Josh Levin > Quotes

“In 1978, the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare reported264 that it lost between $5.5 and $6.5 billion of its $150 billion annual budget to fraud, abuse, and waste. However, just 15 percent of that $5.5 to $6.5 billion—less than 1 percent of HEW’s yearly spending—got siphoned away due to “unlawful, willful misrepresentation (fraud) or excessive services and program violations (abuse).” Further, less than $500 million of the agency’s losses was attributable to the partially federally funded AFDC program. The vast majority of those debits, around $4 billion, came via Medicaid and other health care initiatives”
― Josh Levin, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth

“As of 1970, the Associated Press reported, thirty-nine states were “illegally denying the poor either due process or deserved relief benefits.”141”
― Josh Levin, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth

“Thanks to changes at the federal level, welfare had shifted from a privilege for the “deserving poor” to an entitlement for all those living below the poverty line. In 1968, the Supreme Court deemed “man in the house” laws unconstitutional; two years later, the justices ruled that welfare benefits couldn’t be taken away without an evidentiary hearing.142”
― Josh Levin, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth

“While welfare was typically understood to be a synonym for cash assistance programs such as AFDC, the term’s vagueness260 made it a versatile political tool. For middle- and upper-class voters, particularly white ones, welfare didn’t encompass a program like Social Security. Rather, it came to stand for any government benefit they themselves didn’t receive.”
― Josh Levin, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth

“The Tribune’s prescription for getting rid of a disease seems to be the banishment of the patient.”
― Josh Levin, The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth