Stimulus checks to dead and incarcerated: Where is the accountability?

Louise Radnofsky, a blogger at The Wall Street Journal entices concerned citizens’ attention giving facts on Stimulus Checks Sent to the Dead and incarcerated. According to a recently released Watchdog report, 89,000 stimulus checks of $250 each were sent to beneficiaries that were either dead or incarcerated. The stimulus checks were the part of the economy recovery program under Obama’s administration. Despite the criticism that our government receives developing stimulus program, it is very imperative to issue the amount to the people who can benefit from it to avoid defeating the sole purpose of the aid.

What caused the Social Security Administration to send payments to dead and imprisoned is a burning question? Radnofsky elaborates the furious answer that 72,000 checks were electronic-transfer to qualified people – had they still been alive. 55,000 out of all the dead beneficiaries were not even the records as deceased. The Social Security Administration did not record the other 17,000 deceased properly. The combined significant amount of $22.3million that was mistakenly sent out is not retrievable according to SSA failed to provision such act in stimulus program. In response to this issue the SSA is proud to announce 99.8 percent accurate payments were sent to 52 million beneficiaries.

My personal question would be when is the government’s planning to acknowledge that significantly $12 million that is yet to retrieve is due to lack of accountability? I guess the follow up question is going to be how are we going to get it back what is untouched in the bank accounts of deceased people? What happens to the money sent to imprisoned beneficiaries? Is the institution like the Social Security Administration operating with zero or less than 100 percent accountability? How is the SSA going to address these issues and assure to prevent such losses in the future? When there are many more burning questions like these come to the general public’s minds and the precise answers are no where to find, how should we have the confidence in our government allocating scarce aid to the right individuals.

In tough times like now, abusing government funds due to record errors or fraud is never tolerable. Radnofsky states our national deficit is closing on $13.5 trillion and these errors that can cost millions are just a pure example of disregarding accountability lacking ethics in operating government institutions. Despite the cause of any error any firm or government institution must implement 100 percent accountability and measure it daily to prevent any harm to our nation’s future.