What stands out to me is the leadership vacuum. This was a moment for Democrats to show institutional courage, own the oversight failure, enforce aggressively, and fix the system in public view. Instead, the response has felt delayed and defensive. That’s a strategic mistake. They still have a window to demonstrate equal-rule accountability, but it is closing fast.
"...and the ever-reliable bogeyman of 'white supremacy.'"
Whenever someone starts blathering on about white supremacy, I automatically ignore whatever point they are trying to make. To me, it is a corollary of Godwin's Law and a sure sign that whoever resorts to that argument has no valid argument.
"No more will we tolerate lax oversight of a community because of worries about accusations of racism or the withholding of political support."
If only that were true...
"Think about it. If you wanted safe streets and public order would your first impulse be to turn to…the Democrats? Or if you wanted a secure, actually-enforced border? How about efficient, effective delivery of public services? Or rapid completion of public projects and infrastructure? Or nonideological public administration?"
Abigail Spanberger ran on "affordability," but since taking office, electric rates have doubled and 51 new tax increases are being pushed, not to mention more California-style green initiatives that will only make life more expensive. Gun ownership for honest citizens is being aggressively attacked while murderers, rapists and child molesters are getting reduced sentences and restored voting rights. The latter makes one wonder who their base really is...
Ruy, I love what you're trying to do. I lost faith in Republicans 25 years ago, but after 50 years of voting I have never had faith in Democrats. It's always been the same worn out arguments, wash, rinse and repeat. I would love to see the so-called Democratic Party become a party of integrity and common sense, but you have a tough row to hoe before that ever happens.
Teixeira is right but he should not expect the Democrats to take him seriously. They are so accustomed to turning every issue into a racial issue that it would be hard to persuade them not to turn the issue of welfare fraud into a racial one.
Recently, a sewer pipe broke in D.C., sending hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac. Naturally, the feds blamed it on state and local government while the state and local governments blamed it on the federal government. Yet, if you look at the interview by Maryland governor Wes Moore on CNN, notice how the interviewer and he turn the sewage spill into a racial issue. Interviewer Kasie Hunt: "What's it about for the President if it's not about race?" Gov. Moore: "You know, the fact that I'm the only black governor in this country and the fact that he seems to have a real issue with me, I think that's that's that's an issue he's got to take up."
Yes racism is the problem, not infrastructure constructed on the assumption only a population of a certain size would utilize the utilities. All, as ever more people are continually crammed into all ready full neighborhoods, with no thought whatsoever as to water, sewer and power limitations.
Dems worship at the alter of density. It should terrify anyone with rudimentary Math skills. This will not be the last US sewer pipe to explode, regardless of Governor skin hue.
Another home run by Ruy. Scott Bessent has Treasury agents tracking money sent from Minnesota to Somalia. Treasury agents are well seasoned at chasing dollars, decades post 9/11. Terror funding and Drug Kingpin ill gotten gains, flow all over the planet. They all violate US banking laws.
It is far more likely that massive Minnesota fraud was impossible to find, not due to Somali criminal masterminds, but because no one was looking. Worse yet for Dems would be state and local government running interfere for fraudsters, to avoid the blowback on Dems and migrants. Moreover, it appears the Minn numbers will dwarf Mississippi losses.
Soon, Dems maybe very surprised to find how helpful AI is identifying both financial and voting fraud. During Covid, billions of tax dollars were inexplicably sent to prisons, nursing homes and locals as far flung as Nigeria, for business interruption compensation. AI should be able to stop such fraud and reveal subsequent coverups.
If it cannot already, surely soon AI will be able to run the name, birthdate and birthplace of an applicant for government aid or a ballot, and quickly determine if it legitimate or a fiction. If many kennels allow vacationers to log in, and check on their boarded pets 24/7, how hard would it be for every subsidized daycare or feeding program to be required to record business hours, with faces blurred, so the actual number of people in attendance, can counted by AI?
Until this point, validating mail in ballots has been impossible, but AI should soon change that. Mail in ballots checked against a master list of American citizens registered to vote, their birthdates and birthplace, along with their state residence, should not be that difficult.
As for Dems nominating someone other than a Progressive,it is certainly possible, but probably not probable. Along with Progressives enjoying nearly all the Party energy, Teacher's and Government Worker's Unions carry a lot of sway with Dems. They provide hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations, free election labor, not to mention reliably voting. School Choice and DOGE have sent both ever more Left, in an attempt to maintain their ranks. They seem unlikely to move even slightly Right. It is impossible to imagine a Dem WH candidate winning the Primary, without their support.
Perhaps awaiting a Rep implosion is the Dem's main election game plan, because after years of voters self sorting, and Blue States and the Party moving ever more Left, it remains, not only their best available strategy, but the only truly viable one.
It's hard for a Dem candidate to win without teacher union support. Josh Shapiro ran on school choice, but then quickly bent the knee once elected because no Dem for school choice is getting elected to a national office.
One of the best parts of Al From's memoir, The New Democrats and the Return to Power, is his noting how many Great Society liberals saw welfare as more a problem than a help for poor people. In the South, welfare was a tool used by segregationist politicians to keep poor black people in line. Robert Kennedy also wanted to shift the emphasis of social policy from welfare to work.
Democrats in the late 20th century ignored the downsides of welfare so long that, by the time Republicans forced Clinton to sign welfare reform, it was excessively harsh. One of the effects of Clinton sticking to his needlessly complex health care reform for so long in 1994 was that he had less time to devote to the welfare reform he wanted to pass, one that would have put more emphasis on creating jobs than on just getting people off welfare. When Democrats don't tackle middle class concerns early on, Republicans tackle them instead.
You might add a fifth problem: party discipline. That may be counterintuitive. When a state legislature tells you they vote the way leadership tells them, the party has a problem. Remember the days when people voted for the candidate, not the party? Now I know that the knowledge, experience, and ethical standards of any particular legislator are irrelevant. Today every vote for a Democrat is a vote for leadership, which has been pulled far left.
Some of the problems with Democrat governance may be a result of their refusal to fight fraud in their programs. Money lost to fraud obviously was not used to implement policy goals. Instead, rampant fraud only leads to the budgetary problems and high taxes that are a feature of every Democrat-run polity.
It’s time for Democrats to realize they will never be able to demonstrate that their policies work as long as they look the other way on fraud and abuse.
Imagine, Jude, if the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal had broken during the 2024 Presidential campaign instead of after it. Gov. Walz would have seemed even more like a clown than he already did and would have been even more of a liability to the Democratic ticket than he already was.
Democrats seem to be less inclined to monitor their programs. They seem content to focus on the goal of the program, rather than whether the program met its goal, should be modified, or a different approach taken. The background of many elected Democrats officials may not be in the results oriented business world.
Given the level of coverage for the fraud I suspect that money will be traced from the State to the "daycare center" which will then donate lots of that assistance back to the officials that provide it. I also suspect that lots of that money also goes to democrat front operartions that are in the "daycare" business. If the money goes through Somali accountants and accounts that will be hard to prove.
I suspect that if you follow where the fraud money went, you will find a lot of money went to activist groups to fund sinecures for big donors' kids (who else is going to hire a gender studies major from Yale for $250K?) and campaign contributions for democrat politicians.
I will never understand why the liberals aren't for reasonable government frugality. If you run a tight ship, you can address more needs. Why don't they get that? This has baffled me for many years. You'd think that tight, frugal management of government would be something that both parties would have at least self-interested reasons to pursue, even if they don't otherwise care one little bit about this country.
Spot on re: efficient delivery of public services and rapid infrastructure improvements! WhichEVER party can upgrade my experience with Unemployment, the DMV, the IRS (better websites, many more well-paid US workers answering the phone) would get my vote. Still waiting, but thanks for the excellent article!
I hear you re: gov't bloat but there's literally no one picking up the phone at NY State Unemployment office. You get a message and then you get hung up on, and this is not a way to treat those who've been kicked out of a job and can't find a way to collect their benefits. We had to drive down to the actual local branch and pick up a hotline to the right office to complete our transaction - it shouldn't be this way.
I 100% agree - it's an everywhere problem. I went into the DMV and there are banks of computers there and you have to fill in all your information and request an appointment. While workers are sitting around because their appointments are in half hour blocks and they can get done in 10 minutes. Private companies are just as bad. I was sent an inaccurate 1099 from an insurance company and I'm getting the run-around like you wouldn't believe. I've spent hours on the phone and get promised it's in the mail and 10 days later, nothing, hours on the phone again.
As Ruy writes, we're looking for the party who can deliver efficiency and effectiveness in these public services - that will require some well-trained, well-paid workers to do this, and I'm personally in favor of many more good jobs for US workers than they're currently able to find.
The fraud in state-administered, federally funded welfare programs will not stop until state government (and therefore state taxpayers) are held financially accountable for losses due to fraud. Who thinks MN would not have been more assertive dealing with accusations of fraud if state government knew it would have to pay back the US Treasury for the fraudulent losses of federal taxpayer funds?
“replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
Every time I read this I get sick.
We just took our two grandsons to Tombstone, the town of the famous gunfight (next to Fly's photography studio, not at the OK corral).
Everything you have read about (the OK corral, Boot Hill cemetery) is privately owned, and you can't see them without purchasing a ticket.
BLASPHEMY!
well, maybe not. A lot of the old buildings have been restored, and the exhibits that you pay for are absolutely mind-boggling. There are stores galore with antiques and touristy items. And the cemetery and mines and places where men bought women are preserved!
ALL FROM CAPITALISM. All from "rugged individuals" doing something that no "collective warmth" could accomplish.
In a few minutes our daughter will be here at our home. She is 8 1/2 months pregnant. Her baby has a serious heart problem, which a series of doctors are taking care of. The baby's health is financed by our taxes....because her husband has a serious medical disability and, hard as he tries, cannot work. He was an Army Ranger, Special Forces, Green Beret (i.e., he's not a lazy no-nothing). This is a baby that would have died 50 years ago.
The techniques, strategies, machines, medicines, etc. were all invented by CAPITALISM..... People with ideas and "rugged individualism" who have made our lives better and who will result in saving that baby's life.
Which would that family prefer? Collective warmth or a live baby????
I think this is a terrific post. Mr. Teixeira is absolutely right about the cost to liberal governance of tolerating fraudulent misuse of public funds. He's also right about how fear of appearing "racist" can poison good governance and how threats of attacks on government as "racist" can be coercive. (I don't mean to suggest that racism in America is not an enduring problem, but misuse and overuse of the term and the narrative has been so widespread as to understandably discredit the term among large sectors of the public.)
I think Mr. Teixeira's swipe at Mamdani is misplaced. There is no reason why "collectivism," in the Social Democrats' usage, can't be translated into good, disciplined governance, and the fact that a mayor of a progressive city may provide anti-progressives elsewhere with talking points simply because his aspirations are openly progressive shouldn't preclude any city from choosing the type of mayor it wants (as was clearly the case in NYC). I think the problem is that the Democratic Party in New York was unable to recruit a pragmatic candidate with as much appeal and apparent commitment to good governance as the Democratic Socialists were -- Andrew Cuomo was many things, but not that.
But if Mamdani does prove to be significantly capable of governing his enormous city with integrity using a progressive agenda, then more power to him. I'd rather see him demonstrate to progressives the compromises with ideology necessary for good, progressive-minded governance than see him fail and make life worse for seven million people while providing ammunition to attack Democrats across the board. Because one thing that's a certainty is that GOP partisans are intent on branding the entire Democratic Party as its progressive wing, and will continue to do so unless progressives like Mamdani bring visibly successful results to governance.
I'd add that while it has become commonplace to deplore (justifiably) corruption in various types of government welfare programs, where public monies are diverted to illegitimate private benefits, I believe there is a far more pervasive issue of waste in public funds that are disbursed to private contractors or diverted to the coffers of under-regulated monopolies -- problems that are so complex and difficult to assess that the public's eyes glaze over when lax governance is raised as an issue.
I could be wrong, I only read the headline , but it would appear Mamdani has reneged on his promise to add 5K new NYC cops, 6 weeks into his administration.
That may appeal to certain Progressive sliver of voters. To violent crime victims, overwhelmingly women, and Independents, probably less so.
Hi Ms. Ross, I believe the promise was not Mamdani's but was former-Mayor Adams'. Mamdani's plan, as I understand it, is to maintain the police force at current numbers and to add a budget somewhat larger in size than Adams' planned police expansion to create a new department charged with hiring and administering a new corps of community response personnel. They will be tasked with dealing with calls concerning mental health crises (or partnering with police, depending on the situation), and with taking over various existing violence prevention programs, thus freeing up the existing police force to focus on crime and violent situations.
I don't know whether this will work -- it's easy to see arguments against it. If it shows good results it will provide a new model other cities can adapt; if it fails it will discourage similar initiatives elsewhere.
Sorry to see it given that I was a solid Democrat for 40 years, but the party has been run by its "progressives," a/k/a crazies, for more than a decade. No one has to "brand" them with that. They have branded themselves, and are unrecognizable to me.
Here in Washington State, I pay $2 a gallon more than the national average for gasoline, and a 25% tax on propane, levied by a "climate commitment" tax that's siphoned into the general fund. Democrats yammer about "democracy," but are ramming through an income tax in spite of 10 "no" votes over many years, and have played a trick to make it immune to repeal via voter initiative.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that the Democratic Party is dead to me. This doesn't mean I've become a Republican. It means that I am one of some millions of people in the Pacific NW who are effectively unrepresented by anyone. Don't try to deflect from the failures.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience, Mr. James. I probably wouldn't share your general view if I lived in Washington State (I'm still a liberal who generally votes Democratic without distaste), but I can understand your point of view and appreciate your disapproval of implementing taxation by specifically avoiding a referendum.
I want to add something about gas prices (just one of the matters you raise). I used AI to get a reading of current prices in Seattle (about $4.50/gal.) and nationally (about $2.90 on average). Then I used the BLS inflation calculator to run an experiment. In 1959 my family drove as tourists from the East Coast to the West. My brother and I were fascinated by the variability of gas prices. I remember that on the East Coast they were about 23 or 24 cents per gallon, and in California they were 36-37 cents per gallon -- I think I remember us celebrating when we stopped somewhere at the price was 40 cents, but that would have been an outlier. (In case you're wondering why we celebrated, I suppose it was because we didn't have to pay and money wasn't real to us yet.) If you run those prices through an inflation calculator, 23 cents in 1959 corresponds to $2.56 now and 36 cents corresponds to $4.01.
The reason I'm writing all this is because I'm convinced that the real cost of gas now in constant dollars is very little different from the cost of gas prior to the huge oil shocks of the 1970s, and I have marveled for years that this specific measure has such overwhelming political salience. In my experience, gas prices have generally, apart from exceptional periods (OPEC era, Covid), varied within a fairly narrow range in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, and people on the West Coast have generally paid significantly more than the national average. (I've lived in California for brief periods so I know it hurts; I also know my salary was a lot higher there than it has been for equivalent work in the Midwest.) Nevertheless, the price of gas has repeatedly been a major driver of electoral choices. Just recently President Trump has negotiated oil price deals with Middle Eastern governments designed to drive the price of gas down in 2026. It would disappoint me enormously if temporarily and artificially low gas prices in November led significant potions of the electorate to ignore the larger issues in this year's elections.
"But if Mamdani does prove to be significantly capable of governing his enormous city with integrity using a progressive agenda, then more power to him."
Can you name any blue city where the progressive agenda has been successful?
I can't, but I also don't know enough to name a city where it has specifically failed, other than the well known rushed implementations in 2020 that were later walked back. That sort of impulsive episode is a positive model for no one. The test I think will be interesting is if a group of competent administrators under Mayoral leadership committed to good governance tries to design and implement a model based major progressive policies.
It's going to be difficult to persuade anyone of success (if there is success) because in a major city programs generally succeed or fail only partially and in relative terms -- and there are always mixes of both kinds. Mamdani's administration can't possibly avoid completely failures and specific negative incidents, but he's got four years to make a case that shifting policy to progressive priorities will at least not lower the overall success of the prior administration. Since New York City has a relatively progressive population that may count as success politically. If he can do better on balance, then his proof of concept may have national influence in Blue cities. (There's no way conservative or MAGA voters are going to deem Mamdani a success -- US politics doesn't work that way. But if he screws up in a major way, liberals like me will reject his model along with those on the Right.)
I also read the "Compact" piece by Alicia Nieves. She mentions "The Groups" of activists etc. that are the terror of Democratic candidates.
I know we all believe in "good governance," but the beginning of wisdom is to understand that it's a fantasy. Politics is all about dishing out hate to the Other Guys and dishing out loot to your supporters. In other words, all government spending is fraud. Because we don't want to disappoint our supporters. Not if we want to be re-elected.
There CAN'T be a "fraud trap" if there isn't fraud. Fraud at grotesque levels. If there was no fraud it would have reflected on the GOP. Didn't happen.
It's charming that the author thinks (or hopes we think) that fraud programs on the scale reported were primarily creatures of the Somali. Please. If they're that good that fast they should be running the state. The truth that reveals will cover from the Governors office down. Look at the sheer volume of dollars and the flippant attempts to conceal the theft. Those folk stole enough to BUY Somalia back...but for what reason? They got/had a good thing going here.
When this thing is fully dissected by the Trump[ DOJ there will be a shortage of jail space. Furthermore this will not be the only State siphoning bales of our tax dollars.
When the feds start taking this apart there will also be money flows given to "the poor" who will be shown to have graciously donated a large part of the largesse back to the democrat politicians.Those politicians may fear retribution from the Somali but they will be shown to have kept the payoff money.
What stands out to me is the leadership vacuum. This was a moment for Democrats to show institutional courage, own the oversight failure, enforce aggressively, and fix the system in public view. Instead, the response has felt delayed and defensive. That’s a strategic mistake. They still have a window to demonstrate equal-rule accountability, but it is closing fast.
The ICE insurrection shut down all discussion of fraud. It seems to me the left definitely got away with it? Golf clap for the left, well played.
That may be true. But it is still a big missed opportunity. Also the political ads that could be generated could be ugly.
"...and the ever-reliable bogeyman of 'white supremacy.'"
Whenever someone starts blathering on about white supremacy, I automatically ignore whatever point they are trying to make. To me, it is a corollary of Godwin's Law and a sure sign that whoever resorts to that argument has no valid argument.
"No more will we tolerate lax oversight of a community because of worries about accusations of racism or the withholding of political support."
If only that were true...
"Think about it. If you wanted safe streets and public order would your first impulse be to turn to…the Democrats? Or if you wanted a secure, actually-enforced border? How about efficient, effective delivery of public services? Or rapid completion of public projects and infrastructure? Or nonideological public administration?"
Abigail Spanberger ran on "affordability," but since taking office, electric rates have doubled and 51 new tax increases are being pushed, not to mention more California-style green initiatives that will only make life more expensive. Gun ownership for honest citizens is being aggressively attacked while murderers, rapists and child molesters are getting reduced sentences and restored voting rights. The latter makes one wonder who their base really is...
Ruy, I love what you're trying to do. I lost faith in Republicans 25 years ago, but after 50 years of voting I have never had faith in Democrats. It's always been the same worn out arguments, wash, rinse and repeat. I would love to see the so-called Democratic Party become a party of integrity and common sense, but you have a tough row to hoe before that ever happens.
“ it is a corollary of Godwin's Law and a sure sign that whoever resorts to that argument has no valid argument.”
So much this.
Teixeira is right but he should not expect the Democrats to take him seriously. They are so accustomed to turning every issue into a racial issue that it would be hard to persuade them not to turn the issue of welfare fraud into a racial one.
Recently, a sewer pipe broke in D.C., sending hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac. Naturally, the feds blamed it on state and local government while the state and local governments blamed it on the federal government. Yet, if you look at the interview by Maryland governor Wes Moore on CNN, notice how the interviewer and he turn the sewage spill into a racial issue. Interviewer Kasie Hunt: "What's it about for the President if it's not about race?" Gov. Moore: "You know, the fact that I'm the only black governor in this country and the fact that he seems to have a real issue with me, I think that's that's that's an issue he's got to take up."
Yes racism is the problem, not infrastructure constructed on the assumption only a population of a certain size would utilize the utilities. All, as ever more people are continually crammed into all ready full neighborhoods, with no thought whatsoever as to water, sewer and power limitations.
Dems worship at the alter of density. It should terrify anyone with rudimentary Math skills. This will not be the last US sewer pipe to explode, regardless of Governor skin hue.
And Wes Moore is touted as a moderate, a uniter.
Another home run by Ruy. Scott Bessent has Treasury agents tracking money sent from Minnesota to Somalia. Treasury agents are well seasoned at chasing dollars, decades post 9/11. Terror funding and Drug Kingpin ill gotten gains, flow all over the planet. They all violate US banking laws.
It is far more likely that massive Minnesota fraud was impossible to find, not due to Somali criminal masterminds, but because no one was looking. Worse yet for Dems would be state and local government running interfere for fraudsters, to avoid the blowback on Dems and migrants. Moreover, it appears the Minn numbers will dwarf Mississippi losses.
Soon, Dems maybe very surprised to find how helpful AI is identifying both financial and voting fraud. During Covid, billions of tax dollars were inexplicably sent to prisons, nursing homes and locals as far flung as Nigeria, for business interruption compensation. AI should be able to stop such fraud and reveal subsequent coverups.
If it cannot already, surely soon AI will be able to run the name, birthdate and birthplace of an applicant for government aid or a ballot, and quickly determine if it legitimate or a fiction. If many kennels allow vacationers to log in, and check on their boarded pets 24/7, how hard would it be for every subsidized daycare or feeding program to be required to record business hours, with faces blurred, so the actual number of people in attendance, can counted by AI?
Until this point, validating mail in ballots has been impossible, but AI should soon change that. Mail in ballots checked against a master list of American citizens registered to vote, their birthdates and birthplace, along with their state residence, should not be that difficult.
As for Dems nominating someone other than a Progressive,it is certainly possible, but probably not probable. Along with Progressives enjoying nearly all the Party energy, Teacher's and Government Worker's Unions carry a lot of sway with Dems. They provide hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations, free election labor, not to mention reliably voting. School Choice and DOGE have sent both ever more Left, in an attempt to maintain their ranks. They seem unlikely to move even slightly Right. It is impossible to imagine a Dem WH candidate winning the Primary, without their support.
Perhaps awaiting a Rep implosion is the Dem's main election game plan, because after years of voters self sorting, and Blue States and the Party moving ever more Left, it remains, not only their best available strategy, but the only truly viable one.
It's hard for a Dem candidate to win without teacher union support. Josh Shapiro ran on school choice, but then quickly bent the knee once elected because no Dem for school choice is getting elected to a national office.
"...truly viable one."
But is it viable?
Good point.Probably only if Reps mess up things so badly, they deserve to lose.
One of the best parts of Al From's memoir, The New Democrats and the Return to Power, is his noting how many Great Society liberals saw welfare as more a problem than a help for poor people. In the South, welfare was a tool used by segregationist politicians to keep poor black people in line. Robert Kennedy also wanted to shift the emphasis of social policy from welfare to work.
Democrats in the late 20th century ignored the downsides of welfare so long that, by the time Republicans forced Clinton to sign welfare reform, it was excessively harsh. One of the effects of Clinton sticking to his needlessly complex health care reform for so long in 1994 was that he had less time to devote to the welfare reform he wanted to pass, one that would have put more emphasis on creating jobs than on just getting people off welfare. When Democrats don't tackle middle class concerns early on, Republicans tackle them instead.
You might add a fifth problem: party discipline. That may be counterintuitive. When a state legislature tells you they vote the way leadership tells them, the party has a problem. Remember the days when people voted for the candidate, not the party? Now I know that the knowledge, experience, and ethical standards of any particular legislator are irrelevant. Today every vote for a Democrat is a vote for leadership, which has been pulled far left.
Excellent article.
Some of the problems with Democrat governance may be a result of their refusal to fight fraud in their programs. Money lost to fraud obviously was not used to implement policy goals. Instead, rampant fraud only leads to the budgetary problems and high taxes that are a feature of every Democrat-run polity.
It’s time for Democrats to realize they will never be able to demonstrate that their policies work as long as they look the other way on fraud and abuse.
Imagine, Jude, if the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal had broken during the 2024 Presidential campaign instead of after it. Gov. Walz would have seemed even more like a clown than he already did and would have been even more of a liability to the Democratic ticket than he already was.
There had already been indictments and convictions, yet the Democrats chose him anyway. And the press ignored the whole thing.
Democrats seem to be less inclined to monitor their programs. They seem content to focus on the goal of the program, rather than whether the program met its goal, should be modified, or a different approach taken. The background of many elected Democrats officials may not be in the results oriented business world.
Given the level of coverage for the fraud I suspect that money will be traced from the State to the "daycare center" which will then donate lots of that assistance back to the officials that provide it. I also suspect that lots of that money also goes to democrat front operartions that are in the "daycare" business. If the money goes through Somali accountants and accounts that will be hard to prove.
I suspect that if you follow where the fraud money went, you will find a lot of money went to activist groups to fund sinecures for big donors' kids (who else is going to hire a gender studies major from Yale for $250K?) and campaign contributions for democrat politicians.
All funded with taxpayer dollars.
How many Democrats governors are known for their government fraud fighting prosecutions? I asked CatGPT and it came back with”
Chris Christie (R) (2002-2018)
Dan Walker (D) (1973-1977)
I will never understand why the liberals aren't for reasonable government frugality. If you run a tight ship, you can address more needs. Why don't they get that? This has baffled me for many years. You'd think that tight, frugal management of government would be something that both parties would have at least self-interested reasons to pursue, even if they don't otherwise care one little bit about this country.
Spot on re: efficient delivery of public services and rapid infrastructure improvements! WhichEVER party can upgrade my experience with Unemployment, the DMV, the IRS (better websites, many more well-paid US workers answering the phone) would get my vote. Still waiting, but thanks for the excellent article!
Sorry, expanding government and hiring more government workers is not the solution I'm looking for.
I hear you re: gov't bloat but there's literally no one picking up the phone at NY State Unemployment office. You get a message and then you get hung up on, and this is not a way to treat those who've been kicked out of a job and can't find a way to collect their benefits. We had to drive down to the actual local branch and pick up a hotline to the right office to complete our transaction - it shouldn't be this way.
I 100% agree - it's an everywhere problem. I went into the DMV and there are banks of computers there and you have to fill in all your information and request an appointment. While workers are sitting around because their appointments are in half hour blocks and they can get done in 10 minutes. Private companies are just as bad. I was sent an inaccurate 1099 from an insurance company and I'm getting the run-around like you wouldn't believe. I've spent hours on the phone and get promised it's in the mail and 10 days later, nothing, hours on the phone again.
As Ruy writes, we're looking for the party who can deliver efficiency and effectiveness in these public services - that will require some well-trained, well-paid workers to do this, and I'm personally in favor of many more good jobs for US workers than they're currently able to find.
Doesn't everyone want those things? With an absolute gusher of tax money, why is it so hard to deliver? Could it be government tries to do too much?
The fraud in state-administered, federally funded welfare programs will not stop until state government (and therefore state taxpayers) are held financially accountable for losses due to fraud. Who thinks MN would not have been more assertive dealing with accusations of fraud if state government knew it would have to pay back the US Treasury for the fraudulent losses of federal taxpayer funds?
“replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
Every time I read this I get sick.
We just took our two grandsons to Tombstone, the town of the famous gunfight (next to Fly's photography studio, not at the OK corral).
Everything you have read about (the OK corral, Boot Hill cemetery) is privately owned, and you can't see them without purchasing a ticket.
BLASPHEMY!
well, maybe not. A lot of the old buildings have been restored, and the exhibits that you pay for are absolutely mind-boggling. There are stores galore with antiques and touristy items. And the cemetery and mines and places where men bought women are preserved!
ALL FROM CAPITALISM. All from "rugged individuals" doing something that no "collective warmth" could accomplish.
In a few minutes our daughter will be here at our home. She is 8 1/2 months pregnant. Her baby has a serious heart problem, which a series of doctors are taking care of. The baby's health is financed by our taxes....because her husband has a serious medical disability and, hard as he tries, cannot work. He was an Army Ranger, Special Forces, Green Beret (i.e., he's not a lazy no-nothing). This is a baby that would have died 50 years ago.
The techniques, strategies, machines, medicines, etc. were all invented by CAPITALISM..... People with ideas and "rugged individualism" who have made our lives better and who will result in saving that baby's life.
Which would that family prefer? Collective warmth or a live baby????
I think this is a terrific post. Mr. Teixeira is absolutely right about the cost to liberal governance of tolerating fraudulent misuse of public funds. He's also right about how fear of appearing "racist" can poison good governance and how threats of attacks on government as "racist" can be coercive. (I don't mean to suggest that racism in America is not an enduring problem, but misuse and overuse of the term and the narrative has been so widespread as to understandably discredit the term among large sectors of the public.)
I think Mr. Teixeira's swipe at Mamdani is misplaced. There is no reason why "collectivism," in the Social Democrats' usage, can't be translated into good, disciplined governance, and the fact that a mayor of a progressive city may provide anti-progressives elsewhere with talking points simply because his aspirations are openly progressive shouldn't preclude any city from choosing the type of mayor it wants (as was clearly the case in NYC). I think the problem is that the Democratic Party in New York was unable to recruit a pragmatic candidate with as much appeal and apparent commitment to good governance as the Democratic Socialists were -- Andrew Cuomo was many things, but not that.
But if Mamdani does prove to be significantly capable of governing his enormous city with integrity using a progressive agenda, then more power to him. I'd rather see him demonstrate to progressives the compromises with ideology necessary for good, progressive-minded governance than see him fail and make life worse for seven million people while providing ammunition to attack Democrats across the board. Because one thing that's a certainty is that GOP partisans are intent on branding the entire Democratic Party as its progressive wing, and will continue to do so unless progressives like Mamdani bring visibly successful results to governance.
I'd add that while it has become commonplace to deplore (justifiably) corruption in various types of government welfare programs, where public monies are diverted to illegitimate private benefits, I believe there is a far more pervasive issue of waste in public funds that are disbursed to private contractors or diverted to the coffers of under-regulated monopolies -- problems that are so complex and difficult to assess that the public's eyes glaze over when lax governance is raised as an issue.
I could be wrong, I only read the headline , but it would appear Mamdani has reneged on his promise to add 5K new NYC cops, 6 weeks into his administration.
That may appeal to certain Progressive sliver of voters. To violent crime victims, overwhelmingly women, and Independents, probably less so.
Hi Ms. Ross, I believe the promise was not Mamdani's but was former-Mayor Adams'. Mamdani's plan, as I understand it, is to maintain the police force at current numbers and to add a budget somewhat larger in size than Adams' planned police expansion to create a new department charged with hiring and administering a new corps of community response personnel. They will be tasked with dealing with calls concerning mental health crises (or partnering with police, depending on the situation), and with taking over various existing violence prevention programs, thus freeing up the existing police force to focus on crime and violent situations.
I don't know whether this will work -- it's easy to see arguments against it. If it shows good results it will provide a new model other cities can adapt; if it fails it will discourage similar initiatives elsewhere.
Sorry to see it given that I was a solid Democrat for 40 years, but the party has been run by its "progressives," a/k/a crazies, for more than a decade. No one has to "brand" them with that. They have branded themselves, and are unrecognizable to me.
Here in Washington State, I pay $2 a gallon more than the national average for gasoline, and a 25% tax on propane, levied by a "climate commitment" tax that's siphoned into the general fund. Democrats yammer about "democracy," but are ramming through an income tax in spite of 10 "no" votes over many years, and have played a trick to make it immune to repeal via voter initiative.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that the Democratic Party is dead to me. This doesn't mean I've become a Republican. It means that I am one of some millions of people in the Pacific NW who are effectively unrepresented by anyone. Don't try to deflect from the failures.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience, Mr. James. I probably wouldn't share your general view if I lived in Washington State (I'm still a liberal who generally votes Democratic without distaste), but I can understand your point of view and appreciate your disapproval of implementing taxation by specifically avoiding a referendum.
I want to add something about gas prices (just one of the matters you raise). I used AI to get a reading of current prices in Seattle (about $4.50/gal.) and nationally (about $2.90 on average). Then I used the BLS inflation calculator to run an experiment. In 1959 my family drove as tourists from the East Coast to the West. My brother and I were fascinated by the variability of gas prices. I remember that on the East Coast they were about 23 or 24 cents per gallon, and in California they were 36-37 cents per gallon -- I think I remember us celebrating when we stopped somewhere at the price was 40 cents, but that would have been an outlier. (In case you're wondering why we celebrated, I suppose it was because we didn't have to pay and money wasn't real to us yet.) If you run those prices through an inflation calculator, 23 cents in 1959 corresponds to $2.56 now and 36 cents corresponds to $4.01.
The reason I'm writing all this is because I'm convinced that the real cost of gas now in constant dollars is very little different from the cost of gas prior to the huge oil shocks of the 1970s, and I have marveled for years that this specific measure has such overwhelming political salience. In my experience, gas prices have generally, apart from exceptional periods (OPEC era, Covid), varied within a fairly narrow range in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, and people on the West Coast have generally paid significantly more than the national average. (I've lived in California for brief periods so I know it hurts; I also know my salary was a lot higher there than it has been for equivalent work in the Midwest.) Nevertheless, the price of gas has repeatedly been a major driver of electoral choices. Just recently President Trump has negotiated oil price deals with Middle Eastern governments designed to drive the price of gas down in 2026. It would disappoint me enormously if temporarily and artificially low gas prices in November led significant potions of the electorate to ignore the larger issues in this year's elections.
"But if Mamdani does prove to be significantly capable of governing his enormous city with integrity using a progressive agenda, then more power to him."
Can you name any blue city where the progressive agenda has been successful?
I can't, but I also don't know enough to name a city where it has specifically failed, other than the well known rushed implementations in 2020 that were later walked back. That sort of impulsive episode is a positive model for no one. The test I think will be interesting is if a group of competent administrators under Mayoral leadership committed to good governance tries to design and implement a model based major progressive policies.
It's going to be difficult to persuade anyone of success (if there is success) because in a major city programs generally succeed or fail only partially and in relative terms -- and there are always mixes of both kinds. Mamdani's administration can't possibly avoid completely failures and specific negative incidents, but he's got four years to make a case that shifting policy to progressive priorities will at least not lower the overall success of the prior administration. Since New York City has a relatively progressive population that may count as success politically. If he can do better on balance, then his proof of concept may have national influence in Blue cities. (There's no way conservative or MAGA voters are going to deem Mamdani a success -- US politics doesn't work that way. But if he screws up in a major way, liberals like me will reject his model along with those on the Right.)
I also read the "Compact" piece by Alicia Nieves. She mentions "The Groups" of activists etc. that are the terror of Democratic candidates.
I know we all believe in "good governance," but the beginning of wisdom is to understand that it's a fantasy. Politics is all about dishing out hate to the Other Guys and dishing out loot to your supporters. In other words, all government spending is fraud. Because we don't want to disappoint our supporters. Not if we want to be re-elected.
There CAN'T be a "fraud trap" if there isn't fraud. Fraud at grotesque levels. If there was no fraud it would have reflected on the GOP. Didn't happen.
It's charming that the author thinks (or hopes we think) that fraud programs on the scale reported were primarily creatures of the Somali. Please. If they're that good that fast they should be running the state. The truth that reveals will cover from the Governors office down. Look at the sheer volume of dollars and the flippant attempts to conceal the theft. Those folk stole enough to BUY Somalia back...but for what reason? They got/had a good thing going here.
When this thing is fully dissected by the Trump[ DOJ there will be a shortage of jail space. Furthermore this will not be the only State siphoning bales of our tax dollars.
When the feds start taking this apart there will also be money flows given to "the poor" who will be shown to have graciously donated a large part of the largesse back to the democrat politicians.Those politicians may fear retribution from the Somali but they will be shown to have kept the payoff money.