Lock ‘em up.
Lock up every elected official, public employee, private citizen or visitor who knew, enabled or participated in the unchecked looting of government assistance programs for the sick, the hungry, the isolated, the unhoused and the impoverished.
There was always something suspicious about the extreme reaction in some states, especially California, to the suggestion at a certain point that it was time to end the COVID emergency. From top government officials to anonymous commenters on social media, the charge of “murderer” was thrown around to describe anyone who wanted to do what other states and countries were doing without incident: simply reopen schools, beaches, restaurants, small businesses, churches, theme parks and every other public space.
What was behind that vicious reaction? Why did so many people in states with Democrat-majority governments want to keep the COVID emergency going, want it so badly that all rational arguments offered in support of reopening were ignored or answered with obscenity-laden accusations of grandma-killing?
Now we know.
COVID enabled the theft of public funds at skyscraper levels, with every thief clad in the armor of supposedly helping the sick, the hungry, the isolated, the unhoused and the impoverished.
Maybe some of the money actually did help the deserving individuals it was intended to help.
But now we’re learning how badly the multi-year “emergency” was exploited to justify tearing down safeguards against fraud such as requirements for documentation, verification of identity, and responsible controls on the spending of your hard-earned tax dollars.
Who would have thought that giving away billions of dollars to people who self-certify facts on a form leads to tens of billions of dollars flying out the door to fraudsters who learn how to fill out the form? That’s what happened at the California Employment Development Department. Despite guidance letters starting in April 2020 from the U.S. Department of Labor to help states avoid fraud in unemployment benefit payments, California merrily pushed billions out for many months without verification.
State officials knew federal law ultimately requires businesses to repay a state’s outstanding debt to the federal government for loans needed to pay unemployment benefits. Every other state repaid the loans. But Governor Gavin Newsom and the California legislature pushed the obligation onto the states’ employers, who now are forced to pay higher payroll taxes for every employee until the debt is paid off.
This week, the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services announced that it is changing a Biden-era federal rule that required states to pay child care providers based on enrollment without verifying attendance, and to pay the providers in advance. “Paying providers upfront based on paper enrollment instead of actual attendance invites abuse,” said Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O’Neill.
It sure does. “Helping people” by distributing tax money without the time-consuming “barriers” of verification is a common theme when politicians, mostly Democrats, want to launch or extend social services payments, education aid, debt forgiveness, health care benefits and child care, to name just a few of their perennial campaign promises.
COVID was rocket fuel for fraud enabled by this barrier-dropping acceleration. Hundreds of billions of dollars were handed out through the states in multiple government programs that rushed to scale up once adults couldn’t work, children couldn’t go to school, and programs such as school lunches had to be replaced with vouchers for meals provided in the community.
There already have been dozens of convictions in federal court for fraud in connection with the meal vouchers program in Minnesota. The scandal over millions of dollars paid to the operators of fake child-care facilities has only begun. On Monday, Gov. Tim Walz said he is dropping his campaign for re-election.
President Trump has indicated that federal investigators are headed to the Golden State next. “We are not going to pay California,” he told reporters on Air Force One this week.
State and local investigators have already reported that tens of billions of dollars of homelessness spending vanished without a paper trail. What will the feds find?
People have to go to prison for these abuses. Otherwise politicians and interest groups will continue to demand tax increases as tax dollars disappear into pockets that may include their own.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley
