The country is horrified by the recent flood of fraud coming out of Minnesota—from Medicaid scams to COVID-era food program fraud to child daycare fraud. And yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine if the full scope of fraud across the United States were ever revealed. This isn’t a symptom of mismanagement, or a particular group of immigrants, or incompetent politicians. It’s what happens when Americans let government hide behind bureaucracy, fail to hold it accountable, and keep electing leaders who promise to spend more money on them.
It’s what happens when voters put their faith in government instead of themselves, expecting others to solve their problems.
"But I'm not seeing Democrats come out and start complaining about the fraud. They're in the background, does that shock you?" Newsmax host E.D. Hill asked Daniel Di Martino, fellow at the Manhattan Institute and Venezuelan immigrant who fled socialism.
Well, they are saying the same old story, which is it's all about racism, when it's really not. I think that the Somali daycare center story in Minnesota is just the tip of the iceberg of the corruption that's happening in the states. This is not just happening with daycare centers either. This is happening with a lot of government contracting money, that's given to friends of politicians that is given to interest groups, to NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) which is why the Trump administration stopped those payments. But this is actually more pervasive, I believe, at the state and local level than at the federal level.
"What's kinda ironic," Hill continued, "Is that if they just got the fraud stopped and they stopped being worried about being called racist simply because of the color of people's skin, it's either fraud or it's not, who cares what your color is. They could probably fund all those socialist programs that they want!"
This is where Di Martino exposes the root cause of fraud in America: too many Americans have placed their faith in government to solve their problems, fund welfare programs they believe will help society, and interfere with the free market.
"Well, they can't because government doesn't work this way," Di Martino replied. "Government is inherently subject to different incentives than the private sector. The politician wants to win votes, the private sector wants to make money. And as a consequence, the politician wastes taxpayer dollars and the private sector actually saves them."
On @Newsmax this morning
— Daniel Di Martino 🇺🇸🇻🇪 (@DanielDiMartino) January 2, 2026
The Somali daycare center story is the tip of the iceberg of the corruption that's happening in the states. This is not just happening with daycare centers.
We must understand that government is subject to different incentives than the private sector. pic.twitter.com/ykvDJjwzFd
My take on @Newsmax: On daycare fraud, the answer isn't stopping all funding now but rooting out fraud first.
— Daniel Di Martino 🇺🇸🇻🇪 (@DanielDiMartino) January 2, 2026
The government should stop funding childcare in an orderly way. Stay-at-home moms shouldn't be discriminated. Let's expand the child tax credit & give families choice. pic.twitter.com/JxU5DS7YAL
While many view private enterprise as profit-driven and therefore selfish, that very selfishness is often what prevents major companies from wasting your money and forces every dollar to be spent efficiently. A self-interested company wants each dollar to go toward something effective, something that increases profit. In the process, that money almost always makes a product or service better, cheaper, or both for the consumer.
Furthermore, is government or private enterprise more likely to commit such massive levels of fraud and then not be held accountable?
And for those companies that many Americans blame for high prices, the problem often lies less with the companies themselves and more with government interference in the market, which alters their incentives. Would healthcare companies be charging so much if Obamacare hadn’t distorted the system? If private health insurance hadn't been subsidized?
How much of the cost inflation we see today is actually a byproduct of misguided government policies? And that's government distorting a system we all know works well, and has singlehandedly produced the wealth we see around us today. Just imagine how bad they are when they are in charge of their own budgets, their own policies, their own money, and their own programs. We've gotten nothing but a taste in Minnesota.
The reality is that when government steps in, it rarely solves problems, even just a bit. It simply complicates them, making things more expensive, more ineffective, and more wasteful for every American.
