Editorial Board at the WSJ has been out swinging lately. Day before yesterday this, and an opinion piece on the trillion-dollar fraud at the center of U.S. gov.
Yesterday, some taking stock of mainstream/corporate media nonsense and sandbox play at the top of gov echelons:
Remember when eliminating government waste, fraud and abuse was a bipartisan goal? Well, now that Elon Musk is trying to do that, Democrats and their friends in the press say his Department of Government Efficiency is tilting at windmills. “At Oval Office, Musk Makes Broad Claims of Federal Fraud Without Proof,” said a New York Times headline this week. The White House retorted: “Apparently, the Times and other like-minded outlets lack access to a newfangled research tool called Google.”
A government audit agency itself said last year that there's about half a trillion in fraud.
[The Government Accountability Office] earlier estimated that 11% to 15% of unemployment benefits during the pandemic were fraudulent, totalling between $100 billion and $135 billion. Some went to transnational gangs, prisoners and state-sponsored hackers. The Labor Department inspector general estimated at least $191 billion in improper pandemic unemployment payments.
IRS** improper payments increased under Mr. Biden, no doubt because it’s harder to stop fraud when so much more money is flying out the door.** Biden officials also eased income verification for ObamaCare subsidies, Medicaid and other welfare programs. The Health and Human Services Department last year estimated $85 billion in “improper payments” in Medicare and Medicaid.
"The political left’s hostility to Mr. Musk’s antifraud campaign is hard to understand. But the partisan times are such that if Mr. Musk said the sky is blue, liberals would probably also say he has no proof."
Totally.
We live in insane times. (some would say "clownsy" times, #760879).