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Waste, Fraud and Abuse

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There are few things less inspiring than listening to Republican and Democratic Party candidates and their flunkies discuss entitlement reform.

Last weekend, the Romney camp defended its newly acquired reform high-ground from assaults by the current administration. Rep. Paul Ryan had famously charged that the Democrats’ health care reform package of 2010 had “raided” nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars to help extend Medicare-like benefits to younger populations. The Obama camp swears on a stack of, uh, Bibles, that all it did was cut waste and fraud and, yes, expanded services to seniors in the process and . . .

I don’t have the heart, or stomach, or liver (which organ is it that deals with bile?) to diagnose all this with scientific scrutiny, but I will say, off-hand, both sides look pathetic.

Who can believe that politicians and their hangers-on in the bureaucracies have actually honed in on — much less will actually cut —nearly a trillion dollars of waste, fraud and abuse?

Not that they aren’t there. It’s just that waste and fraud seem awfully stubborn, given that even those spending a lifetime in politics have made no progress against them.

Except during campaign speeches,

Washington politicians seem much friendlier to the wasters, fraudsters and abusers than to taxpayers. And the former are better organized, too.

It’s all preposterous.

And the supposed Republican reformers? They are “defending Medicare” so that older people don’t have to lose anything. But if the system is falling apart, it may be that the only fair thing is for every current recipient to lose something, so as not to lose everything.

The unmentionable truth? Waste is part of the system, and the programs are themselves fraudulent and abusive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

4 replies on “Waste, Fraud and Abuse”

I’ve been online since Prodigy, but the highest honor I’ve ever received was Paul Jacob’s public comment on my Wednesday 5 January 2011 lettter in WSJ. (What was the second highest? There was no second!)

My question: has anyone brought up the question of where in the US Constitution there is any mention of anything remotely resembling mediscare?

General welfare? Read the last three paragrafs of Madison’s Federalist 41.

Arn Nelson on the Democrat-occupied west bank of Lake Michigan (IL 9th CD, repped by Nancy Pelosi’s evil twin, Jan Schakowsky)

I am a fan of your work Mr. Jacob but this time you goofed. Paul Ryan is not pathedic. He is honest and sincere and he will make things better. You, go in the corner and meditate a bit.

Mr. Nelson: the ‘general welfare’ clause seems to cover just about anything Congress wants to do. Madison’s Federalist 41 isn’t part of the Constitution. The general welfare clause is.
Add to that the authority to regulate interstate oommerce and whatever wouldn’t be allowed by any logical person is suddenly constitutional.

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