More than $250 billion in Covid-19 relief funds were lost to “fraud” and “waste,” the directors of three US government agencies testified before the House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee on Thursday.
Compounding what Deputy Inspector General Sheldon Shoemaker of the Small Business Administration (SBA) called “the biggest fraud in a generation,” the officials stressed that the figures they gave represented an extremely conservative estimate of the total amount lost as they did not include the amount defrauded from the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.
According to a statement submitted by Shoemaker ahead of the hearing, the SBA has already uncovered $190.7 billion in potential fraud across relief programs under its jurisdiction. Specifically, it expects to find upwards of $100 billion within the scandal-plagued Paycheck Protection Program. Acting Treasury Inspector General Richard Delmar admitted to just $2.6 billion in dubious charges confirmed at his agency, pleading that ongoing audits precluded making an estimate of the full cost.
Larry Turner, inspector general of the Department of Labor, blamed the massive losses on a lack of preparation, insufficient oversight, and even the government’s generosity, making a “highly conservative” estimate of $76 billion in fraudulent spending. With no functioning system in place to verify applicants’ qualifying details in a reasonable time frame, the “unprecedented infusion of federal funds” into the program made it irresistible to fraudsters, he told the subcommittee.
Rep. Keith Mfume (D-Maryland) expressed shock that no one had predicted that requiring only “self-certification” to access such a prodigious cash hoard would lead to “a lot of hanky-panky,” while Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Florida) pointed out that the agencies did not even use existing checks and balances to vet applicants, and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Florida) highlighted that state unemployment systems were hopelessly outdated even before the pandemic placed them under unprecedented stress. Of $45.6 billion in potential fraud lent out in association with one Labor Department program, Turner acknowledged upon questioning that $267 million had gone to dead people.
Asked about the possibility of recovering the money, Turner said that hunting down the perpetrators was financially unrewarding, as “once money goes out the door, it is hard to get it back.” Even in cases where the government has been able to track down Covid-19 benefit fraudsters and claw back some of the funds, the inspectors general were unable to tell subcommittee members what had become of some of the money.
More than $5 trillion in pandemic relief funds have been distributed since 2020. By some estimates, as much as $400 billion was stolen from the unemployment relief program alone.
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Surprised? No. United fraudsters of America.
LOL, how much money was paid to the Covid people? It WAS ALL A SCAM.
Hundreds of trillions defrauded from humanity, via the bankster cartel and the derivatives hucksters – for centuries before the coronahoax. Howzabout a delicious belly fulla bundled debt (aka “assets”) for dinner? Or some savory ones and zeroes, instead of actual work, producing actual food (and stoves to cook it on and fuel for the stoves . . . ). Just keep trusting the political science.
Abolish the state.
“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction. Therefore, everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interest of everyone hangs on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.” ― Ludwig Von Mises
“The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.”
― Ludwig von Mises
.
Hans [Hermann-Hoppe] argued that no constitution could restrain the state. Once its monopoly of force was granted legitimacy, constitutional limits became mere fictions it could disregard; nobody could have the legal standing to enforce those limits. The state itself would decide, by force, what the constitution “meant,” steadily ruling in its own favor and increasing its own power. This was true a priori, and American history bore it out.
What if the Federal Government grossly violated the Constitution? Could states withdraw from the Union? Lincoln said no. The Union was “indissoluble” unless all the states agreed to dissolve it. As a practical matter, the Civil War settled that. The United States, plural, were really a single enormous state, as witness the new habit of speaking of “it” rather than “them.”
So the people are bound to obey the government even when the rulers betray their oath to uphold the Constitution. The door to escape is barred. Lincoln in effect claimed that it is not our rights but the state that is “unalienable.” And he made it stick by force of arms. No transgression of the Constitution can impair the Union’s inherited legitimacy. Once established on specific and limited terms, the U.S. Government is forever, even if it refuses to abide by those terms.
As Hoppe argues, this is the flaw in thinking the state can be controlled by a constitution. Once granted, state power naturally becomes absolute. Obedience is a one-way street. Notionally, “We the People” create a government and specify the powers it is allowed to exercise over us; our rulers swear before God that they will respect the limits we impose on them; but when they trample down those limits, our duty to obey them remains. – READ REST: http://www.sobran.com/reluctant.shtml
“If the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the State, if it were convinced that the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large, then the State would soon collapse to take on no more status or breadth of existence than another Mafia gang.” ― Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/79157-the-ethics-of-liberty
“Since production must always precede predation, the free market is anterior to the State. The State has never been created by a “social contract”; it has always been born in conquest and exploitation.” ― Murray N. Rothbard, Anatomy of the State
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/46810.Murray_N_Rothbard
“State power has an unbroken record of inability to do anything efficiently, economically, disinterestedly or honestly; yet when the slightest dissatisfaction arises over any exercise of social power, the aid of the agent least qualified to give aid is immediately called for.” ― Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/228606.Albert_Jay_Nock
“Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible ‘anarchy’, why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?” ― Murray N. Rothbard
secession was not settled by the ‘civil war’ which was neither civil, constitutional, nor ‘just’ from the christian definition of ‘just war’.
Department of Defense failed yet another audit last November which makes them 0 for 5. 39% is NOT a passing grade despite what their Financial Executive, Michael McCord says.
And Walmart thinks they have a shoplifting problem…
Voting harder fixes this.
The purpose of government is looting.
And killing.
And running the lives of people who refuse to assume responsibility for their own lives.
.
.
Running or ruining? Oh wait, both…
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
If you believe this, you may be mentally retarded.
I wonder how often one has to be ripped off to acknowledge the source of their loss?
It’s kind of funny that the guy you hire to be a watchdog has a lazy eye.
and the other is crossed
I thought he was legally blind with a tin cup for alms.
Small change. There is USD $12 trillion unaccounted for related to the Treasury’s REPO program that ran from Sep 2019 to Jun 2020. It has disappeared from .gov’s books.
It all goes back to Sep 17th, 2019 singularity event when SOFR went from 2.20% to 5.25% in a single day.
Yep…+1,000
The looting will continue until the economy improves!
$250 Billion? Is the Gov’t going to crash? OMG is none of that money FDIC insured. Freak out!! Will this contagion spread?????? To other Gov’t Agencies? Are my Food Stamps going to work tomorrow? Whoa Whoa, remain calm and Panic Right Now! 9/11 inbound holy shit $250 Billion missing. Justin Trudeau worried about contagion has contacted Puerto Rico and Cuba to secure Liquidity to shore up our sovereignty. This is it folks, we need the publics help in locating these missing funds. Please be on the lookout for terrorist Right Wingers. How did those guys afford a bumper sticker? These Domestic Terrorists are threatening your Food Stamps. With a clever bumper sticker, they press it on then peel away BILLIONS in shadowy vinyl transfer paper. They have Rolls of it! If you see something say something. Report unsavory Bumper Stickers today. You thought they were funny but now they’re costly! Bumper Stickers are threatening your very Democracy and Freedoms. Protect the Democracy and End Freedoms Now!
Yes yes YESSSSSS. Send more money to me. I am the only one to stop it from collapsing and can save our democracy.
https://i.postimg.cc/4xCT2xy6/200w.webp
It’s ok, I prepared for my country. I am from Jianuckistan and I have Maple Syrup. Also I have a 100 Trillion dollar Bill. Phew saved us…..Now, just where is the key for my Wicker Safe Safe. Probably wasn’t a good idea to hide it with the TP.
Sorry to butt in but. I stopped reading at your admission of having a hundred trillion dollar bill.
So you are the guy responsible for everyones debt. I suggest you get your spending under control and PAY YOUR BILL. damn canukistaners anyway. probably white too.
Ralph Waldo Emerson on the eternal tensions of yin and yang:
“The huge animals nourish huge parasites, and the rancor of the disease attests the strength of the constitution.”
READ REST: https://emersoncentral.com/texts/the-conduct-of-life/power/
The pendulum cannot help but return: “The sun also rises.”
Shocking. Simply shocking. Round up twice the number of the usual suspects.
does any informed individual expect anything else? when the most crooked, criminal cabal in the history of the planet ‘offers help’, bend over. that’s the way crooks roll.
wait until they bail out the banks, again, although they say they will not. after all, what are bailouts but welfare for the rich.
“More than $250 billion in Covid-19 relief funds were lost to “fraud” and “waste,” the directors of three US government agencies testified before the House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee on Thursday”
When do the directors of said US(SA) government agencies get fired, prosecuted and compelled to PAY THAT FUCKING MONEY BACK?
“When do the directors of said US(SA) government agencies get fired, prosecuted and compelled to PAY THAT FUCKING MONEY BACK?”
T’was rhetorical. Auntie fully expects these Nancy Maligs to get hired on as board members of various and sundry businesses, trans-national conglomerates, media, foreign governments nafter they depart from cushy S.E.S./cabinet positions with a nice party and plaque.
Why should any of us pay a flippin dime in Taxes? The IRS is completely worthless. The only thing they can do is get full pay on permenent Covid vacations while not responding to or paying Refunds to the people that pay them to do nothing at 2X what most Americans get in salary and benefits.
“the biggest fraud in a generation…” Holy crap. In a generation? How about since America was founded you GD moron.
Someone tell brain dead Mfume that lying to get Taxpayer money is not “hanky-panky”. It is a crime.
“Covid” was a fraud and so is everything surrounding it.
Did you expect anything else. The whole place is a swindlers paradise.