16,000 Dead People Were Claimed as Beneficiaries for Government Handouts

Gary North - October 04, 2019

I wonder if they also voted?

This figure has come out in the wake of a series of investigations by the government on fraud related to Obama's 2009 stimulus law that spent $840 billion. You must remember that law? It was shovel-ready.

So far, there are 1,900 investigations going on. Most of these are nickel-and-dime stuff compared to $840 billion: a hundred thousand here and there. But occasionally a choice one comes up, such as the veterans who claimed 16,000 dead people as dependents. Readers can understand that story.

So far, there have been about 600 convictions. How much money was involved? Only $11 million, says the government.

When the government spends $840 billion, the amount of provable fraud is limited by the number of inspectors.

For instance, the Energy Department inspector general reported last week it discovered the California energy commission collected two duplicate payments under a stimulus program that costs taxpayers $678,000 and it recommended the money be repaid.

I see. It recommended. As in suggested. “Pretty please pay it back.”

Fat chance.

The Health and Human Services inspector general reported recently that a Louisiana group that received stimulus funds for Head Start programs for children had inappropriately spent nearly $1.2 million in federal funds to construct a new building that wasn’t approved by federal officials. The group is contesting the finding.

Of course it is contesting the finding.

The Energy Department inspector general also warns in its most recent semiannual report that the Western Area Power Administration, which received $3.25 billion in borrowing authority to help build transmission lines under the stimulus law, is at risk of losing significant money on a transmission project for wind power in Montana that it funded.

“WAPA has significant financial exposure on the project … encountering significant delays and cost overruns,” the IG warned.

No kidding! Waste! Will wonders never cease?

And a former superintendent of a Montana construction company was charged last month with making false statements regarding the quality of work his firm performed on federal bridge project in Idaho that was funded with $21.6 million in stimulus money. The company used “nonconforming anchor bolts” for parts of the construction, and tried to conceal it. The bolts had to be fixed, delaying the project.

I see. Bad bolts. They matched the real nuts who voted for the stimulus.

If the 1,900 investigations turn up fraud and waste of $1,000,000 per incident, that’s a grand total of $1.9 billion. This is out of $840 billion.

You get the idea. Peanuts.

So far: $11 million.

When government gets this big, there is no way to track the fraud with the minimal resources allocated to tracking this fraud.

The government is not interested in discovering fraud. It is interested in keeping the Keynesian ship of state afloat.

Continue reading here.

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Published on October 16, 2012. The original is here.