Do good intentions = good public policy?

Signs point to no.

Too often, programs sold to the public as key to supporting vulnerable or disadvantaged groups end up enriching fraudsters instead.

The answer?

Punishment under the law, of course, but also sturdy guardrails, installed by policymakers, to prevent this fraud from recurring ad nauseam.

The California Post reported this week that Sheryl Davis, a former top San Francisco official, faces 17 felony charges for alleged personal use of taxpayer money meant for the city’s black residents.

The ex-human rights exec and her beau, James Spingola, allegedly pinched millions of tax dollars for parties, luxury travel, and other perks in what prosecutors called “a pattern of self-dealing.”

Davis stands accused of misusing at least $4.6 million in taxpayer money.

This case, along with a trail of others, points to a glaring need for (strong and systematic) controls on public spending –– regardless of how sympathetic certain causes, people or programs may be.

The list of abuses is long and includes:

Tens of billions in fraudulent pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, ostensibly to help small businesses.

Billions in COVID-related California unemployment fraud –– including payments to prison inmates.

Billions in misused Black Lives Matter donations in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy in Minnesota.

Billions in tax dollars meant for Minnesota child care, nutrition and autism services that instead went to fraudsters, a k a “Learing Centers.”

Tens of billions in suspected hospice fraud in California today, with taxpayers funding nonexistent care, multiple hospices at a single address, and a host of other end-of-life health-care scams.

And more.

And now this case of flagrant fraud in San Francisco.

The pattern is clear: Those who prey on taxpayers, especially through sympathy-inducing social programs, have grown strikingly brazen.

They recognize the public impulse to help others, especially the vulnerable. They see rivers of taxpayer dollars. They exploit lax controls, scant oversight, and politicians’ reflexive defense of social spending.

In Minnesota, authorities reportedly slow-walked fraud investigations –– in part because many of the suspects were Somali.

In California, state officials such as Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta have downplayed blatant hospice fraud, often training their fire on … the investigators.

Voters should demand better.

Elected officials should prevent, stop, and punish fraud, not excuse or ignore it or worse, attack those who strive to end it.

The recurring scandals decimate public trust in governments that demand ever-rising taxes all the time at every level.

Those who foot the bill have had it.

They’re sick of tax dollars vanishing, often by the millions or billions, in clouds of good intentions.

Taxpayers need tangible spending controls, now.

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