We are so fucked.  

ETA:  It would be so easy to write a balanced budget.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/09/audit-rips-25m-us-funded-climate-change-program-in-guatemala.html?intcmp=hplnws

A $25 million U.S.-funded project to help Guatemala combat global warming is being slammed as another taxpayer-backed boondoggle after a new audit highlighted a series of problems -- including numerous inaccuracies in the group's work and a failure to produce a required long-term plan.

Without the plan, the government audit warned, "the funds ... could be wasted."

The grant for the Climate, Nature and Communities in Guatemala Program was awarded to the nonprofit Rainforest Alliance in February 2013 by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of a broader effort to fight climate change abroad.

USAIDs Office of Inspector General, which issued the audit last month, said the program was set up to help organizations and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Guatemala improve climate-change strategies and strengthen local NGOs so the countrys environment could be conserved without future U.S.  assistance. The report noted that as of February 2015, $10.5 million had been disbursed so far.

The audit acknowledged the program was making some progress, but it also alleged a laundry list of violations -- including that the reported results were not accurate.

The watchdog reported that data-testing revealed 22 errors in the accounting of whether the program was on track.

One example given was that the Rainforest Alliance reported 162,356 hectares of land now devoted to timber and nontimber products such as cacao and honey. But a review found the group had counted the same hectares multiple times.

The Rainforest Alliance also reported it had created 30,149 part-time and permanent jobs generated through new sustainable, productive activities undertaken by program-assisted community-based organizations and SMEs. However, the audit found 23,936 of those jobs may have lasted no more than a day.

The audit also found that a required comprehensive sustainability plan on how the program will continue after USAIDs assistance ends was not completed, despite it being required and the project having been underway for two years.

Without a sustainability plan, the funds used to help the Guatemalan Government and other partners manage the countrys natural resources to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change could be wasted, the report said.

The report was first flagged by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group which called the project an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars and par for the course with virtually all of the Obama administrations 'green' ventures, which have largely failed after getting hundreds of millions in federal funds.

Among other violations, the audit also found that while the Rainforest Alliance was supposed to contribute at least $3.75 million as a form of cost-sharing, the $1.79 million it reported as having contributed by December 2014 included $26,708 of U.S. funds it received under a separate project.

The auditors also found that participants didnt undergo background checks, breaking a government funding rule that background checks must be performed on anyone seeking to participate in USAID-sponsored training.

A spokeswoman for the Rainforest Alliance told FoxNews.com it was still reviewing the report, and plans to address any issues through continued collaboration with USAID.

USAID Guatemala said it agreed with most of the reports recommendations, and agreed to take corrective action on all of them. Among the actions being taken, the agency said it would work with Rainforest Alliance to review data collection and other factors to improve accuracy -- and to produce a sustainability plan by the end of 2016.

The amount of money the government blows has to be astronomical.

Absolutely nothing we can do about it anyway-the vast majority of Americans don't care,and the vast majority in D.C. don't care.

Maybe Trey Gowdy could put together a hearing and get something done about it..............

That just means they will steal the money faster!!

 


And what have his hearings done about anything that they've had hearings on?


They seem to be powerless to get the any evidence delivered.  


Yet alone, hold anyone accountable for anything!

Climate change believers are ignorant and fucking delusional. I might say borderline, if not over the line, retarded.

I was involved with supporting a 1.5 million dollar federal grant to support distance learning at a college. It was wildly successful and tangentially resulted in the creation of 5 online degrees for the school. I trained 200 employees in online tools and instruction.

The college president decided we needed a convention center which later utterly failed.

They were forced to lay off 25 full time trained faculty that were all trained by me in the programs that were fully online.

Revenue that required no brick and mortar infrastructure < Unsustainable hospitality center in the middle of nowhere Ohio


The College president got a raise that year

It must be real nice to be on the right side of that deal

Even if it were actually true, what is $25 million to Guatemala going to do about it?  

Just think,many years ago you had to go the the coliseum for your free bread and circus-now you can enjoy it in the comfort of your own home...............

Transfer the wealth.....he didn't mean to other Americans.


He mostly meant to other shitholes in the world.



He hates America.

If only the Party of fiscal responsibility was in control of the House where spending comes from.................

Yeah.

Anyone who voted for or authorized this expenditure should be imprisoned. Our nation is in deep debt, these non-essential expenditures are a crime against the American taxpayer and are destroying our children's future. The legitimate roles of the federal government are the common defense and interstate transportation, anything else is questionable.

Climate change believers are a cult . They have at best 160 years of data out of the over 10,000 years the earth is old and want to make changes based on that small sample . Retards one and all . I was promised an Ice Age in the 70's when I was in school . I was also told we will be out of petroleum by the mid 80's . Might as well be the Easter bunny

I remember the coming ice age.  Nobody ever mentioned trying to do anything about it.

That $25M could have probably been used to return all their illegals back where they belong.

You do realize how funny it is you complain about GW cultists having too short of a time frame to sample, yet complain we havn't left the inter-glacial period in your own lifetime?

 

Too many government employees and programs whose only job(s) are to spend all the money.  Cut staff by 50% budgets by the same.  No more pensions only 401K's

I remember when they were talking about taking coal dust up to,IIRC,the Arctic to try and warm the planet.

That was in school in the 70's.

There was a Time magazine cover with,again IIRC,a polar bear walking around a frozen NYC (It wouldn't have been all bad afterall ;) )

Don't hold your breath.

The vast majority of them will even get re-elected.

A lot of that will definitely be going in pockets of 'investors' and .gov employees. So in effect, it;s going to other Americans.

We should have rounded those people up back then, before they multiplied.

They have a 10% approval rating, and 90% reelection rate.  

Does Guatamala really have an issue with whatever it is they say causes climate change???  Seems the last kind of place you would put any money towards if climate change was your agenda.  Seems like the money (if you HAD to spend it there) would have a better use with there trash problem.  But that is more of a cultural problem than anything else.

Wasting the funds was the plan.

No kidding.  The auditors are probably on their way to their way to re-education camps.