New York isn’t the only major American city that just elected a far-left mayor. Seattle’s new chief executive is a hardcore radical named Katie Wilson, and she’s as wild-eyed as they come. In a recent interview, she responded to allegations of child care fraud within the local Somali community, driven by a ballooning billion-plus-dollar scandal in Minnesota.
“The fear in the Somali community is real. The fear in immigrant communities is real, so we’re taking that very seriously,” Wilson intoned. The journalist conducting the exchange asked a follow-up question, inquiring if the mayor would pursue any information on the fraud claims by referring the matter to relevant agencies. Without a moment’s hesitation, Wilson arched her eyebrows and issued a dismissive, proud ‘no.’ She wanted viewers to know how affirmatively, performatively uninterested she is in the matter.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has at least paid some empty lip service to fighting fraud, having utterly failed to do so, but similarly and ostentatiously pivoted to a victimhood framework, blathering about “white supremacy.” Indulging, ignoring, or even aiding fraudulent theft of taxpayer dollars appears to be the cost of doing business in Democratic politics these days. If there are key identity and constituent groups accused of stealing, it mustn’t be mentioned, let alone stopped. Democrats demand that hardworking Americans pay inexorably more in taxes to finance ever-growing government spending, but they evidently don’t care if much of that spending gets vacuumed up by sprawling criminal enterprises. And any effort to rein in such abuses, such as firming up eligibility and verification requirements, is demagogued as mean-spirited “cuts.”
Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act entailed some modest Medicaid reforms regarding eligibility. Democrats fumed that these were draconian “cuts” that would rip needed healthcare away from indigent Americans. In fact, under the law, overall Medicaid spending is still increasing, just not at the turbo-charged rate Democrats preferred. The legislation clamps down on illegal immigrants receiving taxpayer benefits to which they are not entitled, and it requires nondisabled, working-age adults to demonstrate some minimal work, volunteering, or educational pursuits to receive Medicaid payments.
Given the prodigious amount of Medicaid “waste, fraud, and abuse” — a D.C. cliche that is sometimes invoked to sidestep serious structural spending problems, but is nonetheless a very real phenomenon — that has just recently been exposed, stiffening eligibility checks should be a non-controversial no-brainer. But it’s not. Indeed, it’s demonized as cruelty, even though ensuring that tax dollars only flow to legitimate recipients actually helps the vulnerable populations for which such largesse is intended. Blindly attacking that righteous and common-sense goal is, either explicitly or effectively, an endorsement of large-scale fraud.
The same dynamic applies in the current debate over expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Democrats forced through that law without a single GOP vote during the Obama administration, on the central promise of affordability. That pledge has, of course, crumbled. During Joe Biden’s presidency, they tacked on brand new “emergency” Obamacare taxpayer subsidies for insurance companies, even benefiting households earning mid-six-figure incomes. These expensive subsidies were only “temporary,” Democrats vowed, establishing and extending them without any Republican support. They set the deadline that has now lapsed, with the supposed “emergency” far in the rearview mirror, but they’re now trying to frame its expiration and resulting rising premiums as a GOP-caused healthcare crisis. Republicans are asking to — stop me if this sounds familiar — cut down on rampant fraud within the system, which Democrats are resisting. Why would any responsible leader of any political party defend this outrageous status quo, as described by the Wall Street Journal last month?
“The GAO last fall began an undercover test in which it submitted insurance applications for fictitious individuals to the federal ObamaCare exchange and insurance brokers. Nearly all of its invented people were able to enroll in subsidized plans despite submitting false or no records to verify their identities and incomes. Of GAO’s 24 applications, 23 were approved. Eighteen enrollees were still covered as of September, suggesting that the exchange and insurers didn’t verify information even after enrollment. The subsidies paid to insurance companies for those 18 applicants totalled more than $10,000 per month … GAO also analyzed enrollment data in 2023 and 2024 for data anomalies. It found more than 29,000 Social Security numbers in 2023 and nearly 68,000 in 2024 that were used to receive more than one year’s worth of insurance coverage with subsidies in a single year—meaning the same Social Security number was used by more than one person. In 2023 one Social Security number was used to apply for more than 125 policies.“ (Emphasis added.)
IN FOCUS: DEMOCRATS’ KNEE-JERK CYNICISM EXPOSED ON VENEZUELA INCOHERENCE
An expert quoted by the Wall Street Journal estimates that in 2025, more than 6 million people were wrongfully enrolled in the Obamacare subsidy program, costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. Only through the prism of deeply cynical politics can efforts to at least partially clean up that mess be assailed and framed as the infliction of cruel harm. We should be thwarting fraudsters’ schemes and protecting hardworking taxpayers, should we not? When a political party runs interference for criminal abuses and shouts “cuts!” over entirely reasonable reforms, even amid net spending increases, something is badly broken.
In the past, loud Democratic objections to alleged “cuts” have often signaled a desire to increase spending more than Republicans have been willing to. That word, however, must now also be regarded as a major red flag for fraud. It’s long past time to break up the protection racket.