Commonwealth Policy Center

The U.S. Congress recently discovered massive fraud in its Covid relief program. The Paycheck Protection Act provided 11 million potentially forgivable loans to small businesses so they could keep employees on the payroll through Covid lockdowns. This program cost nearly $800 billion by the end of 2020. However, Congress found nearly 1.4 million of these loans were fraudulent. Altogether, the U.S. government made $64 billion in fraudulent claims. While some argued the government needed to support businesses during the economic shutdown, such massive money giveaways are vulnerable to fraud. In the end, it’s honest taxpayers who are left to pay the bills and will be forced to dig out from this mountain of debt accumulated by the federal government.