Accountability?

Fox News posted a Wall Street Journal story today about a federal audit of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The article reports:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency can’t adequately account for more than 70 percent of the money spent on fuel for New York in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, a federal audit released on Friday found.

FEMA spent $6.37 million for 1.7 million gallons of fuel as a gasoline shortage crippled the New York City area after the October 2012 storm, according to the audit from the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security.

Has it occurred to Congress that this might be a part of the reason federal government spending is out of control?

It gets worse:

But the audit found “incomplete and questionable” documentation for $4.56 million of that spending. Additionally, $1.81 million worth of fuel went to recipients outside the scope of work that FEMA established for the crisis, the audit found. As a result, FEMA can’t be sure any of that fuel went to approved power restoration or emergency public transportation work in New York, the audit said.

…The unaccounted fuel deliveries occurred because FEMA didn’t comply with federal regulations requiring the agency provide proper documentation accounting for its work, the audit found.

There is a bit of irony here–a federal agency did not comply with excessive federal regulations.

Continually raising the debt limit is not a solution, because it does not address the actual problem–the spending.