*At least* $45 billion in unemployment aid was distributed to fraudsters and potentially tens of billions more was given to people who falsely claimed to have small businesses harmed by the pandemic. Government agencies have millions of cases of potential fraud that they openly say they'll never be able to investigate. They have so little capacity to prosecute that they've said that it doesn't make sense to investigate people who've gotten away with $10k in fraud. People made instructional YouTube videos for how to commit fraud and at least one rapper made a song about bilking California's unemployment insurance agency. One non profit in Minnesota successfully sued the state claiming that additional scrutiny applied to them was racially motivated when in reality, they were stealing hundreds of millions without feeding the kids they claimed to feed. Worth thinking about next time progressives say we need to get aid out the door without simple IRS verification or means testing. Or the next time conservatives say the IRS doesn't need to be staffed. https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Kt590GV7JTuiQPTDAt3aV https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/business/unemployment-insurance-fraud-pandemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/16/business/economy/covid-pandemic-fraud.html
The ONLY way to prevent these kind of mistakes is to limit the power of government to make them. And yes, that will allow us to limit the size of IRS as well. But nope. Gubbamint gonna gubbamint and some constituents gonna give them unlimited support.
This partisan screed doesn't seem to follow any coherent thread of logic aside from gubbamint bad. You're clearly not understanding the function of the IRS in this issue.
^because when it doesn’t work you just double down. Dubba da gubba.
Trump did a great job for his fraudster buddies
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/11/trump-administration-wont-say-who-got-511-billion-taxpayer-backed-coronavirus-loans/&ved=2ahUKEwicyZ_-v7X6AhVDIn0KHUVqA8gQFnoECA0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2x2y92yFzoAIq6MVZA1oqq https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-stimulus/trump-administration-is-blocking-covid-stimulus-oversight-government-watchdog-letter-idUSKBN23M2XD&ved=2ahUKEwicyZ_-v7X6AhVDIn0KHUVqA8gQFnoECBsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0mrGNrItxqXg6BV2KQP0Yv https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-mnuchin-limit-oversight-of-business-aid/&ved=2ahUKEwicyZ_-v7X6AhVDIn0KHUVqA8gQFnoECB4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw16skUFkBWqJID-XgDRUyOX The trump administration pushed hard against transparency and only started to release data after a ton of pressure. Its no surprise it was abused.
This was a both sides problem but the narrative that we needed to get aid out without verification or means testing was predominantly driven by the left (though implemented by the Trump administration, as conservatives were silent or acquiesced). I remember the dialogue well from both pundits and academia.
Yes, the left was vocal about the need to get it out quickly. On the other hand the trump administration did its level best to block oversight and audit. They both could have done better and one was definitely more beneficial to committing fraud than the other.