Imagine walking into your bank and discovering that somebody has been helping himself to your money.
Not a few dollars. Not some mysterious service charge that requires three phone calls and a minor nervous breakdown to get reversed.
I’m talking about serious money.
You’d be furious.
You’d want to know who took it, how they got access to it, and why nobody at the bank noticed.
And if somebody working at that bank knew exactly what was happening and could help recover your money, you might be perfectly willing to give that person a reward.
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
Well, welcome to Washington, where apparently even the idea of paying people to expose fraud can become a controversy.
President Trump has proposed a new incentive program that would reward whistleblowers who help uncover fraud involving government money.
The figure being discussed is 1 percent. One percent of recovered money could be a pretty attractive incentive if we’re talking about a multimillion-dollar fraud operation. And believe me, if somebody manages to recover $100 million that was stolen from taxpayers, I don’t think the average American is going to lose sleep over that person receiving a million-dollar reward.
I suspect most taxpayers would have a different question. How much more of our money is missing?
Because that is what bothers me about this entire discussion.
We spend an extraordinary amount of time arguing about how much money the government should collect.
We argue about income taxes, corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and just about every other method politicians have invented to separate Americans from their paychecks.
But once that money reaches the government, an amazing transformation seems to occur. It becomes government money.
No, it doesn’t. It’s our money. It came from people who got up in the morning, went to work, ran businesses, paid employees, and tried to provide for their families.
Some of those people are working two jobs. Some are trying to save enough to buy a home. Some are looking at their grocery bills and wondering how a bag of ordinary household necessities suddenly costs approximately the same as a weekend vacation used to. And Washington takes a portion of what they earn.
The very least Washington can do is make sure it isn’t being stolen.
Is that too much to ask? Apparently, sometimes it is.
At the White House, independent journalist Nick Shirley spoke about his experience investigating suspected fraud in Minnesota. He complained that instead of examining the allegations he raised, much of the establishment media turned its attention toward him.
Now, every accusation deserves scrutiny. Journalists should check the evidence, including evidence presented by other journalists. And government investigators should determine whether crimes occurred rather than simply accepting a viral video as a verdict.
But here’s a question worth asking. Why should it take a young man with a camera to get people asking where enormous sums of public money went? Where were the inspectors? Where were the auditors? Where were the officials whose job descriptions presumably include making sure the money actually reaches the people it was intended to help?
I have no objection to government employees taking a lunch break. I would, however, prefer that somebody check whether the daycare center receiving taxpayer funds is actually operating a daycare center. That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable performance standard.
And when money intended for needy families, hungry children, or vulnerable people is diverted through fraud, the victims aren’t merely the taxpayers. The people who genuinely need those services lose, too. That’s what makes this particularly offensive. There is something especially rotten about stealing money from programs designed to help people who are struggling.
You are taking advantage of taxpayers and exploiting the very people the programs are supposed to serve. And then, when investigators finally start asking questions, we get an argument about whether the whistleblower reward is too generous. Really?
During the White House discussion, a reporter noted that the federal False Claims Act already provides financial incentives for certain whistleblowers, sometimes at percentages considerably higher than Trump’s proposed 1 percent.
That’s a fair point to raise.
In fact, it’s a useful reminder that rewarding people who help uncover fraud isn’t some bizarre new concept invented yesterday. The False Claims Act has been around since the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was president when the original law was enacted. Think about that. We have been dealing with people trying to cheat the federal government since before the automobile, the telephone, and the invention of the political consultant. Some things really are timeless.
The administration’s argument is that existing whistleblower laws don’t cover every kind of government fraud and that a broader incentive could encourage more people to come forward. Fine. Let’s examine the proposal. How will the program work? What evidence will someone need to provide? Who determines whether the information is credible? How do we protect innocent people from false accusations?
And most importantly, how do we ensure the reward is tied to money actually recovered rather than some politician’s press conference announcing an enormous, unproven number?
Those are serious questions. They deserve serious answers. But they don’t undermine the basic idea that people who help recover stolen public money ought to have a reason to speak up.
Now, there’s another part of this conversation that took me straight back to Rush Limbaugh.
Stephen Miller raised an allegation that some fraudulent government payments ultimately find their way into political activity benefiting Democrats.
That is a serious charge. If investigators can trace stolen taxpayer funds into campaign contributions or political organizations, they should produce the evidence and prosecute any crimes they can prove.
But the broader subject reminded me of something Rush discussed for years.
He talked about the circular flow of political money.
Government collects taxes.
Government spends money.
Organizations and interests benefiting from government spending become politically active.
Some support the politicians who favor continuing or expanding those spending programs.
And around we go.
When enormous sums of public money flow through a complicated political system, people have powerful incentives to protect the arrangements that benefit them.
That is precisely why transparency matters.
Follow the money.
Not just when a Republican is accused of wrongdoing. Not just when a Democrat is accused of wrongdoing.
Follow it wherever it goes.
And if it turns out somebody has been stealing from the public, I don’t care whether the culprit has a Republican bumper sticker, a Democratic bumper sticker, or a framed photograph of himself hugging a senator.
Investigate him. Prosecute him if the evidence warrants it. And try to get the money back.
One of the things I find most irritating about Washington is the ease with which enormous sums become abstractions. A million dollars? A rounding error. A billion dollars? Just another line in a budget. A trillion dollars? Somebody will schedule a press conference.
These numbers are so large that people begin discussing them as though they represent Monopoly money.
But every dollar represents somebody’s work.
Somebody earned it. Somebody paid it. And somebody in government was entrusted to use it responsibly.
That word is important. Entrusted.
The government is supposed to be a steward of public money, not the owner of an unlimited checking account.
And when officials fail to detect fraud, fail to investigate warning signs, or fail to recover stolen funds, they owe taxpayers an explanation.
Not a slogan. Not a partisan talking point. An explanation.
Which brings me back to the whistleblower reward.
If a well-designed program helps expose fraud, recover stolen money, and discourage the next crook from trying his luck, I’m willing to hear the case for it.
If it creates opportunities for false accusations, political retaliation, or rewards without genuine recoveries, fix those problems before putting it into practice.
That’s what responsible government is supposed to do.
But here’s what I don’t want to hear.
I don’t want to hear that investigating fraud is somehow less important than protecting the reputation of a government program.
I don’t want to hear that taxpayers should stop asking questions because the subject has become politically inconvenient.
And I certainly don’t want to hear that we should simply accept the losses as the cost of doing business.
Try telling that to a small-business owner who spends an evening trying to make payroll.
Try telling it to a retired couple watching every dollar.
Try telling it to the working mother who is doing everything right and still struggling to get ahead.
They don’t have the luxury of shrugging off missing money.
Why should Washington?
Here’s a radical proposal.
Before politicians ask Americans for another dollar, let’s find out what happened to the dollars they’ve already collected.
And if somebody can help recover money stolen from the American people, perhaps a reward isn’t such a terrible idea.
After all, we already pay an enormous number of people in Washington to protect our interests.
It might be refreshing to reward somebody who actually succeeds.
— Bo
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