May 6, 2025
What DOGE Flagged as Unemployment Fraud Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg—Most of Which Will Never Be Recovered
The Department of Government Efficiency recently spotlighted unemployment benefits paid to tens of thousands of individuals whose reported birthdates indicated they were either children or dead. One claimant’s birthdate even suggested he or she hadn’t been born yet. As Elon Musk said, “Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future!” The $382 million DOGE identified that taxpayers lost on the associated improper payments is real money. But it’s also just…
April 24, 2025
In Opposing Last Month’s Continuing Resolution, Nearly All Democrats Voted to Shut Down Welfare Checks, Too
The Continuing Resolution (CR) Congress approved and President Donald Trump signed in March reflected a reversal of recent partisan roles on legislation preventing a government shutdown. That is, contrary to recent type, nearly all Democrats cast votes that would have shut down the federal government while Republicans overwhelmingly voted to keep it open. But that wasn’t the…
December 3, 2024
Avoiding an Unemployment Loan Bailout
Taxpayers in most states may have dodged a billion-dollar bullet on election day. That is, if the outcome had been different, liberal lawmakers would have been uniquely positioned to bail out California and New York unemployment benefit debts, and in the process shift large costs onto taxpayers in other states. All states levy payroll taxes…
January 29, 2024
Pandemic Unemployment Fraud in Context: Causes, Costs, and Solutions
Key Points Read the PDF.
November 20, 2023
The Next Time States Are “Swimming in Money” Make Them Repay Their Federal Loans
The pandemic was full of firsts, including the first time states received hundreds of billions of federal dollars they could use to shore up their depleted state unemployment insurance (UI) programs. The March 2020 CARES Act provided $150 billion in a flexible “Coronavirus Relief Fund,” whose potential uses included covering states’ “unemployment insurance costs.” Then the March 2021 American…
July 19, 2023
Americans Aren’t Buying Bidenomics—Because They’ve Heard the Lies Before
President Joe Biden is desperately trying to sell Americans on Bidenomics, but they’re not buying it. Recent polls show only 39% of US adults approve of Biden’s economic leadership, and a majority of the country has disapproved of his overall job performance for almost two years. At this stage of a presidential administration, only Jimmy Carter had…
June 7, 2023
How ‘Negativity Bias’ Skews the Conversation About Artificial Intelligence
Just as I was preparing an article titled “Calm Down About Artificial Intelligence”—one in a series—Marc Andreesen has preempted me with an 18-page blog post inventorying the main threads in the “AI doom-loop” and why these concerns are either wrong or substantially overblown. In fairness, Andreesen is open to the criticism that he is engaging in…