Posted on 07/07/2022 6:51:34 AM PDT by Heartlander
The federal government’s multi-trillion-dollar “stimulus” efforts during the pandemic may go down as the biggest legislative failure in modern American history. Congress spent an astounding $42,000 per federal taxpayer (do you know anyone who received anywhere near that much in benefits?) and only successfully “stimulated” inflation. What’s more, evidence continues to mount that the biggest beneficiaries of this binge were criminals and fraudsters.
A new analysis from the American Enterprise Institute’s Matt Weingarten reports that the state of Illinois lost half of the money it sent out in expanded pandemic unemployment benefits to scammers.
Illinois’s inspector general reports that the level of fraud it experienced was “unprecedented” and amounted to more than $1.8 billion lost.
The program at issue here is the expanded unemployment benefits system created by the federal government back in March 2020. A bipartisan majority in Congress passed an expansion of existing state-level unemployment benefits to new groups of workers and added a $600/week supplement on top of state-level benefits. (It was later reduced to $300/week). The program was renewed multiple times but finally ended in September 2021.
While it remained in place, this hastily-created system paid many unemployed people more not to work and created massive labor disincentives that hurt the economy. It also had little to no verification system and was simply designed to funnel as much taxpayer money out the door as quickly as possible.
Wild examples of fraud soon went viral, and we’re now learning just how bad it was.
While Illinois just provided a particularly acute example, fraud was rampant throughout the entire nationwide program and has added up to some truly shocking sums. Early estimates suggested that the feds lost $200 billion to fraud. To put that number in context, it’s 5 times more than the federal government spent promoting the development of Covid-19 vaccines. And some estimates suggest that the final amount lost could be closer to $400 billion.
The scale of this fraud is truly breathtaking. But it shouldn’t actually be surprising.
Whenever the government spends money, waste is inevitable. Why?
Well, as Nobel-Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously explained, the government is ultimately responsible for spending other peoples’ money on other people. As a matter of incentives 101, that’s not a recipe for the kind of frugality or quality assurance that’s inherent when people shop for themselves or spend their own money.
“I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else,” Friedman explained. “And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government.”
This helps explains why so much government spending is wasteful, poorly targeted, and ineffective.
So, the only way to avoid the government losing hundreds of billions to fraudsters is to stop letting it spend so much of our money in the first place.
I’m wearing my shocked face.
Wow. What a shocker.
(do I RELLLY need a sarc tag here?).
ILLINOIS
….and it’s Illinois, (sigh) of course. 🙃
I thought all kinds of safeguards were put in place after a big chunk of Bush’s Katrina emergency relief fund was paid to scammers and lost to fraud. Oh well, its just money . . . .
Why Government Waste is Inevitable
***************
Show me a complete lack of accountability and I’ll show you waste.
Arranged kickback to the Mob for their political support.
Where is the list of people who are going to jail?
Oops, I forgot. The FBI is too busy infiltrating MAGA groups to investigate actual crime.
Don’t forget.
This is the same state that, when one would win a lotto jackpot....
The winner would get an IOU instead of the winnings.
“What’s more, evidence continues to mount that the biggest beneficiaries of this binge were criminals and fraudsters”
Libtards and their buddies raping the system to feel good 🤪
Ill, The Sick State.
Many of those fraudsters are all on that Judge Judy show suing each other over stuff bought by fraud of the covid relief.
It is sickening.
Until the mid-terms where the entirety of government has been tasked to 'Get Out The Vote'.
Absentee ballots will be printed faster than Powell prints money.
Why the surprise? What, YOU weren’t on the hand-out list?
Such programs are $$ funneling operations. To those related to politicos and willing to return some $$ as campaign contribution.
Look at any greenenergy crappola. Every politico backing it has relatives invested in suppliers.
And the Democrat party. But I repeat myself.
Ping
i would be more shocked if it WASN’T illinois
The state of Illinois lost half of the money it sent out in expanded pandemic unemployment benefits.
The money didn’t get lost it passed through their hands first and like magic poof it’s gone about every state had the same gig going on.
You know it’s like vote counting.
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