Ultimately, I think they need to do a deep dive and determine how many of the payments were actually going to centers that actually had children there, and how many were virtually empty (or completely empty) like the ones shown in some of the recently-circulating videos.
And then determine how much fraudulent loss is an acceptable amount to tolerate in the name of making sure children have the funded child care needed.
Obviously that number's never going to 0. Nor does it have to be an expectation of 0. I'm a pragmatist, I get it. When it comes to government spending, the old saying goes "There's no other way to transfer money, but with a leaky bucket".
...but obviously there's a tipping point.
I'd say if a program starts having a fraudulent loss percentage that gets north of 10%,
like what happened with federal Covid aid, it's not unreasonable to pause and re-think and re-tool.
Even the New York times and Gov. Walz himself are acknowledging that this isn't just a tiny outlier issue.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Walz applauded new federal charges in a widening, yearslong federal investigation into his state’s social services programs and promised that state officials were working to overhaul the troubled system.
Mr. Walz, who is seeking re-election, wrote in an opinion piece in The Minnesota Star Tribune this month that his state had made “significant progress” in rooting out fraud in its social services system but had “much more to do.”
“And it’s my responsibility to fix it,” he wrote.
More than 90 people have been charged in federal fraud investigations in Minnesota, which began during the Biden administration, and at least 60 have been convicted. In announcing charges against six more people accused of defrauding safety net programs, the prosecutor overseeing the investigation, said this month that the authorities had identified “staggering, industrial-scale fraud” in Minnesota’s safety-net programs.
...and the investigation started under the Biden admin, which means it wasn't just a republican administration that said "something smells fishy here"
I think children's issues are a big deal, and fraud shouldn't happen at all. But to trust Trumps and his people is a big joke.
In this instance, it sounds like the person tasked with spearheading the effort is Jim O'Neill.
While there's often accusations that "Trump doesn't have serious people" tossed around (and in many cases, those accusations have merit).
Seems like Jim O'Neill is a somewhat "serious" person. Under the Bush administration, he served in both the Department of Education and HHS, and was the US Delegate to the WHO's World Health Assembly.
www.breitbart.com
Stealing money that is supposed to help children is particularly despicable. Given the situation, requiring evidence that a payment is legitimate before handing over taxpayer money is a responsible step to take.
