Compared to other proposals the administration has thrown at the American people this past year, the home buyer tax credit was not bad. Unfortunately, the government could not even effectively run this program.

New home buyers would receive up to $8,000 in tax credits under the plan. The money was supposed to be available for first-time buyers who bought a primary residence after April 9, 2008, and only individuals making less than $75,000 or couples making less than $150,000 would be eligible. However, during a Ways and Means oversight subcommittee hearing yesterday, House members were informed that thousands of fraudulent claims were made.

The Treasury Department said that at least 19,000 filers who had not bought homes claimed $139 million in tax credits and were in turn reimbursed. An additional 74,000 tax-credit claims, totaling $500 million, could become invalid because of previous home ownership. Even more surprising, 500 people under the age of 18, including a 4-year-old child, had their names on applications for the credit, which has no minimum-age requirement according to federal officials. Evidently some adults used a child’s name as the purchaser of the home because they were ineligible to receive the credit due to their incomes.

Many of these fraudulent claims occurred before the IRS had updated their computer programs. If they had done this correctly, the program would have automatically checked the claims to ensure that they were valid based on the information submitted.

When added up, the total potential waste of your tax money from fraudulent home-credits could be upwards of $639 million. This is the same government that wants to take over our entire healthcare system! We have seen the government’s ineptitude in recent months with cash-for-clunkers, a behind schedule H1N1 flu vaccination and now this. When will liberals in Washington learn that government isn’t the solution to every problem? As my former boss Ronald Reagan correctly said, “Government is the problem.”

Every year, the federal government disperses hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars – your tax dollars – to various projects and programs. In order to ensure that your money is not wasted, each department has an office of independent auditors known as inspectors general or IGs. Last year, Congress passed a law designed to strengthen their independence from political pressure. Then Senator Obama was one of the co-sponsors of that legislation. But now it appears as though President Obama has run afoul of that very law and a scandal is brewing that has yet to be noticed by the “mainstream media.”

In a move denounced by both Republicans and Democrats as a violation of the new protections for IGs, President Obama recently fired Americorps IG Gerald Walpin. Walpin’s work was getting very close to some very big Obama supporters and he recently received a call from the White House telling him he had one hour to resign or be fired. Walpin refused to go and was sacked. The White House responded to the controversy with wild accusations suggesting Mr. Walpin suffered from dementia. Today there is breaking news that Walpin isn’t the only IG to be fired. But there’s another story here too.

When Bush fired eight political appointees it was front page news, and, believe it or not, Congress is still investigating that. But when Obama fires not one, but now three inspectors general, just as the administration is getting ready to spend billions of stimulus dollars even faster, liberal politicians and the media are silent. As one commentator observed, “WHERE ARE THE WATCHDOGS of the establishment media? Oh, that’s right: They are no longer watchdogs but lapdogs, and particularly slobbering ones at that….”

- Excerpt from Gary Bauer’s Daily Report
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