A Nation of ChumpsTime to Hold the Crooks AccountableThe Last WireThey call it the safety net. I call it a playground for thieves. Every year, billions of taxpayer dollars are lost to fraud in welfare programs, unemployment insurance, child nutrition, and emergency relief. And we are expected to shrug politely, nod at “low percentage” fraud rates, and accept the comforting lie that it is not much money. One percent of hundreds of billions is still billions of dollars. Billions that could feed children, house families, and fund real oversight. Instead, it vanishes while the people in charge smile and look the other way.
This is not an accident. This is choice. There are people who deliberately defrauded the system. There are officials who ignored it. There are politicians who knew about the cracks and chose silence because fixing the problem might cost votes, campaign donations, or political expediency. They all walked away. Some with cash, others with careers intact. We, the taxpayers, are left holding the bag.
One percent sounds like nothing. One percent of hundreds of billions is a scandalous fortune. Trillions of dollars have flowed through emergency programs in the last decade. Oversight was weak by design when pandemic programs were expanded, and even now many of the same vulnerabilities remain. Federal prosecutors have called some pandemic relief schemes “the largest fraud in U.S. history” as organizations claimed funds for services never delivered.
justice.govCrime in welfare does not mean random error. It means systemic failure at scale.
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