A Feature, Not a Bug

What a surprise. It turns out our political establishment with extensive and invasive meains testing is sabotaging providing aid to people who are suffering as a result of the Corona Virus shutdown.

There is a reason for this. Both the right and the left of the political elite are members of the Professional Managerial Class, (PMC) and want to ensure that there are jobs, even if they are fundamentally parasitic in nature, for them and theirs, and employing people to function as a barrier to the smooth functions of government means that they do not have to get honest work, something like restocking grocery shelves, that would actually be productive.

The fascination with "Fraud" and "Means Testing" is a charity for the overprivileged.

Sometimes a little fraud is perfectly OK.

Particularly if it means helping millions of Americans, whose lives have been upended by the pandemic, as quickly as possible.

For anyone who’s ever had to sign up for food stamps or jobless benefits in the U.S., the onerous enrollment procedures and frequent ID verification checks are a well-known, and often, disheartening reality. Ostensibly, the safeguards are meant to ensure only those who need help get it. But according to Georgetown University’s Pamela Herd, they often end up doing more harm than good.

“We need to be just as concerned about those not getting benefits as we are with fraud and abuse statistics,” said Herd, who’s written extensively on the concept of “administrative burden,” which describes the red tape we encounter when we need public assistance.

The insistence to pose an "Administrative Burden" is not about saving the taxpayer money.  It's about helping a class of people, the PMC a gravy train.

In fact, it is the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) more than the Republicans who favor this.

This is why when someone offers a solution to a dire crisis that is easily and quickly implemented, people like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer insist creating a massively complex process which makes a dog's breakfast of the program.