Fraud Pays
16th September 2022
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
It is no secret that our federal, state and local governments waste enormous amounts of money. Neither is it a secret that outright fraud accounts for a significant part of that waste. My organization, which conducts quarterly polling in Minnesota, has twice asked the question, “What is your best estimate of the percentage of state spending that is wasted?” The results were identical: the first time, the median answer was 29%. The second time, it was 30%.
Why are Americans so skeptical of government spending? In part, because of scandals like the Feeding Our Future fiasco, which we have written about before, in which hundreds of millions of dollars were funneled to community groups that purported to be feeding ridiculous numbers of poor children. The FBI has been investigating this scandal for some time, but so far the only criminal charge is a passport violation brought against a perpetrator who was trying to flee the country.