America used to be a high-trust society because citizens shared the same basic values, underpinned by a moral foundation based in Christian values. There were criminals, sure, bad actors definitely, but for the most part, our society encouraged self-reliance while helping others, following the law not by letter but intent, and being concerned about doing what's right. That's not what we have anymore.
In contemporary America, there are people who are far more interested in taking whatever they can get for themselves, even as it harms the community and the country, than in doing what's right. Many who come to the United States to make a new life seek to be American, to adopt our values, but the insistence on the opposite of assimilation, on ethnic enclaves and maintaining cultural tradition, has meant that many people who have come to the US have brought their culture of graft and corruption along with them.
That's what has happened in Minnesota with the Somali community. The Somalians love their own culture, and sure, who doesn't like their own culture, but that culture is one of graft and corruption. This isn't just me saying this, this is based on data. Somalia is one of the absolute most corrupt nations in the world. It ranks 181 out of 182 countries. The Corruption Perceptions index, the "most widely used global corruption ranking in the world," measures bribery, diversion of public funds, officials using their public office for private gain without facing consequences, the ability of governments to contain corruption in the public sector, excessive red tape, nepotism in civil service, laws protecting whistleblowers, and other items.
It's no surprise that people who left that nation and came to the United States, who brought with them their customs and culture, look at our high-trust society and see nothing more than an opportunity to steal taxpayer funds to benefit themselves. This is literally why we can't have nice things.
Vice President JD Vance, White House aide Stephen Miller, and Fraud Task Force Vice Chair Andrew Ferguson spoke on Wednesday about the rampant fraud schemes that have been undertaken to fleece taxpayer-funded social services programs. We've seen billions squandered across the country and so far that appears to be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The theft of public funds in Minnesota primarily within the Somali community has been particularly egregious, and reports out of Washington state, California, and other states start to paint a picture of a vast taking advantage of American largesse.
"All of the programs that the fraud effort has focused on were set up for a high trust society," Ferguson said. "The vice president was just explaining the difficulty in obtaining data to fight fraud. When Congress was creating these programs, some of them almost 100 years ago, we didn't expect that these programs were going to be attacked by fraudsters to the tunes of billions and billions of dollars a year. We expected, because that's the America that we were, that everyone would play by the rules, that the money turned over to help our friends, our families, and neighbors would be made available only to the people who really needed it, and that is just not true anymore. And so this effort is not just about protecting our programs, making sure that fraudsters don't bleed them so dry that they cease to exist. It's also about restoring social trust in this country."
We are a nation of people who, in classic Christian fashion, care about our neighbors. That's why there are all these social programs, from housing aid to medical assistance to cash food benefits and on and on. But these programs are meant for people who need them, who seek to get back on their feet, who yearn to pay their own way and support themselves and their families. They were not meant to enable a healthy individual to live off of the government for their entire lives, and they were certainly not meant to be targeted by criminals seeking to exploit taxpayer generosity.
But that's exactly what has happened. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Vance said that the scope of fraud in Minnesota is not only unprecedented, but that under previous guidance, high levels of fraud that came in under $1 million were unlikely to be prosecuted. Why? Miller answered that question:
"I think probably the simplest, least conspiratorial explanation is that when Congress was drafting these statutes," Miller said, "they still lived, to use the phrase, in a high trust society, and it eclipsed their imagination that there would be systemic, widespread, continual lying, fleecing, and organized crime to rip off hundreds of billions of dollars from the American taxpayer, which is what has happened."
We don't want this. We want a high-trust society. We want to have benefits on the honor system. We want to know that our neighbors share our deeply held, American values. We want those who come to America to want to be American, to cast off their allegiance to foreign lands, to embrace our way of life. And we want that not just because we believe it's better but because it's ours and this is our country. America is not just for everyone, it is for Americans and people who want to be American. If you don't want to be American, if you just want to take advantage of us, we Americans ought to keep you out.
This article originally appeared in Libby Emmons' newsletter. You can subscribe here.
