Did Jerome Powell lie to Congress?...
How to solve the fraud crisis…
🧨 Are you aware of the looming Jan. 28th Ultimatum? Well, that’s the one date you MUST have circled on your calendar. Why is Jan. 28 so important to you? Get the crucial details here.
Dear Reader,
I see Chairman Powell confronts charges of a criminal nature.
He evidently babbled misleading statements before Congress last June. These comments concerned a $2.5 billion renovation to the Eccles Building.
At issue are “cost overruns.”
President Trump Trump has hollered that overruns will swell the renovation costs to $3.1 trillion at least.
And his finger points to Mr. Powell. The same Mr. Powell, incidentally, professes his innocence.
Like Handing Out Speeding Tickets at the Indy 500
Yet if government cost overruns warranted criminal sanction… I hazard 87% of Washington would presently wallow behind the bars — and at least 92% of the Pentagon.
A movie line comes springing to mind.
Apocalypse Now is a dark film about the Vietnam War. In that film the United States Army had accused a wayward senior officer of murder.
A junior officer was instructed to track him down. Reflecting upon the criminal charges, the junior officer observed that:
“Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”
And so criminalizing cost overruns in federal spending projects is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
Do I exaggerate the case? Do I stretch the facts for effect?
If I do, then I do so only very slightly.
Is It Worth the Trouble?
I cannot speak to Chairman Powell’s guilt or innocence on the particular charges.
I confess that I lean towards his innocence (though my agents are on the case).
Yet I do suspect — strongly — that he would not confront charges if he was in the president’s good favor.
Of course he is not in the president’s good favor.
The president has repeatedly rapped “Too Slow” Powell upon the knuckles for failing to substantially reduce the Federal Reserve’s target rate.
Yet the fellow’s term concludes in May.
Perhaps it would best serve the president if the fellow slinked meekly off the stage in May… and withdrew to the richly deserved anonymity worthy of a Federal Reserve chairman.
Yet to proceed.
$521 Billion in Fraud Every Year
Let us consider cost overruns, in many instances at least, a species of fraud.
Last year the Government Accountability Office — do not laugh — estimated that the United States government loses between $233 and $521 billion to fraud each year.
And when various accounting gimmicks and shell games are mixed into the figures… we find that the high-end $521 billion may indeed represent the low-end.
The true fraud may range much higher. Thus Issues & Insights reports that:
That higher number might be in reality a low-end estimate, because the money flows from Washington from a number of orifices outside the Treasury Department, and an accurate tracking is simply not possible.
We say this because in fiscal 2024, non-Treasury disbursing offices “were estimated to be responsible for 181 million payments totaling over $1.5 trillion,” says the White House, roughly 22% of the entirety of federal dollars disbursed. Combine this fact with the fraud that is being uncovered and it’s obvious we’ve reached crisis levels.
Fraud Is Endemic
Yet is it obvious we’ve reached crisis levels of fraud, as this passage declares?
The nose upon a man’s face is obvious. Yet how often does he take notice of it?
And what if the non-noticing of his nose is central to his grift? What if he is a very well-heeled and influential fellow? Who is determined that you not notice his nose whatsoever?
Let us assume the low-end $521 billion fraud estimate.
Imagine — for the moment — all the fraudsters and grifters angling to get a bucket in that stream. To get a snout in that trough. To catch those pennies…
To pick a pocket… or two pockets… or 330 million pockets.
Then you begin to get the flavor of it.
We Need to Do Something About It!
Yet Issues & Insights continues nonetheless, wistfully, naively:
We’ve seen various suggestions that if we were to eliminate fraud (and waste and abuse), Washington would be able to cut the exorbitant income taxes we are obliged to pay. It can’t be overstated what a bonus that would be for household finances and economic growth. But we cannot leave the fraud machine in place, and that machine is the federal government.
Thus today I advance a proposal.
Let us stand up a Department of Government Efficiency against the fraud. I propose to place at its helm a private sector tycoon — Elon Musk springs immediately to mind.
Imagine the colossal fraud such a titan would eliminate! Imagine the taxpayer money this government agency would save!
Of course… you need not imagine one single thing.
It has already been attempted. And it has already failed.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
P.S. A forgotten piece of financial legislation is about to be reactivated on January 28th. It will make some rich and others poor.
What happens in this closed-door meeting will not be reported on the news… until it’s too late.
But a small group of Americans could potentially reap a fortune by acting before the critical January 28th deadline.
Sorry for the ambiguity, but you need to go here to learn all the details. I don’t even know if you’ll qualify or not.
But if you do qualify, be sure to get the facts here.