Leftist-Progressives: Always The Dependable Deniers - Granite Grok

Leftist-Progressives: Always The Dependable Deniers

“An individual, in promoting his own interest, may injure the public interest; a nation, in promoting the general welfare, may check the interest of a part of its members.” —Friedrich List

Last week the Union Leader’s Gary Rayno reported on a check made of electronic databases searching for potential welfare fraud. House Speaker Bill O’Brien is sponsoring legislation that would require Health and Human Services to cross-check recipients in an effort to save taxpayer money to root out potential welfare fraud.

Naturally, any astute observer who has long followed the conversation on public entitlements can nearly guess, as if looking into a crystal ball, what the push-back is going to look like. And true to their principles of class warfare and legalized theft, opponents of this effort are dependable.

As reported in the UL article,  “[A]dvocates for the ‘poor and disabled’ said such programs may actually cost more money than they save.” I actually laughed out loud when I read that assertion.  I do not scoff at helping the poor and disabled, but I scoff at those who do what they do under that pretext…often defined as exploitation.  So, on the one hand, these self-proclaimed advocates of the poor, needy and disabled advocate, lobby and pressure for increased funds for their constituency. They spend considerable energy on these efforts, yet when those who provide the funding, (the taxpayer) asks for some level of accountability, they rebuff us with retorts that such efforts will cost more money than they save.

So on the one hand, these advocates want more and more money without any visible or meaningful regard to the fiscal health of the state budget, yet when an accountability effort manifests, they become fiscal conservatives. Clearly paradoxical.

“We already have a system in place that works very, very well,” (this system) is“fine-tuned to apply to specific programs we have here in New  Hampshire.”

Says, Sarah Mattson, policy director for New Hampshire Legal Services to the Union Leader

“Works very well?” Speaker O’Brien cited parts of the search that found:

  • 9 percent of those receiving food stamps have an out-of-state primary address;
  • more than 5,500 of those on Medicaid have an out-of-state primary address.
  • 56 dead people were listed on the Medicaid search, including a woman who died in November 1983.
  • More than 2,800 people have assets over $400,000, including a woman who owns property valued at $1.2 million

Mattson countered saying, “No one disagrees there is value in ensuring that the people the state serves are those who need services the most. But this bill does not do that.”  But none of those pushing back have come up with a solution for real accountability. Their willing to say “this one won’t work” but we are not going to say what they think meets the accountability need.  And for (their) good reason:  Advocacy is to expand funding for their programs and consituencies.

Accountability of any type is counter-intuitive to efforts of welfare-state advocates.  Any accountability will potentially expose other lax-efficiencies long overdue to be confronted. Lets say we find out that more than 55% of monies distributed are found to be spent of salaries, benefits and other issues ancillary to the actual need benefit. Such a convention would begin the veritable peeling back of the proverbial entitlement onion.

MaryLou Beaver is the chairman of the Family Assistance Advisory Council. Beaver countered that HB 1658 would result in needy people being forced to turn to cities and towns for help while they wait to be cleared for state services, citing a potential to downshift cost to the cities and towns. Another “Concerned Fiscal Conservative.

Many believe we have long had a problem with those who would, “game the system.” Liberal progressives dismiss even the smallest amounts of fraud and rationalize that such fraud, at very low levels is acceptable.  This notion is self-evident in the expansion of the entitlement culture where hacks who advocate for the poor also increase their job security footprint, without regard to the taxpayer footing the bill. Welfare-state advocates’ arguments defend the status-quo, lacking any meaningful response to what brought this action to the forefront.  Welfare State advocates are dependable deniers when it comes to accountability. Many view this is corruption.

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