I am pretty sure if the govt hired a few private investigators and forensic accountants per state, they could recover millions in welfare and Medicaid/disability fraud. Their salaries would be more than covered. But gosh, that would be unpopular and cruel!
Meg is right.
Yes. The free lunch would no longer be free!
How about that!
Hooray for her I say! Three cheers!
Uncovering the billions of dollars in waste fraud and abuse in welfare, medicare and government contracts would more than pay for the salaries of the investigators hired to uncover these things. Set the FBI on these crooks, root them out and prosecute them all to the fullest extant of the law. Give the investigators incentives to uncover as many as they can find. They are just as dishonest and crooked as government blames Wall Street about. Return the money to the taxpayers then not the government.
Create welfare "bounty hunters". They get paid a percentage of the fraud they uncover and eliminate.