On January 5th, Issues & Insights posted an article with a suggestion for ending government fraud.

The article notes:

Some are estimating that more than half of federal income tax revenues are devoured by fraud. This should not come as a shock. A massive government that funds everything from small businesses to health care to child care to housing is a rich target for thieves. Sharply reducing its size would limit the opportunities to steal from taxpayers.

Bandits have been defrauding of the U.S. government on such a colossal scale that even the legacy media has had to cover it, at least somewhat. The Minnesota Somalis looting the public fisc blew the lid so high that now smart folks are finding institutionalized fraud far, wide, high and low.

As noted in a March executive order, “the Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government loses between $233 and $521 billion annually to fraud.” That higher number might be in reality a low-end estimate, because the money flows from Washington from a number of orifices outside the Treasury Department, and an accurate tracking is simply not possible.

We say this because in fiscal 2024, non-Treasury disbursing offices “were estimated to be responsible for 181 million payments totaling over $1.5 trillion,” says the White House, roughly 22% of the entirety of federal dollars disbursed. Combine this fact with the fraud that is being uncovered and it’s obvious we’ve reached crisis levels.

The article concludes:

The only logical solution is to limit the possibilities by thoroughly downsizing the beast, which has grown well beyond the point to which its size has nurtured and sustained the “professionalized the pathways of corruption” and “is doing many more things than can be done with tolerable honesty.”

We are realists and understand that shrinking Washington is about as easy as threading a needle with a rope.

But Donald Trump was elected to decrease the length, width, and depth of the federal government, and while his efforts after eight years will be modest at best, Americans do have the ballot box to elect presidential and congressional candidates who will continue what he started. Maybe the Minnesota scandal is a watershed moment that will anger voters enough for them to understand what they have to do.

Shrinking government was at the root of the founding of the Tea Party. Unfortunately, some of the people involved in that movement have either aged out and become complacent. It is time for everyone to get involved in putting pressure on the government to downsize and cut spending.