I & I Editorial BoardOne of the unanswered questions raised by Minnesota’s massive welfare scandal is how it could have gone on so long, given its scale and the fact that alarm bells had been clanging for years.
The New York Times provided the answer, if inadvertently, when it quoted a former fraud investigator in the state attorney general’s office, who said that “There is a perception that forcefully tackling this issue might cause political backlash among the Somali community, which is a core voting bloc” for Democrats.
That is it in a nutshell when it comes to government waste, fraud, and abuse.
For today’s Democrats, these aren’t problems to be solved. They are cherished benefits that support their (and their friends’) lifestyles and keep them in office.
How else to explain why they are so often caught with their hands in the till, and why they routinely try to thwart anti-fraud efforts?
We’re not just talking about Democrats ripping off government programs for their personal benefit – examples of which are legion – but the opportunities for fraud built into the programs they create.
Take the federal food stamp program, which now goes by the euphemism SNAP and is riddled with fraud. Instead of trying to protect taxpayers, Democrats are actively thwarting a Trump administration effort to eliminate it.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that “We asked for all the states for the first time to turn over their data to the federal government to let the USDA partner with them to root out this fraud, to make sure that those who really need food stamps are getting them, but also to ensure that the American taxpayer is protected.”
Seems reasonable enough, and most states complied with the request. But 21 Democrat-controlled states are refusing to turn that data over to the Agriculture Department. And of those, more than half are known to have “payment errors” that exceed the national average, including California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts.
The states refusing to turn over the data claim that they’re concerned about privacy. But it’s far more likely that they want to keep the money flowing – no matter how much of it is fraudulent – so beneficiaries keep pulling the lever for Democrats.
Another example: Obamacare is a “Mecca for fraud,” as the Wall Street Journal put it after a recent Government Accountability Office report showed how easy it is to rip off the program.
But, instead of targeting Obamacare fraud to lower the program’s costs, Democrats want to pump more than $80 billion in additional tax credits into Obamacare – money that will only fuel more fraud.
Democrats are even blocking efforts to catch criminals who defrauded two COVID-19 programs that handed out $43 billion meant to protect small restaurants and live-entertainment venues.
“These bad actors stole billions in relief that were meant for hardworking small businesses struggling to keep their doors open,” said Sen. Joni Ernst. The Small Business Administration has 37 open fraud cases involving these programs.
But after four years of neglect by the Biden administration, investigators are quickly coming up against statutes of limitation, which would let the fraudsters go scot-free. So, Ernst is trying to get a bill passed that would extend the deadline, but she’s being blocked by Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, according to Business Insider.
Markey didn’t bother to explain why he’s blocking this bill, but we wouldn’t be at all surprised if his friends and supporters were part of the scam.
Meanwhile, in California, which is the poster child for the politics of fraud, the state is actually considering a bill that would decriminalize certain types of low-level welfare fraud. This would supposedly protect those who make paperwork mistakes, but everyone knows where this would lead.
Steve Hilton, who’s running for California governor, says the completely Democrat-controlled state is already guilty of facilitating $57 billion in fraud “that we know about.” The number is certainly billions higher because, while Hilton includes unemployment insurance, homelessness, and Medicaid fraud, he doesn’t include the state’s bullet train boondoggle.
Then, of course, there was the freakout over DOGE’s work, which was a modest attempt to find waste, fraud, and abuse in federal agencies, and which Democrats attacked with such ferocity that they sparked violent protests.
On and on it goes.
It’s time to modify Mark Twain’s line about Congress and the criminal class to make it more in tune with the times.
“There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Democratic politicians.”
– Written by the I&I Editorial Board
I suspect everything said in this article is accurate. However, it became clear to me that the swamp contains Democrats and Republicans and they are all stealing from us. How else can they go to Washington, DC to represent us and on salaries of $175k to $235k per year become millionaires?
The Minnesota situation is just a small scale model of what’s going on in Washington, DC. Create fraudulent programs and fund them to the point that significant constituencies derive their sustenance from them and the politicians get wealthy at the same time. There is no motivation to eliminate the corruption. The solution is obvious. Turn them out. If we reelect them, we are part of the problem. The system is corrupt to the core. Cleaning house is the only solution.
You are correct in your diagnosis and your prescription. The public is trying to do that; the election of DJT (twice) is the loudest we can be. Those elections were very much about changing politics, bureaucracy and corruption but I don’t believe the US public anticipated the depthl of activitist judges running interference for the Dems and the Executive Branch. We truly did not fully factor in the judiciary’s role as we now must. Elected offices are one thing. Lifetime appointments are another. Houston, we have a problem.
I personally think this goes back to the Clinton Presidential era. They arrive in DC from Arkansas with no real money. Eight years later they leave and the gravy train is already running. Millions from many sources, much via their “Foundation.” I think that the “Swamp” thought, “Well, if those two hicks can get rich, how about me?”
It’s a nice analysis. But the kicker is the title. “…Fraud, under Democrats, is not a bug but a feature.” I knew right off this column would be about-especially in Minnesota- the scams practiced (I guess they want to get it perfect so they rehearse a lot) by the Democrats and those who support them.
Apparently, the Somali community believes the American dream is to cheat, lie and swindle. That’s the gold at the end of the road-and that’s why, in my opinion, many of them came here.
If fraud (or even the hint of fraud) is practiced by Somalians in Somalia and outside their Government, they are, I believe, caught, tortured and executed.
In America when fraud is practice and caught, laws are used to hinder the prosecution and the Democratic Party is constructed to encourage that fraud.
So I guess one could say: Fraudulent practices are the American way.
Nice column!
Look at local government, too, for raises without accountability for performance or results!
In Philadelphia, every union demands raises, especially the teachers’ union.
Low school ratings, violence, illiteracy, truancy, “social graduates” who cannot read, fewer students, too…and the teachers union wants raises for all their failures. The monopoly of Democratic politicians in Philadelphia grants the raises which then require raising everyone’s taxes. Philadelphia teachers are already among the highest paid in the nation for a nine month job.
A circular firing squad every year by those Democrats, whose only remedy to everything is to grant the non competitive union raises and then raise citizen’s taxes to pay for the folly, and those backward politicians keep getting reelected.
A wonderful city, but the politicians are not so wonderful.