Vice President JD Vance wants to hammer Democrats over welfare fraud, elevating the issue going into the midterms. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent seems eager to publicize and pursue the problem as well. Will voters agree?
The revelation of Somali-led thievery of billions of dollars meant to go to Minnesota welfare programs shocked and disgusted the nation. Voters were horrified by the callous siphoning of funds meant for sick and hungry children into the hands of scammers, and they blamed local Democratic politicians who appear to have, at best, ignored the corruption (or, some say, enabled it).
That revulsion claimed a significant scalp when Tim Walz (D) decided not to run for a third term as governor of the North Star State. His popularity cratered when estimates of the thefts grew to such a size that reasonable people could not imagine that a responsible government would not have known what was going on. When the Minnesota Department of Human Service Employees, representing hundreds of government workers, posted on X that Walz is “100 percent responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota,” the governor’s goose was cooked. Indications that nvestigations into the fraud were stifled for fear of appearing racist also angered voters.
This is an issue where Republicans have the upper hand. And it is important. As government spending both at the state and local level has skyrocketed in recent years, the amount of fraud has soared. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently announced that as much as 5 to 10 percent of the nation’s budget — hundreds of billions of dollars — is stolen each year.
That is not some wild-eyed right-wing talking point, but the conclusion of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. Its recent report found that Uncle Sam “loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud … based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.” The agency brief continues: “Additionally, federal improper payment estimates have totaled about $2.8 trillion” since fiscal 2003, “and the actual amount may be significantly higher because this is based on a small number of programs that report these numbers. For instance, 16 agencies reported a total of about $162 billion in improper payments across 68 programs” in fiscal 2024.
The report states that the vast majority (75 percent) of those improper payments were made through Medicare ($54 billion), Medicaid, ($31 billion), the Earned Income Tax Credit ($16 billion), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ($10 billion) and a program called the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, from which nearly $9 billion went missing.
Democrats have repeatedly shown indifference to waste and fraud in government spending. They appear frightened that any limiting of Medicare or SNAP outlays, for instance, will threaten the continued growth of the welfare state, to whose expansion they are committed because they are convinced it buys them votes.
Remember their attack on Elon Musk’s efforts, through DOGE, to eliminate excess government spending. Musk’s team may have acted autocratically and, in some instances, insensitively, but its mission was noble. Our federal deficit, relative to the economy, is now at levels only seen during wars or other major emergencies. It must come down.
Democrats demonized Musk’s team, furious that they cut programs especially dear to leftists, like funding for National Public Radio. But they also furiously resisted the Republicans’ rightful push to reform Medicaid, a program that has ballooned far beyond its initial mandate of providing assistance to indigent parents and those incapable of supporting themselves.
Sensing an opportunity, Vance announced several days ago the creation of new position at the Department of Justice charged with investigating fraud, to be run out of the White House. We expect to see from that office an ongoing stream of appalling discoveries of tax-dollar thefts, most likely concentrated in Democrat-run states. A preview was signaled by a recent announcement that Health and Human Services was freezing $10 billion in federal funds in five Democrat-run states because of allegations of fraud. The five states are California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York.
California has recently come under scrutiny for billions in fraudulent payments to illegal aliens and theft by a ring of alleged bogus hospice operators. At a press conference, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said, “We have witnessed a sevenfold increase in hospice in LA County — sevenfold. That doesn’t happen naturally.” The U.S. Attorney investigating the scam said, “We are major focused on this issue, and I think our suspicion, our belief, is that the fraud in California will magnify whatever’s happening in Minnesota.”
New York has also been hit with allegations of massive welfare fraud, especially targeting a program that pays relatives or neighbors for care of the sick or elderly, the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program. As the New York Post reported, this program spent $2.5 billion in 2019, “but by 2023 the program accounted for $9.1 billion of Medicaid spending in New York state, with 250,000 people enrolled to receive treatment and 400,000 caregivers …”
Combatting fraud is an issue most might expect to have bipartisan support, but in these peculiar days, that is not the case. Democrats have never seen a welfare program they didn’t like.
That could cost them. If the Republicans can show Democrats to be irresponsible and their programs riddled with fraud, voters will hold them accountable. Even Tim Walz got the message.
This article originally appeared on TheHill.com
