By Casey Harper

Scandalizing the nation is becoming more and more difficult in our era of politics and internet inundation. But an influx of Somali migrants managed to do just that with a network of fake day cares and food programs, among other rackets. When news broke of the multi-billion dollar fraudulent enterprise that fleeced taxpayers, collective outrage and scrutiny resurged over two favorite issues of the current administration: immigration and government waste.

But the Somalis weren’t alone here. Plenty of Americans joined in, as some estimate the actual tally for the fraud is closer to $18 billion. This scandal naturally raised the question: Is this kind of waste, fraud, and abuse happening elsewhere?

Yes. Yes it is. And worse.

Have you already forgotten that New York used a portion of its $9 billion in COVID-relief funds to train “equity warriors” in schools? In that same state last summer, 15 people were indicted in a $10.6 billion operation to defraud Medicaid and Medicare.

A couple of years ago, Arizona saw a Medicaid scandal of its own totaling around $2.5 billion. And there are others.

Minneapolis’s fraud isn’t particularly unique. It’s just getting attention. Remember when Nancy Pelosi’s incredible stock trading luck was exposed, but soon we learned many other lawmakers were in on the same game? Or when we heard of a handful of USAID scams before we later learned that corruption in USAID was widespread? Often, the initial story that grabs the headlines is just the beginning of more rampant corruption, and Minneapolis is of that same ilk.

Those like me who have had the misfortune of tracking government spending over the last few years know that these most recent examples are more of the same in a long, unfortunate history of blunders.

Here are a few more examples:

• The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report in December showing billions of dollars were lost to fraud in Obamacare marketplaces.
• The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Inspector General estimates $200 billion in fraud from the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program and the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.
• GAO reports over $100 billion lost to fraud from Uninsurance Payments from April 2020 through May 2023, adding to the incredible tally of COVID losses.
• Earmarks are always a source of government waste, if not fraud, such as the $1 million for the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia or $3.5 million for parade balloons in Michigan.

Finally, your intrepid reporter here spent many years covering the most questionable federal grants B.D. (Before DOGE) when anyone with a DEI seminar and a bad idea could cash a check from the federal government.

Among them were a $15,000 USDA grant to study queer farmers and Latinx masculinity, a $2.6 million grant to train students to promote critical race theory, and a NIH grant for $432,000 to study Grindr, a dating app primarily for gay men.

I could go on, but what lessons are we to learn from Minneapolis and the other government waste, fraud, and abuse?

First, migrants from poorer countries end up relying on entitlement programs. In some cases, they defraud them.

Second, supporters of big government need to understand that the bigger government becomes, the more inevitable corruption becomes, whether migrants are behind it or not. Beached whales attract a legion of opportunistic scavengers.

Lastly and most insidiously, American Democratic lawmakers may have turned a blind eye to migrant fraud out of fear of being called racist. In fact, some Democrats have called the investigations into the fraud racist. A DEI-based justice system will only incentivize more fraud and fuel resentment in the nation. Truthfully, that racism accusation is a nauseating one more fitting for the woke zenith in the Biden era. But now it seems Biden’s migrant wave and the woke ideology that facilitated it are still costing American taxpayers.

Maybe cutting back on the size of government would not only reduce the inevitable fraud but also remove the magnet-like incentive that attracts the opportunists in the first place. America is meant to draw lovers of freedom from around the globe, not lovers of handouts.

Casey Harper is managing editor for broadcast for The Washington Stand and host of the Outstanding podcast.