U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says a nauseating 10% of the federal budget is spent on fraud.

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Why pay taxes when so much of your hard-earned money goes to fraudsters instead of doing good?

Government bureaucrats and elected politicians, mostly Democrats, scream in outrage when any effort is made to crack down on fraud by requiring proof of where the money is actually going. They wring their hands that safeguards will delay the funds and warn of children going hungry or families in need.

Meanwhile, all of us taxpayers, saddled with paying for the scammers, are routinely ignored.

Until now. The enormity of the Minneapolis welfare rip-off is sparking a nationwide rebellion against welfare criminals and the politicians who tolerate them. The Minneapolis fraud epidemic, which has gone on since 2014, robbed taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars supposed to support subsidized day care, autism services and "Feeding our Future" meals for poor.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has been forced to give up his bid for reelection. But more important, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul are on the hot seat to explain the even bigger taxpayer rip-offs they have allowed to go on in their states.

And more state politicians will be feeling the heat. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says a nauseating 10% of the federal budget is spent on fraud. Some politicians benefit directly, but many more are too cowardly to call it out, fearing accusations of racism or cruelty to the poor.

So far, fraud-friendly Govs. Hochul and Newsom have offered only bluster and a lawsuit against the Trump administration for trying to rout out the cheating.

On Dec. 30, 2025, the Trump administration announced that in view of the Minnesota fraud scandal, all states would have to provide enrollment and attendance data, a receipt for expenditures or other photographic evidence before getting federal payments to support child care programs. The administration calls it the "Defend the Spend" program.

Many states complied right away. Missouri, for example, announced it provided "detailed justification" for payments to cover 2,000 child care providers in the state.

But deep-blue states resisted. On Jan. 6, the Trump administration froze child care and family cash assistance to five states: New York, California, Illinois, Colorado and Minnesota – citing concerns about widespread illegal use of taxpayer money.

Here's the biggest laugh. Hochul responded to the freeze by insisting there's no evidence of fraud in New York and joining with the four other states to sue. "We'll be having a litigation strategy," she said.

Sorry, Governor, but New York is likely the welfare fraud capital of the nation – a major reason New Yorkers are taxed to death.

The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program is a notorious example.

Start with a practical idea – letting friends and relatives get paid to provide care for the sick. With inadequate oversight, it has grown over 10 years into what Hochul herself admits is "one of the most abused programs in the history of New York."

People are billing the state for caring for the dead, or for multiple people with different addresses all at the same time – cashing in for as much as $200,000 a year.

In 2025, a staggering 623,000 people claimed to be home health and personal assistants, making it by far the biggest occupation in the state, far outstripping retail salespersons, nurses or cashiers and waitresses.

New York state taxpayers are paying for this fraud, and so are federal taxpayers, because CDPAP is supported by Medicaid. But Hochul would rather sue the Trump administration than clean up the cheating.

On Friday, a federal judge blocked Trump's freeze for 14 days. But the merits of the case are with Trump. The federal government has responsibility to make sure funds are used honestly.

That is also why Republicans in the U.S. Senate must hold the line against the push to provide what Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer calls a "clean" three-year extension of the COVID-19-era enhanced subsidies for Obamacare plans. There is nothing "clean" about it. Obamacare is filled with fraud. Allowing the dirty tricks to continue, at huge cost to taxpayers, for another three years is unacceptable.

Every year Democrats applaud expanded enrollment in the ACA, ignoring the fact that much of it is fraudulent. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog agency, found that people using fake identifies to sign up for subsidized health insurance get through every time.

Fraudsters use stolen Social Security numbers – in one case to sign up for 71 policies in a single year. Brokers and insurance agents enroll people without their knowledge and keep the commissions. It's been going on for over a decade.

The bureaucrats operating Obamacare couldn't care less about the taxpayers footing the bill.

Do Democrats care, or are they now the party of fraudsters instead of the taxpayers?

This week's vote in the U.S. Senate will tell. It's long past time to crack down on fraud.

Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and Chairman & Founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths at www.hospitalinfection.org. 

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