Speaking of Manchin, he has expressed concerns about raising taxes if wasteful spending hasn’t been cut.

Well, OK, Joe. Here is some recent evidence that government waste is rampant:

First, federal auditors and our friends at Open the Books have documented the unprecedented theft of $100 billion from California’s unemployment funds, $3.9 billion in overpayments by Michigan’s program, and scandals in many other states.

Then on Tuesday the U.S. Secret Service verified that nearly $100 billion in COVID relief funds has been stolen – mostly from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, and a unemployment insurance program. Much of that money left the country and went to fraudsters in Africa and South America.

More than $2.3 billion in stolen funds have been recovered so far, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 suspects who span the spectrum from individuals to organized groups, according to the agency. The government has shelled out about $3.5 trillion in Covid relief money since early 2020, when the pandemic began.

Roy Dotson, a Secret Service agent who specializes in financial fraud told CNBC: “I’ve been in law enforcement for over 29 years and worked some complex fraud investigations for 20 plus years, and I’ve never seen something at this scale.” He said the fact the money was easily available online made it easy to rip off the system. He said there are 900 active investigation into pandemic fraud, but the chances of recovering much of the money grow bleaker by the day.

In the private sector, fraud rates for credit cards, insurance payments and so on reach one to three percent. In government fraud/error rates reach 10% and no one does anything about it.

Now we are supposed to give these people $5 trillion more!