Friday, April 15, 2011

But the weather is sure nice here.

Headlines and synopses from the front page of today's local section of the Miami Herald:

Medicare Fraud
Couple: We stole millions from Medicare
A Miami couple charged with running the nation's largest mental health scam pleaded guilty to billing the federal program for bogus therapy.
(The article said the Miami couple stole $200 million. This approaches 2/3 of this fiscal year's savings resulting from last week's budget deal in Washington.)

Miami-Dade Transit Agency
Transit funding cutoff continues
Miami-Dade Transit's woes with federal regulators are dragging on amid questions about the county's "serious mismanagement" of grant dollars.

(The mismanagement includes not only how federal grant money was being spent, it also includes "improperly accounted for bus fare boxes" which has a sort of nostalgic feel about it. The cut-off is of "some $185 million in grant money the county relies on to fund daily operations" and "will continue indefinitely." I think not only "daily operations" were being funded with this money, but also "daily defalcations.")

One idea that Congress might consider is just cutting away both Broward and Miami-Dade Counties and letting them float away into the distance. That could go far in dealing with the deficit. (Carol and I will arrange to be in Austin or Rochester at the time.)

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