Idle money released into thin air …

We reported earlier this week about troubles at IdleAire.

The company says it is in financial trouble—and the company says it has “substantial doubt” about its ability to keep operating.

A lot of folks had questions from the beginning about how this thing would survive once the federal money dried up.

A caller to our program asked how they arrived at this point with $55 million in federal money. Let’s show the full picture – they got $55 million, and then they ended up $93 million in the hole this year alone.

Even if you don’t count the losses for previous years – and apparently, they were all losses – that’s $148 million they burned through. The final tally of losses may go much higher.

We not only need an investigation of where the money went – we need to learn some lessons to use the next time someone comes along with a scheme like this asking for our federal taxpayer money.

Every single one of us has faced a scam or two in life. We learn from it, and then we avoid the problem the next time it crops up.

The federal government should be expected to do no less.