Miles is down hard this morning. He made it to the last weekend of the year, but whatever that contagious thing is going around has hit him hard, sapping his energy and leaving him hacking fluid out of what is left of his lungs. He did not roll out of his rack with the gray dawn, just turning over muttering: “Let the Boomers count to a billion. I will be back before they are done.”
There was some discussion about doing a story about that in his temporary absence and we tried starting at the conference table, but ran out of participants as we reached the mid-seventies on the way to a hundred. Splash got up to make a fresh pot of Hazelnut Flat Yank and threatened to draft that colorful tale Vic has recounted about working with Doctor Fauci on the SARS working group when he was on loan from Defense at the turn of the last century.

And then, in the process, discovering the Secretary wanted some insight into what the leaders of his Department were up to while reporting back to HHS Secretary Thompson that there was a lab in Wuhan, China, funded by his Department that he might want to know about.

Melissa sighed and reminded him that Socotra House Legal had warned the group to stay away from the subject since they were busy already closing out the Old Year and couldn’t handle any more lawsuits from the earnest Lawfare participants who wander our streets in Arlington and Fairfax.

Rocket said he thought we could pay attention to what Miles had directed. “I have been wanting to follow that amazing fraud in Minnesota.” There was some bored nodding from the South end of the table. Splash spoke louder. “It started with a billion that that went to school lunches and Autism support billing that never happened. They said it might get bigger and before the Christmas break an Inspector General Report said it might be nine Billion bucks across the whole budget.”

Even the kids at the table looked up from their phones. “I don’t think it is possible to count to nine billion lunches,” said Eddie, looking at Delise across the table. She pursed her lips and said “No, it isn’t just lunches and invisible day care. The system was systematically perverted to funnel homeless money and unemployment benefits to people who took vacations to Minneapolis to sign up for benefits to which they were not entitled. And the State paid without checking eligibility.”

Vic rocked his tablet up so the screen could be seen from the North end of the table. “In my last active duty job in Navy, I ran a budget staff worth more than three B bucks a year, 12 over the Five Year Plan. Let me tell you, my staff could get concerned over a new jet engine not already in the plan. I can assure you that it is not possible to lose that much money without the old timers being fully aware of it. My supposition is that the means of moving taxpayer money was instituted quickly, whistleblowers were told to shut up and all sorts of beneficial things happened to the people who made the theft possible.”

Melissa poked Holly. “That is maybe a hundred billion in Sacramento and maybe almost ten in Saint Paul. How much more could there be, nationally?”

There was silence around the table as fingers poked screens looking for what other large states have not reported any audits of state government. Holly put her phone down. “New York is about half the size of California and is also a Blue State. So, a rough guess might be that they could have something like half of the fraud in California. And then you could run down the next five blue states like Illinois that amount to a total equaling California in population. So, we might be talking about something like three hundred billion in systematic fraud in seven states that has never passed a decent audit.”

“Like the Pentagon?” said Rocket with a laugh.

“No, the Pentagon runs through nearly a trillion all by itself and hasn’t been able to pass an audit. But it is possible that there is something like the equivalent in Fraud amounting to the complete War Department budget in all fifty states.”

Vic frowned. “This is absurd. There must be a few states that run their budgets and pass Inspector General reports.”

Splash rose to get ready for divine services held at the pleasant little evangelical church down Leesburg Pike. “I think it is much less fraud than what might be the case. It could only be California and Minnesota. And only a hundred and ten Billion dollars in stolen funds.”

Melissa laughed. “That is what I saw in the press release from Kevin Kiley.”

“Who is he?” asked Eddie, looking up from his game of Candy Crush Saga.

“California’s Congressman from the 3rd district north and east of Sacramento. He is inland from the coasts where the air is a little dryer. His press release claims that this sort of garden variety fraud is something known and transferred to other places, not just a place with good hearts and some old Swedes.” She took a sip of Flat Yank. “Kiley is a 40-year-old Republican, and still fairly new. He was elected in 2022 and is next up for reelection in 2026. With the mid-term elections coming up next November, he is starting his campaign early and make a national name for himself.”

“How does he plan to do that in America’s richest state?” asked Splash. “There are plenty of billions to count out there.”

“Yeah, he claims Minnesota may have pioneered fraud, but California has shown us the way it now works in any state it was allowed to get established. Kiley is flacking a new California Auditor report that proves that it is actually his state which wins the title of Fraud Capital of America.”

“How big?”

“The report found massive payment error rates in the delivery of food assistance benefits that could run more than double what opened up the Minnesota Fraud case. That cost the state $2.5 billion in federal funds. Four of eight agencies attained this dubious distinction during Governor Newsom’s term, including the social services department, which was added this year.”

And he claims that California’s six straight missed financial reporting deadlines have put the state’s credit rating and federal funding in jeopardy.”

Newsom denies it, of course, but it was the nonpartisan State Auditor who found that he lost track of ten times the food programs. Like $24 billion in homelessness funds, $32 billion in unemployment fraud, and the number of “high-risk” agencies had doubled. That is $56B to people on the street from just one department. There are seven more to look at just in Sacramento.”

“Is there a guess for how many more billions were stolen just in the Golden state?”

“We can’t just multiply by seven since we don’t know how big the original pots of cash were. But it would not be unusual to estimate the other seven departments must have lost as much as the department of Human Services. So, that could be a hundred billion dollars in the second state to report on how they are doing in the audits?”

Holly tugged at her designer bag, rising to do her own Sundy preparations. “Thank goodness it is only a hundred billion. That seems to leave some room for opportunity for people who can count higher than the mid-seventies in one morning.”

That seemed to be enough for the last Sunday morning of the Old Year. We decided not to worry about money until after lunch.

Copyright 2025 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com