The Hill recently published an article that should be filed under “telling it like it is.” The title is explanatory: “The War on Fraud is Really a War on the Poor.”
I’ve published several recent posts addressing the multiple inadequacies of what passes for America’s social safety net, especially focusing on the fact that very little of the money we spend on welfare programs actually gets to the beneficiaries of those programs; thanks to lawmakers’ obsession with determining recipients’ “merit,” we’ve erected a large and costly bureaucracy to screen applicants and to eliminate those perennial bugaboos “fraud and waste.”
As The Hill points out, what is described as a war on fraud and waste is really a war on poor people.
Every few years, someone digs up an example of someone gaming the system, and the response is always the same: “more paperwork, more surveillance, more hoops to jump through for people who are already struggling. The United States has long organized its anti-poverty programs around one overriding assumption: that poor people are likely to cheat.”
The article notes the costs of this misperception–including the expense of the enormous bureaucracy we’ve erected to ensure that no poor person gets a penny to which s/he is not “entitled.”
Families who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit are audited at dramatically higher rates than wealthier taxpayers. Families applying for SNAP benefits–aka Food Stamps–have to document income, housing and household composition not just when they first apply, but in “re-certifications” every few months. Those who miss a deadline or misunderstand a form lose their benefits — not because they did something fraudulent, but because they “failed to navigate an administrative maze designed to catch it.”
And cash benefits? As the article notes, after decades of “reform” intended to weed out the fraudulent and ineligible, only one in five eligible families currently receives any cash assistance, and even for those who do, benefit levels don’t begin to cover basic needs.
This approach also corrodes trust. When every interaction with the government begins with suspicion — when benefits arrive late, disappear without warning or require endless proof — people learn that institutions are not there to help them. They disengage. They stop applying.
None of this means fraud should be ignored. Public programs need safeguards. Taxpayer dollars matter. But fraud losses are a cost of doing business in every system — from corporate accounting to defense contracting. We don’t respond to those risks by forcing CEOs to recertify their eligibility every six months or freezing entire programs over isolated scandals. We reserve that treatment for those living in poverty, and it doesn’t have to be this way.
This obsession with suspected “Welfare Queens” who abuse government generosity isn’t based on experience or data; multiple audits have found that actual fraud by benefit recipients is rare. Improper payments — most of which are errors, not fraud — make up only a small fraction of spending. As the linked article points out, “We have constructed a massive enforcement apparatus to root out a small minority, and in the process, we have made life materially harder for millions.”
What is particularly galling about this war on poor people is the mounting, irrefutable evidence that the people looting the treasury aren’t poor single mothers “raking in” $450 a month. The real “fraud and waste” comes from the millionaires and billionaires making shady (or worse) deals with the Trump administration, and they’re making out like bandits.
As numerous watchdog organizations, including the Campaign Legal Center, have reported, Trump has been rewarding his biggest donors with political favors and providing his donors and friends with countless opportunities to enrich themselves at the expense of the American people. Crew reports that 20 cabinet members have directed at least 30 million dollars to “pad Trump’s political coffers, pet projects or personal bottom line.” Government officials and secret service members have spent untold hours at Trump resorts, paying inflated rates and filling Trump family coffers. The list goes on.
The Intercept reports that Trump–with the help of the Republicans in Congress– funded his tax cuts for corporations and the uber-rich by cutting billions of dollars in services for the poor and for working people, including Medicaid, and that large numbers of corporate executives are “quietly enriching themselves on Trump’s policies.”
And while massive grift and theft goes on at the top, our intrepid lawmakers are making sure that no one can spend their food stamps on sodas…
We’re waging war on the wrong people.
Before Sheila flipped the script, the main reason young women aren’t signing up for the cash programs is that they sign away their rights to the government, which collects reimbursements from deadbeat dads who don’t pay child support. I wonder if the moms didn’t want their deadbeat dads to get in trouble for not paying child support? 😉
As for the rest of the programs, almost no fraud. Most fraud occurs among nursing home owners (many of whom are politicians) and doctors who overbill insurance systems. Senator Scott in Florida comes to mind!!!
My favorite is when all the dumbass Republicans wanted to drug test all the moms collecting food stamps. They spent million$$$ on drug testing programs to find tens of thousands of drug users. Turns out people actually buy food for themselves and their families. Indy lawmakers got ripped off on that one, too. LOL
And, as we’ve all learned from Trump, most of these accusations come because of their own guilt – “I’m stealing, so they must all be stealing too!”
Did Sheila mention defense contractors? How many of their whistleblowers die within weeks of their testimonies? I think Boeing had two in 2024.
I’ve tried to turn the grift to my favor. When I saw that Don Jr. was added to a Florida drone company, I thought, “I wonder if he’ll get any special contracts?” While I’ve sold all her stocks in that UGMA except that penny stock, wow, last week was a huge payoff. Seems they got a big contract!!! LOL
It’s called American Capitalism.
If it had been up to Republicans all along, there would be no SNAP, or any other benefit for the poor. But since rational and caring Democrats have instituted these programs, Republicans will fight them tooth and nail with bureaucracy and audits and all the other trip wires.
When I was writing my political books, I researched this stuff too. When I was 10, my father drove me down into “the slums” of Cleveland to show me how “those people” lived. That was 1952 before the largesse of the Kennedy and Johnson years. Turns out that in 1952 the estimate was that 15% of the population was living in abject poverty. That was eating out of the garbage cans kind of poverty. In more “modern” times, despite the social benefits, that poverty number is still 15% or so. But the garbage cans are bigger. GAH!
Ah, yes, Ronald Reagan’s welfare queens, getting rich off the government dole outs. The truth of the matter is that for every fraudster falling into that category one can find a plethora of political and industry fraudsters engaging in much larger questionable (illegal) payouts; it isn’t even close, not in actual numbers in each category nor in monetary gains. Study after study has proven that fraud in the poorest segment of our population is simply not close to the rampant boogeyman rantings of the GOPers, while the opposite is true on an overwhelming large scale for those living their sumptuous, greedy lives. Lies, deceit, mis- and dis-information; the beat goes on, in one way or another, day after day.
What an inspiring read for a beautiful Sunday morning! Now for a steaming cup of my Muskoka Maple. Yea. Imported from Canada. Bought with my own hard earned pension money. Haven’t figured out how to exchange my food stamps cross border.
When I hear or read the word fraud I immediately think one of the greatest frauds i.e. Senator Scott of Florida- he frauded Medicare out billions of millions. The voters in Florida rewarded him by electing him their Senator.
The technical rationale for the current state of our social safety net is Projection. Whenever a Republican stands up and talks about the lazy guy playing video games in granny’s basement. I wonder what his own son is doing.
Then you have people like Lutnick, who said that if people missed an SSA payment, those who complained loudly would be the fraudsters. He was sure his mother-in-law (MIL) wouldn’t have any problem missing one. I don’t know what his MIL has in the bank, but she does know her son-in-law is a billionaire who would have hell to pay if she did complain. They are completely clueless about how too many Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
It’s amazing that one can be so successful and so stupid at the same time. I don’t want to toss capitalism, but I sure do want it regulated and I don’t ever want anyone to be unable to get healthcare or enough food to feed the family.