Did You Know...

**Written by Doug Powers

Why the Ritz? Because the Waldorf Astoria was booked solid.

From Byron York:

Members of a key panel created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus bill, have scheduled a meeting on November 22 to consider ways to prevent “fraud, waste, and abuse of Recovery Act funds.” The meeting will be held at the super-luxe Ritz Carlton Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona.

The group is the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, a sub-committee of the larger Recovery Accountability and Transparency board (sometimes known as the RAT board). The stimulus bill set up the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, or RIAP, to make recommendations to identify and prevent waste of the bill’s $814 billion in stimulus spending.

So I guess that “boycott Arizona” thing is over, eh?

Rooms at the Phoenix Ritz run anywhere from around $300 to $500-plus a night, and that expense doesn’t include the signs that might be placed on Ritz grounds to alert the public that a Recovery Act project is underway.

This meeting is expected to save or create countless bellboy, waiter, maid, bartender, cab driver and masseuse jobs.

“Identify and prevent waste”? It’s probably too much to hope for that anyone on the panel will jot down “meeting at a 5-star hotel to discuss how to cut unnecessary expenditures” as waste that could be prevented, isn’t it?

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe