Just a minute, did I hear that correctly? Ohio is missing Five Billion dollars. Oh, they're not missing Five Billion, they know where it went, it was outright pilfered.
You'd think someone would pull the alarm. This sounds like a Five alarm fire to me. Yes Keith Faber, Ohio Auditor of state, confirmed that Ohio has lost Five billion dollars to fraudsters.
Originally my query was about 3.8 Billion missing from Jobs and Family Services. Mr. Faber corrected me and said it's going to be over Five Billion in losses.
The loses are un-imaginable, they are double the Ohio "Rainy Day" fund. The money was disbursed with reckless abandon. The Lieutenant Governor was taking fire from all sides saying that un-employment checks were being delayed.
I recall John Husted saying the Employment software was woefully out of date and ill prepared for the onslaught of claims being filed during Covid. It appears Jobs and family services paid all claims upon request.
Now we know a lot of the claims came from organized crime posing as un-employed Ohioan's. They helped themselves to Social Security numbers, tax returns, names, addresses and Federal Tax IDs with precision.
The number Five Billion is mind-blowing, Faber told me California might be 20 Billion. If that was supposed to make me feel better about Ohio it didn't land.
The bottom line is that once again you have been lied to by people you trusted to take care of your un-employed brethren. As a taxpayer you wanted the un-employed to be taken care of and what you got was the defrauding of the taxpayer.
Are you asking yourself, why isn't this front-page stuff? Who supervised those payments? Did anyone see a trend that millions were being paid out daily? Did the number of people un-employed match the outflow of dollars? This didn't happen overnight; it took months to empty the treasury.
Who does Ohio Jobs and Family services report too? The Governor, the President, Congress? How could such a large amount of money be stollen and the only thing it warrants is the State Auditor confirming that it happened?
I think Taxpayers are numb and expect such malfeasance from their government. Look at it another way Five billion could have gone a long way in paving County roads in the state.
Too late the money is now in Nigeria, Russia, China, or any other outlaw country that is home to thieves and sees the U: S as just another easy Mark.