Posted on 01/31/2023 5:42:25 AM PST by Red Badger
While millions of jobless Americans struggled to make ends meet during devastating government-mandated lockdowns, thousands of federal employees double-dipped from taxpayer-funded pandemic unemployment funds while mostly working from home.
Despite staying on taxpayers’ payroll during the height of the pandemic panic, greedy bureaucrats in the Internal Revenue Service, Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, United States Postal Service, Amtrak, and the Secret Service defrauded taxpayers out of millions more dollars under the guise of Covid unemployment fund and wage assistance programs.
In the Department of Homeland Security alone, nearly 2,000 ineligible or potentially ineligible employees received lost wage assistance designated for unemployed Americans, a 2022 DHSIG report found.
Thanks to rushed and lax standards, whereby “claimants only needed to self-certify they met eligibility requirements when they filed for [pandemic unemployment assistance] benefits,” more than $8.8 million in taxpayer funds were funneled to 638 DHS employees unlawfully. FEMA’s state workforce agencies also paid out $1.2 million in “lost wages assistance” to 935 DHS workers who were “fully employed.” At least 366 of those ineligible DHS officials were actually paid overtime during the period they were approved, receiving up to hundreds of dollars per week on top of normal unemployment benefits.
The illegal grift by federal “fraudsters” earned the attention of Republican Sen. Joni Ernst and her January “make ‘em squeal” award, a monthly effort led by Ernst to expose government corruption and “make Washington more competent and less wasteful.”
“Thousands of active federal employees may have falsely claimed that they lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, in order to be paid twice by taxpayers: Once for being employed and then again for pretending to be unemployed,” Ernst explained in her squeal award announcement.
The Department of Justice has already charged several federal employees in other agencies with fraud, but the prolific behavior could earn more taxpayer-paid public staff the scrutiny of the top government watchdog, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, whom Ernst recently urged to “identify how many federal employees applied for and received pandemic unemployment and lost wages assistance for which they were not eligible.”
She also called on the chief IG to recover the funds and fire those “who abused the public trust.”
“It is appalling for anyone fortunate enough to have the reliability of a government paycheck to take advantage of financial assistance intended to provide a lifeline to Americans who lost their jobs or were unable to work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ernst wrote.
Scribd Document at link......................
Already, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), an oversight committee within the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, determined that “tens of thousands” of federal employees applied for and received Small Business Administration loans even though their status as government-employed disqualified them from taking the handout.
Ernst, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, noted in her letter that the PRAC’s investigation into loans is ongoing and could yield even more deception and taxpayer money wasted by government workers.
Federal employees weren’t the only ones who wrongfully raked in millions of pandemic dollars. Hundreds of state and local government staff in Georgia, Indiana, and Louisiana also defrauded taxpayers.
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Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
If that’s so, their lack of production—or the lack of a need to have their job filled—should show out pretty quickly.
It would in sum be a good thing for the country if government employee pensions were washed out.
The new congress should propose a MANDATORY MINIMUM 20 YEARS in jail for any government fraud (including vote fraud), with a one-year amnesty period (with or without mandatory restitution - can can go either way on that because knowing it and preventing it is the main goal) and then a 10% reward for anyone who turns in evidence of fraud.
And to fix the budget? Any department that decreases their spending get so keep half as a bonus to be distributed, but that becomes their new budget. I bet in year 1 we get a huge decrease. This eliminates ‘spend it or lose it’ mentality.
Most gov’t agencies have about 1-2 % of the staff that actually does the work and breaks their backsides to support the rest of the workers who are essentially dead wood.
Ask me how I know.
And the felony indictments????
Government, unions, bureaucracies in general... home turf for those who are expert at knowing all that they *don't* have to do, what's not in the contract.
The helpful, useful ones are those who are *in* the system, but are not *of* the system.
I suspect that any productivity within comes from those who are not of the system, while those who are will scramble to mug for the limelight in order to take credit. Not like they have anything better to do,
otherwise everyone could see that 10% is doing 100% of the work.
I believe the term “government worker” is an oxymoron.
LOL!!!
Because within the Federal government and other levels of government, work from home means no effective collaboration. And no effective collaboration in a crisis.
Work from home can work in the private sector for some occupations. Because you are monitored and must produce. Not so in the Neo-Feudal Federal government. With some exceptions, of course.
No, it was worse.
They didn't work (at either nor office), but got paid for both home and office.
Yet the fed's can't seem to track down these tens of millions - while demanding EVERY deposit over 600.00 be reported to the IRS!
If they aren’t monitored (to the level of private sector professionals, who work and collaborate fine from home), eliminate their positions!
“...then a 10% reward for anyone who turns in evidence of fraud.”
This clause would be “overworked” by the lazies! I like it! Rats will inform on each other to survive.
In retro, let’s bump the reward to 50% to get some action right away!!
Most employers report employee wages to the unemployment agencies on a quarterly basis. The unemployment agencies then look back, comparing wages report to unemployment paid.
Unfortunately, the Federal government doesn’t report Federal wages to the unemployment agencies. They only supply wages upon by individual request when an unemployment claim is filed. It’s up to the Feds to catch the cheaters by comparing quarterly charges from the unemployment agencies to their personnel records.
If one of the cheaters works in the personnel office, the scammer is not caught.
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