Goldtent TA Paradise

THE GREAT COVID PAYBACK

1. Fullgoldcrown says:

   April 25, 2026 - 10:46 am at 10:46 am

   Yesterday, Fox News —and only Fox— reported a massive development that sent tentacles of terror through the Democrat donor class. The headline: “Vance task force reveals Biden admin ‘protected’ 562K pandemic loans in $22.2B suspected fraud scheme.” The Biden Administration didn’t cover up pandemic loan fraud because it was committed by conservatives. Think about that for a second.

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   As a taxpayer during the pandemic, you will surely remember the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL). These programs were created by the federal government with the noble goal of keeping small businesses afloat while simultaneously shutting them down. The applications were easier to fill out than a below-average waiver to enter a children’s trampoline gym.

   In other words, the government achieved this noble goal of saving Main Street by taking an enormous firehose, hooking it up to the U.S. Treasury, and blasting trillions of dollars out the window while screaming, “TAKE IT! TAKE THE MONEY! NO QUESTIONS ASKED!”

   But down on the bottom of each and every form, in barely visible six-point type, was a stern warning about lying, a right for the government to claw back inappropriate payments, accompanied by a nearly incomprehensible string of tiny numbers and letters identifying various federal statutes that provided years and years of potential prison time. Nobody paid any attention to this paragraph. (Except for my clients, since I highlighted it in bright yellow ink for them.)

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   As it turns out —this will not even surprise Portland readers— when you offer people free money with zero oversight, you create what economists call a “moral hazard.” They are tempted to bend the rules and take the free money, or to grab more than they should. Some of these people were actual small business owners. But many, many others were enterprising individuals who suddenly discovered they owned, for example, highly lucrative ‘ballet studios’ in the weathered plastic Home Depot sheds in their backyards.

   According to the Vice President’s fraud task force, we’ve learned that at least $200 billion of this emergency-aid money was stolen by fraudsters. That is a staggering amount. It is enough money to buy every single person in America a very nice riding lawnmower. Instead, it went to creative people who concocted fake basketball leagues, imaginary farms, and phantom employees.

   Usually, when someone steals billions of dollars from the federal government, the government gets cranky and sends people with windbreakers and badges to collect it. But according to yesterday’s announcement from the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Biden administration took a different approach. They quietly determined that chasing down covid fraudsters was just too much hassle.

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   “After extensive review, and with the strong support of the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force, we are taking our most decisive action yet to end a Biden-era scheme that protected over 560,000 borrowers tied to more than $22 billion in suspected pandemic-era fraud,” SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler explained.

   In other words, SBA has finally referred a half a million (562,000) already identified fraudulent loans to the Treasury Department— for collection. They total $22.2 billion.

   Fox reported that the Biden administration had flagged these 562,000 loans as highly suspicious, and then did absolutely nothing about them. They didn’t send them to collections. They didn’t refer them to the Justice Department. They just slid them into a bottom drawer, presumably labeled “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL WE HAVE A BASE ON MARS.”

   The SBA press release called President Cabbage’s non-prosecution a “de facto amnesty scheme.” In layman’s terms, this means the government knew that a guy named “John Doe” who claimed to have 100 employees at a business called “John’s Totally Real And Not Fake Exotic Animal Farm” had stolen $2 million, and the Biden Administration’s official response was, “Well, animals are important, too. Even fake ones.”

   But … why not? Biden went after every single J6 tourist and scads of abortion clinic prayer warriors. Why not round up all the covid fraudsters? Who are they?

   To understand how absurd this really is, look at the kind of fraud we are talking about. This wasn’t sophisticated, Ocean’s Eleven-style cybercrime. It wasn’t even Learing Center level fraud. This was people using deceased relatives’ Social Security numbers to apply for loans. This was people claiming to run multi-million-dollar agricultural empires out of a one-bedroom apartment in Queens. In one terrific example, an online lender approved hundreds of pandemic loans to “farms” with names like “Devious” and “Beefy King.”

   If you or I tried to deduct a $53 business lunch on our taxes, the IRS would audit us so hard our grandchildren would feel it. But if you told the Biden-era SBA that you needed a million dollars to cover payroll for your amateur basketball league —an actual case where a man just pleaded guilty— the government apparently handed you the cash and then deliberately looked the other way while you never paid it back.

   Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland prosecuted around 1,000 covid fraud cases. There is no clear partisan pattern; Republican donors and Democrats appeared in the list. As early as November 2020, the Project on Government Oversight reported on large political donations following equally large PPP loans. (Curiously, POGO’s article briefly mentioned Marjorie Taylor Greene as having a potential covid loan problem related to her construction business, which makes you think.)

   Administrator Loeffler stated that the Trump SBA is now “working to claw back stolen taxpayer dollars and hold fraudsters accountable.” The agency announced it has already suspended over 110,000 borrowers in California alone, tied to $8.6 billion in suspected fraud.

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   ? Which brings us to the obvious question: Why? Why would the Biden administration deliberately shield half a million suspected fraudsters from the consequences of their own actions?

   If you look closely at where this fraud was concentrated, a very interesting pattern emerges. The Trump SBA has already suspended over 110,000 borrowers in California, representing $8.6 billion in suspected fraud. That is a massive chunk of the total— over a third. And where do you suppose the rest of it is hiding? If you guessed “deep blue urban centers where Democrat political machines rely on a constant flow of federal cash to keep their constituents happy,” you won the prize.

   But now, the bill is coming due. And this could have massive implications for the 2026 midterms.

   You can run the numbers without a degree in political science. The Biden administration looked at a list of 562,000 people who had essentially looted the Treasury, realized that a statistically significant portion of those people lived in key Democrat strongholds, and decided that prosecuting them might be bad for morale. Nothing ruins a get-out-the-vote rally quite like the FBI showing up to arrest the precinct captain for inventing a fake poultry farm.

   This ‘de facto amnesty’ was, essentially, a $22 billion taxpayer-funded stimulus package for the Democrat base. It was the ultimate political patronage system: We gave you the money, we know you shouldn’t have it, but we’re going to let you keep it. Remember that in November. Or else.

   The Treasury Department now must track down 562,000 people who have spent the last few years believing they had successfully pulled off the greatest heist in American history. It’s like trying to squeeze $22 billion worth of toothpaste back into the tube. But the Treasury has lots of tools and techniques; for instance, it can grab any federal payment to that person and apply it to the outstanding debt (like social security payments, grants, tax refunds, and so on). It can also transfer collections to private agencies, file lawsuits itself, and threaten to make criminal referrals to DOJ.

   More importantly, it means that hundreds of thousands of people in blue states are about to receive a very nasty letter from the federal government demanding our money back.

   Naturally, this will make a lot of morally flexible people intensely angry. And angry people tend to vote (unless they have felony convictions; just saying). But who will they be angry at? The Trump administration, for finally enforcing the law? Or the Democratic politicians who promised the gravy train would never stop flowing?

   And now what happens to blue donations? A half-million Democrats are suddenly going to need as much cash as they can lay hands on, for lawyers and settlement payments.

   If we don’t try to get this money back, then we are sending a very clear message to the American people: working hard and paying taxes is for suckers. The real money is in autism centers, hospice, childcare, and fake orange groves.

   So, to the 562,000 people who are about to get a letter from the U.S. Treasury: I hope you enjoyed the free money. And if you bought a riding lawnmower with it, you might want to put it on Craigslist. You’re going to need the cash.

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