Latest Issue
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
November 22, 2024
Politicians and think-tank wonks of all stripes love to condemn government “waste, fraud, and abuse.” But saying it isn’t hard. Who is the opposition? No one says we need more waste, fraud, and abuse. We’re all 100% agreed all three are bad.
It’s when you get specific—saying this agency or that program isn’t accomplishing what it should—that disagreement arises. Sometimes it’s pure self-interest. As I said last week, one man’s waste is another man’s revenue. But more often, people just have different objectives.
We use those three words together—waste, fraud, abuse—but they’re actually three distinct problems requiring three different approaches.
Waste happens when the government spends money but receives no corresponding benefit. It can be well-intentioned. Congress authorizes some kind of program expecting a certain result, but it doesn’t work that way in practice. Or it can come from poor planning or inadequate research into whatever problem the money was supposed to address.
Fraud is the use of deception to get something you aren’t authorized to receive. A classic example would be someone falsely claiming injury so they can get disability benefits. Or maybe a business exaggerates its expenses and/or hides income to reduce its tax liability. These things happen all the time and they’re very hard to stop without draconian enforcement measures, which are themselves quite expensive.
Abuse is when people apply a legitimate privilege selfishly. It can be subtle and hard to...
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