Jared Moskowitz showed his whole ass with a recent vote that cheerleads DOGE 2.0. He defied party leadership once again and voted for HR 1335, a hack partisan bill that furthers Trump’s war on the poor and temporarily unemployed.
Like most bills, the title is often unrelated (and often the opposite) to its intent. Thankfully this is a meaningless statement of support for Trump’s policies, but it shows where Jared stands on how the Government should treat us.
The Bill Confuses Fraud With Administrative Error
The bill confuses improper payments with fraud. These are totally different metrics. Improper payments include government errors like overpayments and underpayments, losing paperwork, or not asking for the right paperwork. This is totally different than a criminal actor seeking to defraud the government.
What the bill focuses on are crimes in two high-profile Democratic states — Minnesota and California — including fraud perpetrated against private banks (not related to government improper payments), hospice care in California (largely already uncovered by the state of California), and a fraudulent Covid-era child nutrition non-profit that was prosecuted by Biden. The list comes straight from a White House press release which links to Fox News as proof of its claims.
What the Bill Ignores
Yet the programs with the highest percentage of improper payments are farm subsidies run by the USDA and grants handled by the SBA — yet these programs aren’t mentioned in this bill at all. Because businesses aren’t the targets of the Trump administration; poor people are.
Completely ignoring the rampant Medicare fraud that occurs in Republican-controlled Florida (Ask our own Rick Scott about that!) and the fraud perpetrated by the 25 people Trump personally pardoned.
Typical of Moskowitz’s concern for government spending and “efficiency,” this bill doesn’t mention the Department of Defense, which has consistently failed to report improper payment data to the GAO for over 15 years in violation of federal law.
The Real Agenda: Tax Breaks Are Honest By Default
Worst of all, the bill completely omits consideration of the fraud committed by the affluent, which largely consists of tax deductions and not payouts. The whole concept of the bill is that money the Government pays out in the form of Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, and Social Security must be strictly scrutinized — while tax deductions for homeowners, college saving accounts, and business expense deductions are deemed honest by default.
What Comes Next
In the coming year we will see Executive Order 14395 and the White House Fraud Taskforce will turn into a DOGE 2.0: an unaccountable executive branch performing the work of the legislature and ceasing payments to Democratic state programs on the basis of perceived fraud.
Moskowitz was the only Democrat to be duped by the DOGE caucus, which gave it the bipartisan stamp of approval it needed to permanently damage this country and its federal workers. Clearly he learned nothing and was eager to vote again for a partisan attack on our government programs.
This August 18th we have the chance to elect a real progressive to replace Jared Moskowitz. Vote for Oliver Larkin, who will ensure the government works for and not against you.