2 ms·

What we learned from COVID is that it's absolutely disastrous to send everyone a check, because most of that money gets stolen. Better to give away resources th

by lupire 3y ago

What we learned from COVID is that it's absolutely disastrous to send everyone a check, because most of that money gets stolen. Better to give away resources that are valuable to consume but expensive to transact in. And what we learned from taxing high earners is that the highest earners hide their money and don't pay the expected taxes.

diego_sandoval 3y ago
> because most of that money gets stolen. Huh? I'm out of the loop on this.
- hypothesis 3y ago
  Not OP, but here is some data: “We estimate that SBA disbursed over $200 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-19 EIDLs, EIDL Targeted Advances, Supplemental Targeted Advances, and PPP loans. This means at least 17 percent of all COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds were disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors.” https://www.sba.gov/document/report-23-09-covid-19-pandemic-eidl-ppp-loan-fraud-landscape https://www.sba.gov/document/report-23-09-covid-19-pandemic-... IRS also covered some: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-criminal-investigation-releases-updated-covid-fraud-statistics-on-4th-anniversary-of-cares-act-nearly-9-billion-investigated https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-criminal-investigation-rele...
  - chii 3y ago
    a program administered with poor oversight (may be due to time constraints or whatever reason) doesn't make that program a poor policy decision. I think means tested welfare can backfire a lot in ways that locks people into dependency on the welfare and not look for a higher paying job.
maxrecursion 3y ago
The money that was stolen wasn't sent to everyone. You can't steal money sent to everyone. It was the PPP 'Paycheck Protection Program' money that was stolen where tons of small businesses filed to get that money when it wasn't needed. That's not the same thing at all as putting money in the same bank accounts that file tax returns, which is the example I was providing.
- lupire 3y ago
  CA tried something very close to that https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1128561539/pandemic-fraud-billions-california https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1128561539/pandemic-fraud-bil... https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/fraud-response/ https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/fraud-response/

by lupire 3y ago

diego_sandoval 3y ago

> because most of that money gets stolen. Huh? I'm out of the loop on this.

hypothesis 3y ago
Not OP, but here is some data: “We estimate that SBA disbursed over $200 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-19 EIDLs, EIDL Targeted Advances, Supplemental Targeted Advances, and PPP loans. This means at least 17 percent of all COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds were disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors.” https://www.sba.gov/document/report-23-09-covid-19-pandemic-eidl-ppp-loan-fraud-landscape https://www.sba.gov/document/report-23-09-covid-19-pandemic-... IRS also covered some: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-criminal-investigation-releases-updated-covid-fraud-statistics-on-4th-anniversary-of-cares-act-nearly-9-billion-investigated https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-criminal-investigation-rele...
- chii 3y ago
  a program administered with poor oversight (may be due to time constraints or whatever reason) doesn't make that program a poor policy decision. I think means tested welfare can backfire a lot in ways that locks people into dependency on the welfare and not look for a higher paying job.

maxrecursion 3y ago

The money that was stolen wasn't sent to everyone. You can't steal money sent to everyone. It was the PPP 'Paycheck Protection Program' money that was stolen where tons of small businesses filed to get that money when it wasn't needed. That's not the same thing at all as putting money in the same bank accounts that file tax returns, which is the example I was providing.

lupire 3y ago
CA tried something very close to that https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1128561539/pandemic-fraud-billions-california https://www.npr.org/2022/10/18/1128561539/pandemic-fraud-bil... https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/fraud-response/ https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/fraud-response/