clear from the context..

I also explicitly pointed out that I wasn't saying they shouldn't be thrown in jail or out of office. But you'd have to be a pretty big moron to not see leaving 200k people without running potable water becasue they siphoned off some 9 figures of money is more harmful than Mississippi's TANF embezzlement, both by total dollar amount and human suffering.

 

[johnson86-1]

What now? I have commented on Jackson and it's water issues countless times.

Jackson's incorrect billing, lack of billing, lack of maintenance, lack of employing necessary staff to operate at full capacity, and lack of infrastructure planning is all unconscionable.

The legislature's routing of funding elsewhere(outside of Jackson) and refusal to assist the city thru the years is unconscionable.


I can't imagine living in a city where I don't receive a water bill or I receive one for thousands of dollars. This **** just isn't difficult to perfect- small *** towns across the country manage to bill for water every month. Understaffing a facility to the point that it can't run at max production, even though demand required max production, is also insane.

WTF does this mean? The legislature isn't in control of Jackson's budget. The legislature isn't diverting ****. And the city of Jackson has it easy compared to most cities. They've got tons of money generated outside the city that gets spent in the city because of state and federal government. They've got a **** ton of federal and state buildings in the city limits and an non-rate regulated municipal water utility so all they have to do is load up the water and sewer bill for commercial properties to help offset tax exempt property. And then just do the basic government services like provide police and fire and pave roads and they're set. It wasn't the legislature that stopped them from doing any of that. They were too busy with graft to make sure the gravy train continued and that's somehow the legislature's fault?

 

[mstateglfr]

You absolutely proved my point.

It’s insane you would be ok with giving more money to someone who has proven they can’t manage money.

Insane, stupid, idiotic, all of the above.

What if I told you this very thing continues to happen every day in towns and states across the country?





^ I am not justifying misspending, I am simply saying you are up in arms over this while not up in arms over everything else that is just like it.

 

[thatsbaseball]

I could live with a little graft if they'd clean up some of the crime **

 

[paindonthurt]

Oh I’m 100% up in arms about misspending and giving too much money to federal and state governments so they can misspend.

This one is in out in the wide open and you are ok with giving them more and letting them mismanage it agai .

Insane.

 

[paindonthurt]

I’m simply asking for an investigation into a very transparent problem.

I’m also ok with an investigation into the **** show that went down with the state money.

 

[johnson86-1]

This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever seen posted on this message board. By this logic, no politician has ever harmed any of us by taking bribes or steering public funds to cronys for no work. May as well shut down the investigative division of the Auditor's Office.

I am touched that you apparently think that as long as I'm not ripped off, that means nobody gets hurt (because I guess nobody else matters? I like where your head is at). Also, I didn't even say I wasn't harmed. I just pointed out that I wasn't harmed any further by them. That was essentially consumption that was stolen (and hell, some of it was even turned into capital, although I'm not sure how valuable it is). THey may belong in jail, but we aren't going to be asked to pay for that spending again. We are going to be asked to pay for water and sewer investment that was siphoned off.

It's generally fine to be bothered by two different things and to also be bothered in proportion to the harm they caused? I'm bothered by people driving slowly in the left lane and drunk drivers. They both impose costs and both cause physical injuries or even death to people, but not in the same proportion.

 

[patdog]

Well, if a certain governor hadn't blocked it, we could have had at least one of those investigations. And yes, they both need fully independent investigations with no interference.

 

[johnson86-1]

As of now the audit into Jackson's misspent money does not show the level of corruption shown in the TANF funds misuse. That does not mean it didn't happen, just that the audit hasn't gone far enough into the situation. In the TANF deal, money was channeled to certain people, whose politics aligned with those in charge, and then those recipients of the money made donations to the political campaigns of some well-heeled politicians. This has not (at least as of now) been shown to be true in Jackson's case. What has been shown in Jackson's case is gross incompetence in managing the money they received, principally the Seimens settlement money. As of now what we're seeing is corruption with the TANF funds and gross incompetence in the case of Jackson. These two items are not quite the same but we should not be accepting of either. More in depth audits are necessary, without any interference from government officials trying to cover folks asses. Then we will get a better picture of what actually occured. In both cases it is a hurricane level **** storm and we the taxpayers will probably be left holding the bag.

You're applying grossly different burdens of proof. Pursuing a $90M breach of contract/warranty case on a contingency fee is a pretty damn strong evidence of corruption. You can do a lot of litigation for $2M to $4M. Unless they thought their chance of winning was somewhere less than 5%, that was pretty corrupt. You're probably not going to be lucky enough to get an email saying that "let's do this by contingency fee even though it makes no sense and that way you'll tens of millions of dollars you can use to give us some kickbacks", but it's pretty corrupt on it's face. The same way you can't detail how money was coming back to the politicians and bureacrats making the decisions in the TANF case. If some of it violated federal regs on spending limitations, then that's just gross incompetence just like it's gross incompetence not to collect money for providing water services.

 

[maroonmadman]

You're applying grossly different burdens of proof. Pursuing a $90M breach of contract/warranty case on a contingency fee is a pretty damn strong evidence of corruption. You can do a lot of litigation for $2M to $4M. Unless they thought their chance of winning was somewhere less than 5%, that was pretty corrupt. You're probably not going to be lucky enough to get an email saying that "let's do this by contingency fee even though it makes no sense and that way you'll tens of millions of dollars you can use to give us some kickbacks", but it's pretty corrupt on it's face. The same way you can't detail how money was coming back to the politicians and bureacrats making the decisions in the TANF case. If some of it violated federal regs on spending limitations, then that's just gross incompetence just like it's gross incompetence not to collect money for providing water services.

I am not applying different burdens of proof. I said "As of now the audit into Jackson's misspent money does not show the level of corruption shown in the TANF funds misuse. That does not mean it didn't happen, just that the audit hasn't gone far enough into the situation." You are jumping to conclusions based on the outcome YOU want to happen. My post has been strictly based on the present available evidence. I am fully willing to wait for a full, unbiased and competent investigation into the misuse of funds in BOTH situations and I really don't give a **** who gets implicated, indicted or even convicted of any and all crimes they may find.