While Hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved to be the worst and costliest natural disasters in our nation’s history, the waste and fraud uncovered after last year’s storms has been a disaster all in itself.

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The list of government waste in the response and recovery after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, at all levels, reads like a rap sheet — $200 champagne, months at a Hawaiian resort, five season tickets to the New Orleans Saints, hundred of trailers sitting unoccupied. And the list goes on — all at taxpayer expense.

A recent audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that an estimated $2 billion dedicated to assisting those who most needed it never reached them, and instead was lost to fraud and waste. That amount is nearly 11 percent of the total $19 billion spent by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as of mid-June.

That type of waste is the result of government paying $175 per square for tarps to cover broken roofs, while the contractor repairing the roof is paid $5 a square for the work — $170 dollars per square lost in the layers of subcontracting for “management” fees. Even more telling, other local companies have told the government that they could replace the damaged roofs permanently for the same price we are spending on band-aid fixes.

The audit also found that the Army Corps of Engineers passed up chances to negotiate a lower price for portable classrooms, resulting in the federal government overpaying by 20 percent on a $39.5 million, no-bid contract.

Thousands of displaced residents were put up in hotels across the country, at taxpayer expense, when for the same price many of those same people could have repaired their houses and moved home. The government even spent $17 million on a permanent morgue for disaster victims that closed three months after it opened.

The list goes on and on: Trailers sit unused, cruise ships are rented for months and sit only partially used, reimbursements are given to phantom victims, and prison inmates collect more than $10 million for rental and disaster-relief assistance. Last month more than 381 FEMA trailers continued to sit unused in the Acadiana region of our state, representing more than $4 million that was wasted. That does not even include the additional 200 FEMA trailers sitting unused miles away on a site that the government spent $7 million improving.

And this is to say nothing of the $2,000 debit cards handed out to some who claimed to be victims, but instead used the assistance to buy Louis Vuitton handbags, spend evenings at strip clubs, or purchase Dom Perignon champagne.

This waste and abuse was occurring at the same time that families and businesses had to wait for legitimately approved funding to be provided by the federal or state government.

The ultimate cost is paid by us — the taxpayers. Every tax dollar being wasted and not spent on recovery is a dollar not reaching the people that need it. To date, nearly $100 billion has been approved in assistance, but we have yet to see that much in actual work on the ground due to the fraud and waste.

In contrast, the private sector and faith-based organizations have stepped up where government has failed and have begun the process of demolishing and clearing neighborhoods of homes and debris that remain almost a year later. A national faith-based construction group uses volunteers to offer free demolition of homes in areas affected by the hurricanes. This group, that claims to be able to clear more than 100 homes a day, even includes removing the concrete slab, a service not provided by FEMA.

Instead of common sense solutions to help displaced individuals begin the process of rebuilding, the state and federal governments instead often acted like the large bureaucracy that they are by hindering the recovery process with red tape, paperwork and policies that defy logic. I find it ironic that some of the people creating these burdensome policies are the same people who want the government to run our health care.

After Katrina, some government  policies punished family members that tried to return to work. Some families were allowed to remain in hotels for months, while others were threatened with a loss of housing assistance simply because one family member desired to return to Louisiana to work.

Instead of discouraging people from returning to work, we should give individuals priority when it comes to temporary housing. We should also allow employers to offer their property as locations for temporary trailers in exchange for housing their employees there.

To keep from repeating last year’s mistakes once again we should give more flexibility to families in their recovery efforts. Instead of spending more than $75,000 on temporary trailers with an 18-month life cycle, we should allow families to use a portion of that money to repair their homes, or find more suitable temporary housing by using financial vouchers.

We need more sensible policies, such as the amendment I offered recently and passed through  the House of Representatives that will have the military share their expertise with states on pre-positioning supplies and people in a short period of time. Another amendment I offered requires that those receiving assistance show some type of identification, or otherwise verify eligibility, before being given thousands of dollars in assistance.

We need to empower families and local officials in the recovery efforts. FEMA and the federal government should serve as a support to the local effort, providing resources, expertise, and funding to the local leaders who know the area, needs, and people being impacted. We need to facilitate cooperation between the federal and local governments, not competitiveness and acrimony. A recent mock evacuation drill of our state’s largest FEMA trailer site had to be canceled because the state and federal government could not determine who has jurisdiction during an evacuation. Ten months after last year’s hurricanes, the same turf battles continue to exist, but to what expense had this not been a mock drill?

Finally, we need to do more work in between disasters in both planning and preparation. Our goal should be not only to make sure all levels of government are prepared when disaster strikes, but also to ensure that local governments exhibit the self-sufficiency to deal with disasters without having to turn to the federal government in every instance. The more local governments can do to help themselves, the more local governments can do to prevent disaster, then the better and more effective our response will be.

While Louisiana has relied heavily on our federal government in our recovery efforts thus far, this is not the ultimate answer. Our recovery lies in the hands of individuals visiting our state, businesses locating and reopening in Louisiana, and trade groups once again booking their conventions in New Orleans.

The waste and fraud of last year’s storms show that sensible reforms must be made. As money continues to come to our state for disaster assistance, Louisiana and federal agencies must use the money wisely and not repeat the mistakes of the past ten months. The people of Louisiana cannot afford it, and neither can the American taxpayers.

 — Bobby Jindal is a Republican congressman from Louisiana.