The Senate held a hearing Wednesday on government fraud totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, and as USA Journal reported, the Democratic side of the room looked like one of those ghost daycares they were supposed to be investigating. One Democratic senator showed up. One. Out of the entire caucus that never misses an opportunity to tell you how much they care about programs for the poor and elderly.
Sen. Rand Paul chaired the hearing. Nick Shirley and James O'Keefe testified. Sen. Bernie Moreno came loaded with questions about taxpayer money being systematically looted from nutrition programs, healthcare, and COVID relief funds. The Democrats apparently had better things to do, which is really something when you consider the subject matter was literally about fraud in the programs they built their entire brand around defending.
Moreno did not sugarcoat it: "Literally the entire Democrat dais is empty. There is an entire party that does not care whether taxpayer money is burned." Paul, ever the master of understatement, added: "There doesn't appear to be a great deal of interest across the aisle."
The testimony itself was the kind of stuff that should make your blood pressure spike. Ghost daycares in Washington state collecting $229,000 with zero children enrolled. Adult day care centers in New York billing Medicare for 8,000 patients who do not exist. A single independent investigator documenting $170 million in California fraud on three minutes of video. Three minutes. That is less time than it takes to microwave a frozen burrito.
And what was California Governor Gavin Newsom's response to Shirley's documentation? Not launching an investigation. Not demanding answers. He posted a mocking tweet suggesting Shirley might be a child predator. Classic move. When you cannot argue the facts, just try to destroy the person presenting them.
O'Keefe nailed the core problem in his testimony: "There is money in fraud. There's no money in exposing the fraud." The NGOs cashing the checks and the bureaucrats rubber stamping the reimbursements have every incentive to keep the gravy train rolling. Meanwhile, the people actually uncovering this stuff are working with tip lines and camera equipment while fraudsters bill $1,600 per patient per visit for patients who are, to put it gently, fictional.
Here is what makes the empty chairs so telling. Democrats will pack every seat for hearings about their preferred topics. They will demand extra time, give impassioned speeches, and make sure every camera catches their righteous indignation. But a hearing about hundreds of millions stolen from programs that serve the poor and elderly? Nothing. Crickets. A collective agreement that showing up would require acknowledging some uncomfortable truths about how the money actually gets spent.
You do not need a political science degree to read the room. The empty chairs were the loudest testimony of the entire hearing.
Read more conservative news commentary at: USA Journal News
