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Here’s one war that should’ve started years ago: Team Trump’s drive to stamp out fraud is still ramping up, but is already saving the public billions.
This week alone, federal, state and local authorities conducted a string of fresh raids and made arrests, including in New York and California, as part of a nationwide crackdown on Medicaid fraud.
Homeland Security also launched a massive operation to snare illegal immigrants who fraudulently stole $40 million in food stamps, bringing the total in food-stamp fraud ID’d so far to $641 million.
The feds have also destroyed more than 2,200 illegal merchant SNAP devices and disabled more than 2,000 retailer authorization numbers, heading off an estimated $5 billion in potential fraudulent transactions, Fox New reported.
Meanwhile, Tuesday’s sweep in Gotham alone saw more than 80 adult-day-care centers hit in Brooklyn and Queens.
And in Staten Island, prosecutors arrested two operators for $530,000 in billings for hundreds of phantom seniors.
All this follows the epic fraud scheme uncovered last year in Minnesota, where billions are said to have vanished.
One day-care center there alone, made famous by its misspelled name, the “Quality Learing Center,” was caught collecting millions for nonexistent kids.
Last month, a LexisNexis Risk Solutions study put the true cost of food-stamp fraud — including the costs of uncovering it — at more than four times the amount of the theft itself.
The company’s Haywood Talcove says such fraud is now running at “a trillion dollars a year.” Ouch.
The people stealing the funds, he warns, are “real criminal groups doing real damage to our democracy.”
One key problem: While Washington picks up much of the tab for welfare programs, states administer them — so don’t much care about waste or theft.
That’s especially true in blue states, where pols view the growing ranks on the dole as a plus.
In Minnesota, a report found Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison not only turned a blind eye to the thefts, they actually “retaliated against employees who tried to raise concerns.”
In New York, which spends more on Medicaid than any other state, Attorney General Letitia James’ Medicaid Fraud Control Unit has the worst prosecution record in the country.
Fortunately, President Donald Trump’s crackdown, under the leadership of Vice President JD Vance, will send an unmistakable message to the scammers: The jig’s up.
Trump is even offering $30,000 bounties (plus 1% of funds recovered) for tips leading to fraud indictments.
By nabbing current fraudsters and frustrating future ones, this war on fraud should keep paying off for generations — as long as Democrats don’t quietly undo the good work.
For now, it’s hats off to Trump, Vance and the rest: At last, someone is fighting for taxpayers.