New Rule: American Kleptocracy | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

and finally new rule if this sort of brazen larceny is concerning to you then you might want to look at how much of the trillions of dollars in free government coveted relief money was just flat out stolen viewer warning what you're about to hear may be triggering and if it's not it should be let's start with what we spent the checks the government sent out to get america through the pandemic there was the family's first coronavirus response act for 192 billion the payment protection program for 484 billion the consolidated appropriations act for 900 billion the american rescue plan for 1.9 trillion and the cares act for 2.2 trillion although for how much of that money actually made it into employees pockets they should have called it the who cares act all told all told 5.7 trillion laid out now certainly some large amount of spending was necessary to avert catastrophes like hospitals being overrun or falling into a depression so we can argue another day if that 5.7 trill was the right amount but for today let's just look at what happened after the forever flu hit america and washington's answer was a mountain of money and a sign that said come steal it 872 billion went out to unemployment assistance you know how much of it went to improper payments and fraud well they don't have a solid figure that would require accounting but the low end estimates are 163 billion in fraud the inspector general says it's likely higher than that and id dot me an insurance fraud prevention service estimates the number is closer to 400 billion that's almost half of it in one instance two million dollars in unemployment checks got sent to one address what was the job that guy was out of in arizona scammers got nearly 30 percent of the benefits and that's arizona where the most fiscally conservative penny-pinching republicans used to live republicans at least you used to pretend to be the mean old man who watched your money but now nobody from either party even pretends to defunding the police yes that's a bad idea but so is de-policing the funds palm beach thank you one guy [Music] palm beach florida which has 160 golf courses got covered money what'd they do with it they built a golf course several non-profits overseen by an organization called feeding our future got 65 million to feed needy children during the pandemic but it was actually a massive fraud and the fbi says almost none of this money was used to feed children that's like something trump would do even the poor kids were like if we wanted to get this bed we could have gone to church the paycheck protection program ppp was designed to help small businesses pay their laid off employees but hundreds of loans went to fake farms in areas where farming isn't even done you know that saying don't have a cow they literally didn't have a cow [Applause] the government sent 1.4 billion in stimulus payments to a million dead people this woman used covent cash to hire a hit man and i assume the guy who got whacked then got a check we gave billionaire kanye west millions so he could continue making the world's ugliest shoes tom brady's company tom brady's company got a ppp loan because you wouldn't want to have him touch his savings turns out the turns out the poor guy couldn't even retire [Music] the shuttered venue operators grant program gave out 10 million dollars to broadway's west side story no wonder they're singing i want to live in america and in another broadway show harry potter and the cursed child also got 10 million because jk rowling was living in her car here in l.a lots of people actually do live in their car so six years ago we passed a bond program to provide housing for the homeless a couple of months later it came out that each unit would cost 350 000 and we were all shocked because that's a lot of money to throw at a problem even here in california by 2020 the cost had risen to 531 000 per unit now it's 837 thousand for one unit you know in france the land of high taxes and socialism 857 000 will buy you this okay that is 20 000 more but it does have a pool you know there's an old adage that government cannot transfer money except by means of a leaky bucket and i get that i get that some amount of leaking is inevitable but when it's all holes it's not a bucket anymore what you got there is a handle a january new york times article about the effectiveness of the ppp program says overall the ppp was extremely inefficient only about a quarter of the money spent by the program paid wages that would have otherwise been lost it didn't primarily go to workers who would have lost jobs it was effectively a windfall for business owners on the whole a wealthy group okay shouldn't liberal democrats therefore be the ones who are most upset about this who do you think is most getting by all this graft and thievery if i say you know the government they take our money and waste it people say you sound like a conservative but again i haven't changed the whole to bucket ratio that changed should i never notice that change to keep my progressive card should i stay supportive of government transfers of money until the percentage that's stolen is i don't know unlimited what if they start to shoot money out of a t-shirt cannon still good you know i guess these days that these two are seen as the bad guys in their party because they looked at another multi-trillion dollar spending bill and wondered if our government was up to the task of taking all that money and not just having it siphoned off by grifters and four would it surprise you that the six billion earmarked for carbon reduction in that bill doesn't actually mandate any carbon reduction it will pay for new street lights and bike trails though you know i know when the numbers get up into the billions and trillions our eyes glaze over and it doesn't seem real so by way of analogy let's return to our friend in aisle three at the walgreens okay the walgreens that's the united states government and aisle three that's the 5.7 trillion in coveted relief and this guy's shoveling it into a bag and walking out that's all the boondogglers and con men in america who fleece the system and this security guard who's just watching it that's your congressman [Applause] you

Channel: Real Time with Bill Maher

Views: 2,987,757

Keywords: Fran Lebowitz, author, social commentator, An Evening with Fran Lebowitz”, Ali Velshi, host, MSNBC's morning show, Velshi, Doug Jones, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, Democratic Senator, Alabama, Bending Toward Justice, The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights

Id: LhhoQbzupug

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 30 2022