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The Amount of Taxpayer Dollars We Lose
to Fraud Is Staggering

Original Article

Posted By: Mercedes44, 1/12/2026 11:55:31 AM

The scandal surrounding Somali-linked welfare fraud in Minnesota has been festering for more than a decade. For years, it lingered as an open secret, quietly discussed and carefully avoided. That era has ended. The Trump administration is going to turn a blind eye to it in the way other past administrations have in the past. In an exclusive interview, Christopher Rufo and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent laid out just how vast the problem has become — and why Minnesota is just the tip of the iceberg because what the Treasury Department has uncovered is worse than most people realize.

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Reply 1 - Posted by: Bur Oak 1/12/2026 12:00:26 PM (No. 2053722)
The bottom line is that our government bureaucracy is incompetent along with much of Congress.
11 people like this.

Reply 2 - Posted by: Strike3 1/12/2026 12:13:44 PM (No. 2053727)
The government-sanctioned fraud is just as harmful as the illegal fraud. It goes by innocent names like Welfare, SNAP, EBT, public school meals programs and Medicaid. We are forced to pay for the laziness and abuses perpetrated by the parasite class. Also, we continue to overlook the many unearned luxuries and services that Congress has voted for themselves simply because they can..
13 people like this.

Reply 3 - Posted by: DaBigGuy 1/12/2026 12:29:58 PM (No. 2053742)
FTA: "Either way," Bessent added, "money needs to stay in the U.S., or your benefits need to be cut." Cut them 100%. Without delay.
5 people like this.

Reply 4 - Posted by: Trump Won 1/12/2026 12:40:03 PM (No. 2053749)
Thanks LBJ. I am so ashamed that a Texan started all of this democrat fraud.
6 people like this.

Reply 5 - Posted by: red1066 1/12/2026 12:41:23 PM (No. 2053751)
This confirms what every taxpayer has suspected for decades. Musk saw it too when his group started to check the books, but the corrupt inside the beltway crowd and media didn't want the truth to come out.
8 people like this.

Reply 6 - Posted by: MickTurn 1/12/2026 12:42:48 PM (No. 2053752)
Crush the Enablers AND Perps with LIFE IN PRISON. Hanging some of them in public would still work as a deterrent, though I prefer the Firing Squad Option for them...Clean, Efficient, No One EVER SURVIVES!
3 people like this.

Reply 7 - Posted by: MickTurn 1/12/2026 12:49:29 PM (No. 2053759)
#4 LBJ's Legacy is stuffing ballot boxes. That is how he got into Congress from Pharr County, Texas long ago. Read the book; "A Texan takes a look at Lyndon" by Haley, J. Evetts, for all the gory details! My Dentist gave me a copy when I was 15, at the time I really didn't understand it then, but Now I REALLY DO. The copy is in my Library...to you Youngsters, a Library is where one keeps their BOOKS, I keep my computer etc. in MY Library just so everything is easy to access. On a related subject, I knew a guy (Unnamed) that got married and I was invited. Big Southern Mansion in San Marcos, Texas, Historic Landmark, Lady Bird Johnson was there, I got to meet her but was NEVER a Democrap!
1 person likes this.

Reply 8 - Posted by: Rumblehog 1/12/2026 12:53:28 PM (No. 2053764)
That's why the entire "Welfare State" is un-Constitutional and was never envisioned to be part of our government by the Founding Fathers. If any State wants to do that garbage, then they can go for it, but without Federal tax dollars backing them up, any State attempting it would soon go bankrupt, and rightfully so.
7 people like this.

Reply 9 - Posted by: J. Arthur Brown 1/12/2026 1:23:34 PM (No. 2053778)
I think Margolis inadvertently left out the word "not" before "going to turn a blind eye" in the first paragraph.
4 people like this.

Reply 10 - Posted by: bpl40 1/12/2026 1:24:48 PM (No. 2053779)
And yet . Our Lib friends refuse to accept it as fact because that might politically benefit Trump. The grip of TDS on some brains is amazing.
5 people like this.

Reply 11 - Posted by: mifla 1/12/2026 3:33:02 PM (No. 2053850)
Every taxpayer should push back big time any time a politician of either party talks about raising taxes. Deliver the a message with the word Minnesota in it.
2 people like this.

Reply 12 - Posted by: 3XALADY 1/12/2026 6:04:06 PM (No. 2053893)
#8 Something else I don't understand is that every time there is a hurricane, tornado, bad crops, fire, etc. etc. people expect the government to cover their losses. I thought that was what we paid insurance fees for. FEMA needs to get gone. I was in a hurricane in FL 8/04, we had to sign up with FEMA but got nothing because we were insured. Another thing, why are insurance companies getting by with not paying damages from these things, i.e., the California fire, tornado damage in north St. Louis. They do that because they get by with it.
3 people like this.

Reply 13 - Posted by: anniebc 1/12/2026 6:43:58 PM (No. 2053914)
The fraud is enough to cut all our taxes to below 3%. I'll take zero. Get our money back from the fraud, pay off the debt, and fund government with tariffs. There!
1 person likes this.

Reply 14 - Posted by: edgar 1/12/2026 6:48:57 PM (No. 2053919)
We need term limits. The stewards of tax dollars are grossly incompetent failures and need to be replaced with a high rate of frequency.
1 person likes this.

Reply 15 - Posted by: Mike22 1/13/2026 4:15:34 AM (No. 2054034)
Bessent estimates the fraud to be 10% of the Federal budget. Having worked on projects funded by Federal grants, worked in the Federal government, worked in state government and worked for companies providing goods and services to the Federal government, I believe that it is more than that. And considering waste, fraud and abuse combined, I would estimate up to 50% of the Federal budget could be returned to taxpayers. And a large percentage of most state budgets as well.
1 person likes this.

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