{"id":17618,"date":"2022-10-02T21:14:53","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T01:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=17618"},"modified":"2022-10-03T10:25:24","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T14:25:24","slug":"new-york-post-how-600-billion-was-stolen-from-the-american-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/02\/new-york-post-how-600-billion-was-stolen-from-the-american-people\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Post: How $600 billion was stolen from the American people"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>New York Post, October 3, 2022<\/h3>\n

How $600 billion was stolen from the American people<\/a><\/h1>\n
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By<\/p>\n

James Bovard<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cCOVID fraud<\/a>\u201d is at this point a redundant phrase.<\/strong> Congress appropriated more than $5 trillion for COVID relief but almost $600 billion may have been lost to fraud \u2014 an astounding 12%. Washington\u2019s pandemic pratfalls are the greatest federal boondoggle of this century.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors are having a turkey shoot nailing COVID crooks: more than 1,500 have been indicted and almost 500 have been convicted. On September 14, the Justice Department announced the creation of three COVID-19 Fraud Strike Force teams.<\/p>\n

When President Biden recently signed a law to extend the time to prosecute COVID fraud, he declared, \u201cMy message to those cheats out there is this: You can\u2019t hide. We\u2019re going to find you.\u201d But the sheer amount of fraud makes it unlikely that the vast majority of thieves will be charged.<\/p>\n

Policymakers acted as if waiving standard federal fraud protections would somehow thwart the COVID virus.<\/strong> On September 22, the Labor Department Inspector General estimated that COVID-19 unemployment fraud amounted to $45 billion and could exceed $163 billion. \u201cOverseas organized crime groups flooded state unemployment systems with bogus online claims, overwhelming antiquated computer software benefits in blunt-force attacks that siphoned out millions of dollars,\u201d NBC News reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prison inmates, drug gangs, and Nigerian racketeers easily plundered the program. One swindler collected unemployment benefits from 29 different states. In the first year of the pandemic, Maryland detected more than 1.3 million fraudulent unemployment claims \u2013 equal to 20% of the state\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

Beginning in June 2020, the feds distributed $813 billion in Paycheck Protection Program<\/a> loans to businesses. Trump\u2019s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin boasted that PPP is \u201csupporting an estimated 50 million jobs.\u201d But many of those jobs existed solely in the imagination of political appointees.<\/p>\n

The Small Business Administration (SBA), which administered the program, effectively told people, \u201cApply and sign and tell us that you\u2019re really entitled to the money,\u201d according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The SBA camouflaged its \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d loan standard by claiming to perform economic miracles. SBA ludicrously boasted that PPP loans saved more jobs than the total number of employees in at least 15 industries.<\/p>\n