A story in the Dallas Morning News this weekend highlighted what sort of a job the government does with public housing. HUD paid a Dallas slumlord $1.5 million (in stimulus money no less) last year - equal to $850 a month per apartment - for a complex that features rotted floors, sewage spills, and exposed wiring. Twice, the city sued to shut the complex down as a public nuisance. HUD says the amount paid is fair market value. The article points out that you can find townhomes in better parts of Dallas for under $800 a month.
Let's put aside the government waste argument for a much larger point. This is just one of many examples of our federal government's inability to properly administer and provide oversight of an otherwise well-intentioned, useful program. It's why the government should not take over health care. The basics of health care (including doing everything possible to treat someone) will be undermined by the lack of accountability inherent in bureaucracy. If ObamaCare takes over, it is only a matter of time before we find out about waste and inefficiency that will bury the world's best health care system in a tangle of red tape. John McCain said it best: "Government interventions are not the solutions to our nation's challenges."
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