Guess what? There’s fraud and waste in red states too
This should come as no surprise:
Tapscott reported that the most startling takeaway from the 2024 audits (the latest available) was that “the results for the red states are strikingly similar to those of the blue states.” He noted that a sampling of those results “suggests huge waste, fraud, and corruption problems in how blue and red jurisdictions alike manage federal social welfare and other benefit fund programs.”
It shouldn’t be that difficult to put proper controls into the system. One has to conclude there’s little will to do so.
There are some interesting responses in the comments to the linked post. Several commenters point out that red states have blue cities with large populations, and that might be where the fraud occurs. Another commenter points out that some laws around these federal programs make it difficult to check up on the people receiving funds. And here’s another comment:
These programs were created in a high trust era where the public/taxpayer could mostly expect the bureaucracy not to allow fraud. Back then they’d still report shenanigans to supervisors who’d call in the cops and arrest the fraudsters. Today? Most of the bureaucracy is either enabling the fraud out of ideological conviction or too scared to report it b/c they’ve seen how other whistleblowers got hammered for sticking their head up. Many of the programs rely on aspects of ‘honor system’ v harsh audits. There’s many programs which offer instant acceptance based on approval for a different program…so if you scam your way into a single program you are automatically eligible for others without any scrutiny. These structures invite fraud.
Some or most of that is probably true.
When it’s a Federal program it shouldn’t be too surprising that we’d see similar results across the country.
Medicaid is a sort of state / Federal partnership where state governments are in charge of it really, with the Federal government heavily subsidizing. Some states try really hard to keep Medicaid lean and mean, and some don’t.
There was never any reason to suppose we wouldn’t see similar levels of fraud in red states, partly because of the “blue city” and “blue bureaucracy” issues but partly because 50% + 1 voting Republican doesn’t turn the whole state into plaster saints, even if all the people voting Republican were themselves plaster saints, which they are not.
Well, for one thing, a lot of red states have some big blue cities in them. Not saying that republicans are immune to criminal behavior, just saying there are tendencies that fall along party lines that seem to bear up pretty well under the historical record.
Always thought there was something a bit gnarly about that Somali-winery connection?
Well…as one might have guessed…
“Ilhan Omar’s Winery Exposed As Fake Shell For Alleged Money Laundering”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ilhan-omars-winery-exposed-fake-shell-alleged-money-laundering
(Marketed as “health-wine”, no doubt…from only the most flavorful boutique varietals…)
The blue states tell the red states, if you want Fraud, hold my beer.
JD Vance leads investigation into California government spending fraud
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/vance-lead-sweeping-anti-fraud-task-force-investigating-california
Vice President JD Vance is poised to chair a new White House task force aimed at rooting out potential fraud and abuse in government programs in California, according to CBS News.
Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, is expected to serve as the task force’s vice chairman and handle day-to-day operations, CBS News reports. President Donald Trump is anticipated to issue an executive order in the coming days to formally establish the group, the news outlet said.
The White House task force would operate separately from a related Justice Department effort led by Colin McDonald, a Trump nominee for a new fraud-investigation role at the department. McDonald is expected to also probe fraud in Minnesota uncovered by YouTuber Nick Shirley and other independent journalists.
California has long grappled with documented issues of waste, fraud, and weak oversight in state and federally funded programs. State auditors have for more than a decade flagged problems including persistent cost overruns, inadequate internal controls, and unimplemented reform recommendations across various initiatives, CBS News reported last month.
California’s Employment Development Department faced acute criticism during the pandemic, when unemployment-insurance fraud resulted in an estimated $20 billion or more in improper payments, while many eligible claimants endured lengthy delays in receiving benefits, according to NPR News.
Even in red states I suspect government workers are more likely to be Democrats.
All this Fraud, and I only get to pay for it, not receive any of it. Life ain’t fair
I will also note that there’s incentive for the bureaucrats running these programs to ignore the fraud – because the more demand there is for whatever it is the program is supposed to be doing, whether genuine or fraudulent, the more money gets directed to the program, which means the more money and power/status for the people in charge.
.Gov employee unions have incentive to push their members not to look to hard because the more these programs grow, the more people the .gov has to hire to run them, and that means more members and more $$ and power for union leaders.
Sorry to be a bore here:
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A. End federal, state, and local government grants to corporate bodies bar a short list of exceptions. Discontinue grants to persons with institutional addresses as well.
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B. The exceptions would be as follows:
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1. Public and private corporations which provide hands-on services during disasters.
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2. Financing of a carefully selected list of inter-governmental agencies., (The International Monetary Fund, yes; the International Court of Justice, no).
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3. Payment in lieu of taxes on government owned real estate. Such payments would go only to local governments, low census territories, and the District of Columbia and would only take place if the property assessment system followed best practices and there were few if any special deals in defining liability. They would amount to unrestricted grants meant to be used for any object within the government-in-question’s enabling legislation.
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4. Three federal grants to dedicated funds in each state government: one to finance Medicaid, one to finance maintenance of long-haul Interstates (made up of toll revenue collected by federal employees), one to finance unemployment compensation.
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5. Appended to these would be a formulaic general revenue sharing grant to each state and territorial government. The three or four most affluent would receive a grant of $0.
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6. Formulaic general revenue sharing grants from state governments to county governments and school districts.
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7. Formulaic general revenue sharing grants from county governments to municipalities.
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8. Positing a state government has a dedicated road fund for maintenance and amortization on ordinary public roads and positing county and municipal governments do as well, you might distribute proceeds from state excises on motor fuels and state vehicle registration fees to these funds on a per-acres-of-macadam basis.
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Ideally, Medicare and Medicaid would be replaced by a scheme wherein the federal government provided binder insurance for medical care and long term care and provided high deductible medical insurance and ltc insurance for a set of specialty clientele (e.g. military families and residents of the off shore territories) while state governments and consortia of state governments could provide such insurance for the general run of people within their borders. In that case the Medicaid grant would be replaced with an increment to the general revenue sharing grant.
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Again, ideally, publicly financed medical and ltc insurance would be in the form of letting out contracts to private insurers to insure blocs of the population. You’d have a standard contract with substantive and procedural elements, you’d have premium revenue collected by government agencies, and insurers would bid for the business by stating what deductibles they would insist on to fulfill the contract in return for the premiums.
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Ideally, the state and territorial governments operate the unemployment compensation program, the workman’s compensation program; the provision of hands on services to those on the spectrum from normal-to-insane, those who have severe intellectual deficits, and to those suffering general infirmities; the public medical insurance and ltc insurance programs; and services delivered to convicts &c. (e.g. halfway houses and prison infirmaries). The state might also distribute vouchers to attend state institutes of higher education which would be redeemed by dedicated funds filled by a specialty income tax.
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County governments and consortia of counties would operate the child protective and foster care system and allied systems for the infirm and the addled. School districts and consortia of districts provide schooling and school vouchers.
“I will also note that there’s incentive for the bureaucrats running these programs to ignore the fraud…”
For which the (seemingly) obvious solution is to incentivize non-frauding with highly observable audits, and linking future employment to the results. Which will almost certainly result in frauding the audits on top of the fraud already in the program. Double whammy. Yay.
I wonder if the idea of simply eliminating the huge, untrackable spending programs that attract fraud like moths to light has occurred to anyone. I’m surprised that the United States of America is about to celebrate its 250th birthday; how was it possible for the country to survive the first 140 years or so without large federal agencies randomly disbursing massive amounts of money? Must have been some sort of miracle.
There is only one way to ensure that politicians don’t waste or steal our money.
Don’t give it to them.
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security – all are bankrupt as taxes have risen.
Eliminate them all – the government doesn’t cover auto insurance, it requires auto insurance to operate a vehicle. Convert all entitlements into self-funded legal mandates.
Define low-load, low-risk investment instruments for long-term pensions… then let private firms create and manage them. Define the standard, let the market create the instruments.
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security – all are bankrupt as taxes have risen.
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The term ‘bankrupt’ does not mean what you fancy it means.
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Eliminate them all –
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You need to go live somewhere else where you’re not burdened by the presence of actual people.
I see that the current estimate of the amount of fraud in Minnesota is now being put at $30 billion (and counting,) with President Trump saying that fraud, nationwide, is apparently so massive that, if it were eliminated, it could likely eliminate the national debt.
Everywhere you look there is apparently very easily detected fraud–if you want just want to look for and see it–a building housing hundreds of supposed health companies, organizations not performing any functions, one room offices housing supposedly entire businesses, no customers at all, or impossible numbers of “clients” being served, etc, etc.
At what point is the looting of government programs in a state so massive that the Federal government might be justified in somehow stepping in, and temporarily taking over that state’s government, (put it into “receivership”) until all of the corruption is rooted out?
That’s right!
IN RED[WOOD] STATES, TOO!!
“Shocking $8.6 billion new fraud uncovered in California”—
https://nypost.com/2026/02/06/us-news/small-business-admin-uncovers-8-6-billion-in-fraud-in-ca/
Shocking!
Absolutely shocking…
how was it possible for the country to survive the first 140 years or so without large federal agencies randomly disbursing massive amounts of money?
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I don’t think there were any distributions to state and local governments prior to 1916, when the Bureau of Public Roads was founded. The Farm Credit System was founded around that time. The Roosevelt Administration was the pioneer of ‘co-operative federalism’ which involved subventions to state government. The Johnson Administration used the term ‘creative federalism’ when these were extended to local government. The Nixon Administration had plans on the table for rationalizing federal grant programs. The Reagan Administration had some fragmentary plans. The Gingrich Congress did as well. None implemented.
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All of this is distinct from programs for individual households operated by the federal government (Social Security, Medicare, SSI, veterans benefits &c) or financed by the federal government (Medicaid, unemployment compensation). We could simplify those as well. Just leave disaster relief, veterans benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment compensation, SSI and service and subsidy programs for residents of the low census off shore territories, military families, persons in itinerant occupations, persons living in remote areas, persons facing actions in federal court, federal prisoners, authentic refugees, and reservation Indians. Unload just about everything else (SNAP, Section 8, TANF, doodads for AIDS patients &c.). Service and subsidy programs would be for each client population limited to a subset of the following: medical care, long-term care, schooling, legal services, and shipping-and-transportation.
Wherever there is $$ there is fraud. A little bit of money = a little bit of fraud. Industrial strength money for billion dollar government programs = industrial strength fraud.
well we know devines defense of haitian immigrant colonies as well as somali, so thats not really a surprise, the current foreign minister, is one of the nodes,
somalia is a chair o the general assembly this month
As the reports keep accumulating, I am starting to get the horrible idea that perhaps as much as half of all government aid–across the board–is fraudulent–people not qualified getting aid, people and or organizations not performing the tasks they are being paid to perform, people and or organizations set up–from the get go–to deliberately defraud the government and–all the while–the supposed government watchdogs not caring to do their jobs, to go out onto the streets and do the checking they are supposed to do, just asleep at the switch, or believing that these various thieves somehow have a “right” to be able to steal as much as they can, as some form of leftist justified “restitution.”
Most infuriating of all were those Youtube videos of various “welfare queens,” capering in front of the cameras, as they bragged about how much they were milking the system for, as they toted up their monthly haul of benefits, or paraded a seeming endless list of the thousands of dollars of food they got from the stores each month, and laughing about how they lay around eating snack food while us suckers worked to support their deliberately non-working lifestyle.
I wonder if they are making such videos now.
P.S. Then, there were the women–who said they already had 4, 5, 6 kids, or more–sometimes each one by a different father–who stared into the cameras and without joy, but very cold-bloodedly, said they were pregnant again, or intended to get pregnant, so that more children would bring in more dollars in benefits.
The Great Society, government programs created these perverse incentives, and helped to destroy families, both black and white.
And, now, of course, we learn of a whole new class of thieves, various immigrant groups, Somalians apparently foremost among them.