What's outrageous is that the money lost did not vanish. It went into some very specific people's pockets. These people were and are good friends with key legislators of both parties. Apart from very token amounts, none of those funds will ever be recovered. Unless you are a dedicated professional researcher with a few years to spend, you will never know the names of the people who got the money, how much they got and where it is now. Even if our dedicated and professional researcher knows the answers with reasonable certainty, he or she will never be able to prove it in a court of law. They probably won't even be able to find a publisher. The money, for the most part, which hasn't been spent, will remain in the pockets of the thieves who orchestrated the rip-offs in the first place. The tax-payers will pay the bill like the suckers they are. And spend the rest of their lives paying, and paying, and paying. And still voting for the same people but with different faces. Every year a new crop of faces, every year the same scams and rip-offs. That's the system.