Sadly, the wasting of taxpayer wealth and tax dollars seems to be a never ending saga, as past posts of waste reinforce the reality that Washington politicians either do not care that your hard earned tax dollars are wasted or they are not smart enough to stop it.
But it is not just Washington politicians that are corrupt and waste taxpayer wealth. Today's post will focus only on California government entities and the associated political waste and criminal corruption:
1)The state government of California launched a program that was designed and supposed to get people with severe mental illnesses off the streets in the state and get them into treatment. Sounds like a noble use of taxpayer wealth but things did not work out as promised:
The program, Care Court, was funded with $236 million.
It was launched in 2022 and intended to reach thousands of state residents with mental illness issues.
Specifically, the program was supposed to help up to 12,000 people.
However, so sadly, state documents show that the program ended up formally helping only 22 people who were sent to court ordered treatment in the ensuing four years.
Thus, so far the running rate is about $10 million spent for each person taken off of the street for mental illness treatment. Even the Washington politicians cannot match this program for incompetence and waste.
2)But the wasting of taxpayer money in California is not restricted to ineffective government programs, good old basic criminal activities in the state also can siphon off taxpayer dollars:
Federal law enforcement recently arrested a Los Angeles charity director for allegedly stealing $23 million in taxpayer funds intended for homeless folks.
He was currently living in a $7 million home/mansion.
He was charged with wire fraud for siphoning off taxpayer funding which he used to purchase his expensive home, a vacation home in Greece, vehicles, and designer goods.
Federal prosecutors accused Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration of having done “very little vetting, very little checks and balances.”
The accusation is that as the director was stealing program funding, 600 state homeless people were being fed ramen noodles instead of the promised and planned nutritious meals.
Investigators working on this case said that it might be just the tip of the iceberg of corruption in California homeless programs.
The potential for up to 20 years in prison is possible, depending on how the judicial case ends up.
But this is not the first instance of homeless funding criminal activity in California since back in October, 2025, Federal prosecutors arrested two Californians and charged them with fraud schemes that stole millions of dollars intended to help the state’s homeless population.
It takes a certain type of low life to steal taxpayer funds for their own benefit and comfort, funds that were supposed to help the most downtrodden citizens in the state.
3)But it is not just homeless support funds that get stolen in California:
Mehmet Oz is the director for Medicare and Medicaid.
He recently drove around through a small, four block area in Los Angeles.
In that four block area, he counted 42 different supposed hospice agencies.
Apparently, Los Angeles county has a whopping 1,923 hospice provider companies, more than the total number of hospice agencies in 36 states COMBINED.
One address in LA was listed as the address for 112 different hospice operations and yet, there was no sign of any hospice services being provided at that address.
Fox News verified Oz’s findings.
Auditors discovered that these “hospices” had ghost patients, were sham companies and had offshore owners in some cases, all of which look like they were billing Medicare for people that not only did not need hospice services but which did not even exist.
According to Oz: "Hospice is crazy here. You've got hospice that's grown seven-fold in the last five years. They represent about three and a half billion dollars of fraud, we believe, just in LA County."
California Attorney General Rob Bonta called hospice fraud "an epidemic in California, specifically in the greater Los Angeles area."
More from Oz: "These are Russian, Armenian gangs, mafia that are leading a lot of these efforts, we believe, have been able to corrupt, and work with doctors who are willing to lie."
Federal prosecutors have charged 73 members of a crime ring throughout the U.S. and Armenia with stealing $100 million of Medicare funds.
But this international crime ring should not be a surprise since a Los Angeles Times investigation identified the fraud ring back in 2020 but state politicians and government employees did nothing to shut down the pilfering of taxpayer wealth.
Throughout the country more than 50% of hospice patients die within 18 days of admittance while Los Angeles hospices were billing Medicare for some patients for 18 months or longer.
State auditors estimate that Los Angeles county hospices overbilled Medicare by $105 million in 2019 alone.
Another state, another day, another defrauding of taxpayers.
4)And while all of this fraud was going on in the state, state politicians ignored or covered up reports, analysis, investigations, and news stories that identified the fraud:
An investigation by CBS News found that California politicians ignored about 75% of every state audit and the resulting recommendations on the wasting of taxpayer wealth via fraud, waste or incompetence.
Their investigation looked at audits that spanned the past ten years.
For example, CBS News identified the waste of $1.5 billion within the Employment Development Department and the improper payments made in just a two year period, 2023-2024.
State government entities wasted over $5 million on unused devices, altered receipts, and unreported benefits.
The Department of Social services may lose $2.5 billion in Federal support because of payment errors.
Many other examples of fraud, waste, and ineffective management of government programs and budgets were identified by CBS News.
It is one thing to be ignorant of fraud and the wasting of taxpayer money, it
is quite another thing to be aware of it, like California politicians were, and not do anything about the waste over a period of ten years.
A lot of fraud in just one state, imagine the nationwide loss of taxpayer dollars through fraud, corruption, and incompetence throughout the entire country.
**********************
If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
**********************
