We hate to start a weekend with something technical, but we are attempting to understand the source of some of the strange stuff going on in news and messaging last week. We failed due to holiday festivities and because the shores along the vast torrent of cash is inconceivable to us ordinary citizens. And some of us who counted thousands of millions of dollars in government programs and who would have recognized organized internal theft if it had occurred on their watch.

The situation in Minnesota is a classic example of how we have transformed our society and how things work. The Somali community is being castigated for the fraudulent theft of millions of dollars in benefits to two largely refugee communities for Autism Therapy and children’s feeding programs. The startling figure was that more than a billion was expended by the state and channeled into the bank accounts of a coalition og government and NGO workers.

Later reporting suggests the pattern of corruption had migrated throughout the state contracting systems and across various departments to the tune of some $8 Billion. With more to come.

On Thursday, word came that something similar might be happening next door in Maryland. In orders of magnitude, the fraud in Minnesota might amount to ten percent of the total state budget.

That is appalling, even If this pattern of theft was restricted to just two states. But a look at the Federal books in the chart above shows just how dramatic is the extent of an alternate government structure. One protected by the old system and operated jointly as an invisible and criminal welfare system.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates “the federal government loses between $233 billion to $521 billion annually to fraud, based on 2018-2022 data.” Some experts claim the total is higher, reflecting massive undetected losses across programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment. Add in the waste in the other 48 states not mentioned and we might be talking about a bundle of fraud that might amount to something approaching the annual budget of the Department of War ($892 billion).

The amount of fraud all bundled up may be just a little over 2% of our Gross Domestic Product, so taken at a macros level, it doesn’t seem like a lot. But imagine the amount of criminal misconduct that can afford to purchase a nation. Like Venezuela, with the largest petroleum reserves on earth.

The War Department announced last year they had failed the seventh consecutive audit in a row. They said progress had been made though, and they may be able to pass a clean one in 2028. It will be interesting to see if anyone else can, you know?

Copyright 2025 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com