By Bill Wilson
Of all the revelations over the past year, the most underappreciated condition is the startling level of open, raw corruption that exists throughout the American social support systems. It appears that there is no program or state left untouched. While initial attention was brought on the Minnesota Somalian-led scams, every day brings yet another story of theft, cynicism and corruption from every corner of America.
This latest report from Blake Neff on just one example out of Oregon last week is enough to turn your stomach: “Oregon in the current year: Tren de Aragua members abduct woman and torture her with a power drill to steal her debit card info, turn out to be living in a drug den that is listed as a ‘drug rehab facility’ receiving $2.3 million/year in Oregon Medicaid funds. Owners have likely stolen more than $60 million by laundering it through Rwanda. The only local journalist covering the story says state officials are told directly about this and simply don’t care. Modern blue state America is basically a foreign looting operation.”
There are examples of blatant fraud from California, Maine, Ohio — just about everywhere you look. And, as Neff points out about Oregon, state officials just don’t care. Either they are simply callous and lazy to the crimes or so cowed at being labeled either “racist” or “homophobic” or whatever the latest slur may be that they deem it safer to just turn away. If experience has shown them that there is no benefit to themselves for doing the right thing, that nobody at the top will have their backs, then why play the hero? Why expose and attack this obscene abuse if all they get for doing so is a world of hurt.
We will never know for sure what the “cost” of this will end up being. But even if we had the number, if we knew exactly how much has been stolen by those that find it better to steal from the system than to work, save and build, it still does not come close to covering the real cost.
The real cost of this attack on the public social welfare programs is the great damage it does to the entire system itself. The tens of millions of hardworking families across America are being robbed by these thugs. But worse, trust in the system is being crushed. As people see that working hard, paying your taxes and trusting the government to see they are spent wisely evaporates, there is less and less willingness on the part of citizens to do as they are asked by that same government. This theft is eroding support for the very system that poor people depend on.
What is almost never mentioned are the people the welfare was intended for in the first place. With every dollar stolen and sent to Somalia or some other third world hellhole there is one less dollar to help a single mother in the Bronx or an unemployed family in Appalachia get training for new skills or a legal immigrant desperate to start an honest small business and build their version of the American Dream. The scammers steal from all these people and it’s outrageous.
This theft is an assault on the foundation of our system of representative government — and it must be stopped. It cannot continue and we as a nation cannot accept half-way measures or “pretend solutions.” We need a crackdown.
Very simply, over the course of no more than a year, every single recipient of government money should have to present themselves and make the case for why they should continue receiving funds. If after that year, a company or a person has not come forward or provide concrete visual evidence of their situation, financial support should be ended. The alternative to such a massive effort is to continue until the entire façade collapses.
Is that a realistic possibility? Or, as the radicals believe, can we just keep printing an endless supply of dollars and never worry about ever having to pay the bill? In point of fact, it is a very real possibility that the system ultimately freezes up. Then, nobody gets the lucre. There just won’t be any to get. At that point it will become clear to all that the left-wing and the Democrat Party allowed, even encouraged, people who are not citizens to steal untold hundreds of billions of dollars intended for Americans in need. But at that point it is too late.
The only choice we can make now to prevent the worst possible outcome is to engage is strict, near-harsh efforts to verify who is supposed to get the funds and cut everyone else off. At that point, the law enforcement system needs to prosecute the thieves and make examples of them that might serve to deter future scammers.
The cost in dollars, the cost of deeply diminished faith in our system of government and the harm done to our own fellow citizens who need the aid that is being stolen is just too great. The Trump administration needs to launch such a drive now. The Europeans can take care of their own mess. Israel can defend itself and China is on the brink of economic chaos. As a nation, we can take a break from the world affairs scam. We need to take care of ourselves and act now to stop the steal here at home.
Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.
