Can you take a guess at how much fraud they think occurred from all the PPP loans? And, by loan, it was really money that would never be paid back
Congress is shocked, shocked by the COVID fraud it created
Like Captain Renault in the gambling casino in “Casablanca,” congressmen are “shocked, shocked” by all the fraud spawned by the trillions of dollars in COVID handouts they approved.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis issued a report Thursday blaming fintech firms for the pilfering of Paycheck Protection Program loans that began in 2020. But the real fraud is the illusion that members of Congress give a damn about plundering American taxpayers.
PPP was enacted in March 2020 and eventually provided $800 billion in loans to more than 11 million businesses. Congress designed the program to carpet-bomb the nation with federal tax dollars.
The Small Business Administration, which administered the plan, effectively told people, “Apply and sign and tell us that you’re really entitled to the money,” said Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. He testified PPP was an invitation to fraudsters because there weren’t “even minimal checks to make sure that the money was getting to the right people at the right time.”
Is this going to look like the United Nation’s Oil For Food program, where they said “oh, just 10% was a problem”?
Government investigators estimate up to $100 billion in PPP loans was fraudulent. The feds gave 342 people who said their name was “N/A” PPP loans. Dozens of New York City and New York state employees were arrested this week for their role in a multimillion-dollar PPP fraud scheme.
$100 billion out of $800 billion. So, worse than OFF. It’s fantastic that people are being arrested (anyone shocked by government employees being involved?), but, will the government claw back The People’s money? Probably not.
Happily, a scapegoat has been found. According to the new congressional report, the problem was that the financial-technology companies (fintechs) that handled PPP-claims applications failed to show due diligence. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the select subcommittee’s chairman, declared that “many fintechs … refused to take adequate steps to detect and prevent fraud despite their clear responsibility to safeguard taxpayer funds.”
Who authorized this? Who in government was tasked with, as we say in the private sector, “inspect what you expect”? Let me tell you a little story about what happened at a little wireless company I worked for in the 90’s. The 2 owners hired a guy to manage their Greenville store. After around 6 months, I started noting the huge number of missing payments on pagers from that area. And problems with ordering of phones and accessories. After about 9 months they closed that store, because it was just losing money. A lot. The manager then started working in the Cary store as assistant manager. One day a Pitt County Sheriff deputy and Wake County Sheriff deputy walked in with arrest warrants.
They had authorization to open the guy’s car trunk. Because his mom authorized it, since the guy fraudulently purchased it in his mom’s name. There were warrants from Pitt and Wake, along with areas in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. He was a massive con artist. The deputies explained a bunch to us. He ripped off his mom, his mom! for about $120K. Guess who the owners blamed? Their accountant. Fired him. He was a good guy. The thing is, the owners failed to do any background check, and barely paid attention to what was going on at the Greenville store. His trunk was full of cash and check pager payments, along with lots of inventory, probably around $30k worth.
It was their fault for failing to inspect. Just like Congress, which failed to set any measures to safeguard the “loans”.
The select subcommittee sifted through 83,000 pages of internal documents from private companies to compile its 120-page report. But it would be far more interesting to see a report excerpted from tens of thousands of PPP-related emails, texts and letters from members of Congress, their staff and their campaign operations.
When did our “best and brightest” recognize PPP would be the biggest boondoggle of the century? Did they take any steps to fix the problem or curb the looting? (Did hell freeze over?) How many members of Congress sought campaign contributions as a result of the geyser of COVID spending they unleashed?
That would be a good investigation for the GOP led House. Of course, how many of them took advantage, because, politicians will be politicians.
Could there be gambling going on at Rick’s Cafe?
The feds expected the PPP money to get out there quickly, as people were losing their jobs left and left. The faster you want something done, the greater the chance for things to get f(ouled) up, and the greater the chance you will get ripped off.