$400 billion in COVID relief, vanished to fraud

[mystery-ak]

June 15, 2023
$400 billion in COVID relief, vanished to fraud
By Monica Showalter

Four hundred billion is just a starter figure.

According to Reason magazine's Eric Boehm:

    Over the past three years, the federal government distributed more than $4.2 trillion in aid connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than $400 billion of it—nearly one in every $10 spent—was either wasted or stolen, according to a new report.

    And that figure is likely to grow, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday, "as investigators dig deeper into thousands of potential schemes." Already, prosecutors have charged more than 2,230 defendants with pandemic-related fraud crimes, the A.P. reports. They'll be busy for years to come, sorting through what Mike Galdo, the Justice Department's acting director for COVID-19 fraud enforcement, calls "an unprecedented amount of fraud."

    But if federal prosecutors are interested in catching the real culprits of this mess, they'll have to take a look at government officials who were in charge of distributing the cash too. One major failure, according to the AP, was the Small Business Administration's (SBA) decision not to cross-check Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan applications against the Treasury Department's "Do Not Pay" list, which is intended to keep federal dollars from flowing to known criminals and scam artists.

more
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/06/400_billion_in_covid_relief_vanished_to_fraud.html
Word got around to fraudsters early that money was going out fast, and $400 billion was theirs.

[Bigun]

Nothing but a HUGE slush fund for big city mayors and County governments!

[massadvj]

This is squarely on Trump and the Trump administration. When this was initiated I knew then and there that Trump was a pure populist, uninterested in either the constitution, or fiscal discipline.

[corbe]

Investigation Finds $400 Billion Was Stolen Or Wasted In Covid Fraudsters’ ‘Great Grift’

BY: CHRISTOPHER JACOBS
JUNE 15, 2023

Both then and now, federal officials seem unable or unwilling to do enough to combat the scam artists.

In case you had any lingering doubts that forcibly shutting down the entire economy over a virus and replacing economic activity with government payments does not represent a smart strategy, the Associated Press has more evidence to bolster the case.

Its latest investigation, titled “The Great Grift,” highlighted the staggering scope of fraud taxpayers face because of Covid-era programs. On the heels of earlier AP investigations that showed significant spending on projects that had little to do with the coronavirus, the story provides one major explanation — albeit an infuriating one — for our nearly $32 trillion-and-counting federal debt.

Hundreds of Billions in Waste

Overall, the AP analysis found that the federal government appropriated nearly $5.2 trillion on Covid-related efforts during the pandemic. That total includes roughly $3.2 trillion shelled out under President Donald Trump, in addition to the $1.9 trillion “stimulus” legislation that Democrats rammed through after President Joe Biden took office.

<..snip..>

https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/15/investigation-finds-400-billion-was-stolen-or-wasted-in-covid-fraudsters-great-grift/

[Kamaji]

And all we really have to show for it is inflation and increased government dependency.  And more national debt.

[corbe]

   There's still a $Trillion out there unspent and McCarthy couldn't even get that as a clawback.  What a useless tool.