Trump’s Vote Buying. Fraud. Manufacturing Sleight of Hand.

Trump’s Vote Buying. Fraud. Manufacturing Sleight of Hand.

Republicans: We Buy Votes Too!

We all know that Social Security is careening toward “insolvency” by the end of 2032, like a minivan with bad brakes rolling toward a cliff marked “Actuarial Tables.” But it won’t actually be “insolvent.” It will simply reach the point where total payouts must equal total payments into the fund, a radical concept known in most households as “a budget.” At that point, monthly benefits get cut by 22 percent. So naturally, benefits are going up 3.6 percent next year.

It’s all part of the president’s charming habit of mailing out money right around the time voters are deciding whom to vote for. Pure coincidence, surely. Didn’t he promise everyone $5,000 if the House and Senate stayed in the hands of the GOP? Didn’t he just announce an $8 billion payout to farmers hurt by his own tariffs and high diesel prices? (That’s a bit like an arsonist sending you a fruit basket and a nice card.) Didn’t he also announce a $90 Medicare rebate, plus $500 checks to about 1 million people who enrolled in an “Affordable” Care Act plan this year without receiving ACA subsidies, described as refunds for overcharges? The White House says Trump is “taking action to lower healthcare costs for millions of Americans.” Sure. And I’m taking action to lower my cholesterol by reading the menu at Waffle House. We all know what’s really going on. He’s buying votes. Call it a down payment on November: no credit check and no interest either.

Fraud, Fraud, Fraud. (Did We Mention Fraud?)

Now the feds are investigating fraud in New York’s adult care program. The program is supposed to provide socialization, personal care, and meals to adults with physical and cognitive impairments, but Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz says it’s rife with fraud. “It’s outrageous to see fraud, waste, and abuse demolishing programs that could have been helpful to seniors, especially those who are frail and suffering at home.” Yes, that Dr. Oz, the man who once ran a daytime talk show and now runs the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Oz claimed a federal investigation has revealed that organized criminal networks are exploiting the Medicaid-funded programs “by offering seniors money to attend facilities and then billing the government for services that were not actually provided.” He also claimed that people connected to the “Chinese mafia” were paying some seniors between $1,000 and $1,200 to participate in fraudulent billing arrangements. A senior center that pays you to show up? Bingo has never looked so lucrative.

This is in addition to the well-publicized $9 billion fraud crackdown in Minnesota. Fraud schemes in that state have led to federal charges against 92 people, 62 of whom have been convicted. Trump and other republicans have focused attention on the state’s Somali community, trying to implicate Rep. Ilhan Omar, since most of the fraud defendants are of Somali descent. That has drawn criticism from democrats, including Gov. Tim Walz, who denounced Trump’s criticism as “vile, racist lies and slander towards our fellow Minnesotans.”

Okay. Chinese in New York and Somalis in Minnesota. And yet I have yet to hear the administration go after the Chinese the way it has gone after the Somalis. Apparently outrage, like Trump’s tariffs, gets applied selectively.

What about California? There, federal prosecutors charged 15 individuals, including six medical professionals, in sweeping healthcare fraud schemes totaling $2 billion in fraudulent claims. The allegations include a $1.6 billion sham addiction treatment setup, $138 million in bogus hospice claims, and $134 million for unnecessary, invasive artery surgeries that harmed patients. (Note to self: if a doctor recommends artery surgery, get a second opinion. Maybe a third. And make sure none of the doctors are on a first-name basis with a Houston lab marketer.) Police have arrested eight people so far, and federal agents are still looking into others tied to the scheme. Is there an ethnic connection here? A perusal of the names reveals nothing obvious, but I guess if I looked hard enough I probably would find a Somali or more likely a Chinese lurking somewhere.

While some democrats claim that the feds are just picking on states run by democrats, there are ongoing investigations in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina. That’s an awful lot of red on the map for a claimed blue-state witch hunt. If it’s a witch hunt, somebody forgot to tell the witches. https://govtschemes.org/medicaid-fraud-crackdown-2026-state-by-state-guide/

More Inconvenient Tariff Facts

Trump and his buds (Bessent and Lutnick) have said that tariffs will bring manufacturing back to this country. Well, if that is true, then why did manufacturing surge when tariffs were lifted? Trump’s high tariffs imposed in 2025 led to the loss of about 92,000 jobs. Remember, the tariffs were imposed on intermediate goods that U.S. manufacturers used to produce their final products. Taxing your own factories’ ingredients is a dumb strategy. The manufacturing sector shrank, and the ISM Manufacturing PMI fell into contraction and stayed there for ten months. Then, in 2026, the Supreme Court declared Trump’s tariffs illegal, and although Trump replaced them, he replaced them with lower ones. Trump also lowered the tariffs on beef and on steel, aluminum, and copper. What happened? Manufacturing expanded. The ISM Manufacturing PMI moved from contraction into expansion in January, and factory payrolls grew. Not surprisingly, the administration took credit for the uptick in manufacturing jobs, hoping the public could be duped into believing it, remembering that you can fool some of the people some of the time. Tariffs up, factories down. Tariffs down, factories up. You don’t need an economics degree to spot the pattern. In fact, having one might disqualify you from working in the Trump White House especially if you decide to tell the truth.