ATLANTA -- CBS Atlanta News is asking the Tough Questions about government waste after we found hundreds of millions of your tax dollars wasted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA is unloading travel trailers costing a third of a billion dollars for hurricanes Katrina and Rita for just pennies on the dollar. Many of them were never used.

How's this for an investment: Imagine you invest a dollar, and you only get 6 cents back. That's a 94 percent loss on your investment. But that's exactly what taxpayers got when FEMA dumped tens of thousands of travel trailers in an online auction.

"It really outraged me. I thought, you know, the government's throwing away money again," said Brad Speck, of Atlanta.

The money Speck is referring to is documented on the General Services Administration auction Web site.

That's where CBS Atlanta News uncovered a government auction held just days ago, unloading travel trailers in bulk for only a fraction of what taxpayers paid for them.

"It just seems like everywhere you look, they don't have any common sense, what they do. They buy thousands of trailers, and then they sell them for nothing," Speck said.

"I'm not defending the government's over purchase, which they did over purchase mobile units for the Katrina and the Rita catastrophe," U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson said. "But once they've got them, it costs you more money to keep them and let them deteriorate than to sell them and get rid of them."

FEMA refused to speak with CBS Atlanta, so it asked Isakson why these trailers were being sold off at such a low price.

"The government is getting 10 cents on the dollar for these," reporter Wendy Saltzman said.

"That's correct," Isakson responded.

"And that's acceptable?" she asked.

Isakson replied, "It's acceptable because what's the alternative?"

In fact, once CBS Atlanta did the math, it discovered taxpayers are actually only getting about 6 cents on the dollar for those auctioned-off trailers.

Isakson continued, "The question you ask is it a good use of the taxpayers money. It is probably a better use to get the return that you can get, rather than keeping the asset, letting it deteriorate, and getting nothing."

And while Isakson argues this may be the only option, Speck wonders if those devastated by the economy, and not a natural disaster, could use these homes instead of living on the streets.

"It just seems like another thing the government is literally throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars without thinking," Speck argued.

But FEMA won't even make these trailers available for people to live in. And why? The travel trailers were contaminated with formaldehyde.

"It should have never happened in the first place," Isakson said. "There was a rush to judgment, compassionately, I'm sure. FEMA thought 'We are going to need a lot of housing units.'"

Speck just wants his money back.

FEMA said the majority of these travel trailers have been used, but up to more than a 100,000 were not.

FEMA told CBS Atlanta News the auction was an attempt to reduce inventory. And CBS Atlanta News found the reason may be the government was wasting over $100 million annually just to store the trailers.