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There's so much of this thinking that misses the forest for the trees. When you're running a giant government program, fraud and misuse are to be expected. The

There's so much of this thinking that misses the forest for the trees. When you're running a giant government program, fraud and misuse are to be expected. The question "will there be fraud?" is rarely the right one - rather it's "factoring in the cost of fraud, is this still a good program?" There was a fair bit of PPP fraud, but that's okay! It was designed to be relatively easy for businesses to get that money, because getting money into the hands of small businesses was critical. Plenty of the fraud could have been prevented with additional paperwork/validations/etc., but amount saved from fraud by doing that would be completely outweighed by the cost of businesses failing that otherwise could have been saved because they couldn't get the money fast enough.

t-writescode 5y ago
Especially in the United States, we’re so focused on catching fraud, we probably spend more money on the bureaucracy to stop the fraud than the cost the fraud would have, itself.
- awillen 5y ago
  Yeah, it's this bizarrely shortsighted focus on making it an absolute priority that nobody takes advantage of us as compared to just prioritizing our own well being. We're not even good at being selfish :/
- dlp211 5y ago
  Worst, we spend so much time trying to prevent fraud, the programs don't reach their full potential to benefit the most amount of people that need it and are qualified to receive it.
epicureanideal 5y ago
Accepting fraud encourages fraud and demoralizes people who are playing by the rules just to watch fraudsters pass them by in life.
- Waterluvian 5y ago
  "Accepting fraud encourages fraud" is a sensible argument if you live in a society that is breeding fraudsters. I don't think the existence of an opportunity for fraud creates fraudsters. I think it's more a consequence of a society that is failing to equip its people with the education, skills, safety nets, and opportunities necessary to live a moral life. This line of thinking creates a feedback loop, bolstered by systemic racism and poverty bigotry: the riffraff will abuse these systems so we won't offer them, or we'll make them all but impossible to utilize. And then those individuals struggle and are left with little choice when they're drowning.
tombert 5y ago
As a general rule I am somewhat of the camp of "part of what defines us as a society is how we treat the people who have it the worst." I think even if you could somehow prove that there was a ridiculously huge amount of welfare fraud, I'd still be somewhat supportive of it; I think there's an inherent value of knowing that a safety net exists. If you lose your job, or get into a horrible accident, or have some condition that puts you at a disadvantage, we (as a society) should be looking out for you, particularly in the most wealthy economy on the planet.
- awillen 5y ago
  I think even if you take a wildly more cynical approach, a substantial amount of welfare is still worthwhile. When people run out of money, society ends up paying for it, whether it's because those people steal and go to prison or end up in the hospital. If you spend $1B in welfare and half of it gets stolen, it's still a great investment if it take down the societal costs of dealing with poverty by $2B.

t-writescode 5y ago

Especially in the United States, we’re so focused on catching fraud, we probably spend more money on the bureaucracy to stop the fraud than the cost the fraud would have, itself.

awillen 5y ago
Yeah, it's this bizarrely shortsighted focus on making it an absolute priority that nobody takes advantage of us as compared to just prioritizing our own well being. We're not even good at being selfish :/
dlp211 5y ago
Worst, we spend so much time trying to prevent fraud, the programs don't reach their full potential to benefit the most amount of people that need it and are qualified to receive it.

epicureanideal 5y ago

Accepting fraud encourages fraud and demoralizes people who are playing by the rules just to watch fraudsters pass them by in life.

Waterluvian 5y ago
"Accepting fraud encourages fraud" is a sensible argument if you live in a society that is breeding fraudsters. I don't think the existence of an opportunity for fraud creates fraudsters. I think it's more a consequence of a society that is failing to equip its people with the education, skills, safety nets, and opportunities necessary to live a moral life. This line of thinking creates a feedback loop, bolstered by systemic racism and poverty bigotry: the riffraff will abuse these systems so we won't offer them, or we'll make them all but impossible to utilize. And then those individuals struggle and are left with little choice when they're drowning.

tombert 5y ago

As a general rule I am somewhat of the camp of "part of what defines us as a society is how we treat the people who have it the worst." I think even if you could somehow prove that there was a ridiculously huge amount of welfare fraud, I'd still be somewhat supportive of it; I think there's an inherent value of knowing that a safety net exists. If you lose your job, or get into a horrible accident, or have some condition that puts you at a disadvantage, we (as a society) should be looking out for you, particularly in the most wealthy economy on the planet.

awillen 5y ago
I think even if you take a wildly more cynical approach, a substantial amount of welfare is still worthwhile. When people run out of money, society ends up paying for it, whether it's because those people steal and go to prison or end up in the hospital. If you spend $1B in welfare and half of it gets stolen, it's still a great investment if it take down the societal costs of dealing with poverty by $2B.