XPost: alt.politics.trump, talk.politics.guns, alt.politics.democrats.d   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: fjb@nytimes.com   
      
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   > Everybody say, "THANKS DEMOCRATS!" "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!"   
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   The Labor Department inspector general noted the Biden   
   administration keeps slow-walking efforts to help fight fraud.   
      
   Haley Joel Osment sees dead people. Government officials give   
   them welfare benefits.   
      
   That conclusion comes from a report recently released by the   
   Labor Department’s inspector general, providing an update on its   
   investigations of pandemic-related unemployment fraud.   
   Unfortunately, the document provides only the tip of the   
   proverbial iceberg, both in identifying the scope of the problem   
   and holding fraudsters to account.   
      
   $46 Billion Down the Drain   
   The inspector general report updated earlier documents   
   quantifying the scope of potentially fraudulent unemployment   
   insurance payments made during the pandemic. Specifically, the   
   office examined four types of potential fraud: claims 1) filed   
   in multiple states; 2) made in the name of deceased individuals;   
   3) using suspicious email accounts; or 4) filed by federal   
   prisoners.   
      
   The chart below demonstrates the growth in potentially   
   fraudulent unemployment insurance payments made since March 2020.   
      
      
   The $46 billion figure underestimates the potential fraud, for   
   several reasons. For instance, investigators did not have   
   current data on federal prisoners, so could not update last   
   year’s estimate of suspicious payments in this category. The   
   total also excludes potential fraud not included in one of the   
   four categories — from claims made by state prisoners to those   
   with less obvious red flags.   
      
   Little Accountability for Fraudsters   
   A press release accompanying the report hinted at the massive   
   nature of the fraud. A few sentences discussed efforts to hold   
   scammers to account:   
      
   With less than 140 criminal investigators, the [inspector   
   general] leveraged data analytics to direct its limited   
   resources to those matters that pose the greatest risk to the   
   [unemployment insurance] program. The [inspector general] is   
   focusing on large-scale identity theft schemes involving   
   multiple victims and organized criminal groups, including street   
   gangs.   
      
   In other words, if someone doesn’t belong to a gang, or “only”   
   submitted fraudulent claims for a few thousand dollars (or even   
   tens of thousands of dollars), he’s not going to get prosecuted.   
      
   The press release attempted to praise prosecutors for charging   
   1,000 individuals, and obtaining convictions that “have resulted   
   in more than 7,000 months” — about 583 years — “of   
   incarceration.” But given that investigators identified nearly   
   $46 billion in fraud, the amount of accountability seems   
   massively outweighed by the scale of the original crimes.   
      
   Government Empowering Scammers   
   The fraud in the Covid unemployment spending should surprise no   
   one. The antiquated systems many states use to administer   
   unemployment benefits (the program operates as a state-federal   
   partnership) enabled scammers to game the system, even as   
   individuals legitimately harmed by government lockdowns in 2020   
   struggled to navigate the stifling bureaucracy and claim   
   benefits.   
      
   Even now, federal officials have yet to fully cooperate with   
   efforts to hold people to account, albeit after the fact, for   
   their criminal conduct. The inspector general noted that its   
   office has the ability to require that state workforce agencies   
   (which administer unemployment benefits) provide data and   
   information relevant to anti-fraud efforts — but only on a   
   temporary basis.   
      
   During the State of the Union address this March, the Biden   
   administration made a big show out of appointing a special   
   prosecutor to tackle Covid spending fraud. Yet the Labor   
   Department inspector general noted that the same Biden   
   administration continues to slow-walk efforts that would give   
   the IG the information it needs to fight fraud.   
      
   Costly Waste   
   Two other points bear repeating. First, the Covid-era   
   unemployment benefits at issue in the report paid many   
      
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