An Innocent Millionaire

In his 1985 novel An Innocent Millionaire, Hungarian-born author Stephen Vizinczey tells the tale of a young innocent – in the worldly sense – whose misadventures on life’s quest are both humorous and heartbreaking. I thought of that book when I read about a real-life “innocent millionaire” whose quest as whistleblower is heartbreaking for those who want to curb the excesses of government entitlement programs and the whimsical totalitarianism of government officials.
Vizinczey – one of my favorite writers – is no stranger to the totalitarian impulses of government. His father was assassinated by the Nazis when he was a toddler and his uncle was later murdered by the communists. The plays he wrote during his student years were banned by Hungary’s communist regime.
His fictional innocent millionaire was a victim of his own bad choices. Our actual innocent millionaire, Rob Undersander of Minnesota, on the other hand, is a victim of the totalitarian impulses of a Democrat in Congress, a “representative of the people” arguing that his opinion as lawmaker should trump the written law. To paraphrase conservative columnist David Horowitz, “Inside every Democrat congressman is a totalitarian screaming to get out.”
During a hearing about lax food stamp program regulations, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) accused Mr. Undersander of breaking the law – not the law on the books, but the law as he thought it should be.
As reported in the Washington Free Beacon, Mr. Undersander noticed that “income was the only criterion for receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps.” Although he had a “seven-figure nest egg” he didn’t have much reportable income as a retiree. He decided to test the system to see if he and his wife could qualify for benefits by accurately completing the application.
A millionaire followed government rules and was found to be categorically eligible for a welfare program. Within three weeks of applying, he received an EBT card funded with taxpayer money. He blew the whistle, but instead of being thanked for exposing unnecessary government spending and waste, he was treated by some congressional Democrats like the skunk at a garden party.
As explained in a report by the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), during the Obama years states exploited newly granted leeway in program administration by “using block-granted TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) funding to print welfare brochures, operate a toll-free number providing program information, or include information about other programs on the bottom of food stamp applications. States then claim that anyone who receives information from these sources is receiving a “benefit” funded by the TANF program and can be deemed categorically eligible, bypassing asset tests and the federal income eligibility limit” for other programs.
While only a handful of states initially used this option, the Obama administration spent eight years urging states to expand eligibility through this loophole. NH is one of the loophole states.
Key findings from FGA’s report:
• 40 states are now using this loophole – an intentional decision to expand eligibility to those who would not otherwise qualify.
• 5 million food stamp enrollees would not meet program requirement if not for the loophole
• Millionaires and lottery winners are siphoning away resources for the truly needy
• Closing the loophole would save taxpayers $7 billion per year.
This is the Welfare State run amok.
But the real danger to our Republic was laid bare during the congressional hearing:
“And let me just also say for the record, I think if someone intentionally defrauds the federal government, they ought to go to jail,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, (D-MA)
“Mr. Undersander did not break the law, he simply abided by the rules that were in place, so he didn’t defraud anybody,” said Rep. Mike Conaway, (R-TX)
“He intentionally defrauded the federal government,” McGovern shot back. “That is, in my opinion, breaking the law.”
I’d call this Orwellian Doublethink – the “power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them,” but there’s no evidence that Rep. McGovern believes in the supremacy of the law as written over his sense of “justice.” He only values his opinion in the matter, saving himself the trouble of dealing with the contradiction.
Luckily for Mr. Undersander, Rep. McGovern is a legislator, not a prosecutor. Unfortunately for America, he’s currently in the majority. In his all-too-common liberal worldview, a citizen can be simultaneously following the letter of a law while also breaking that law. Only his “opinion” as a legislator determines guilt or innocence. As McGovern knew, Undersander’s intention from the start was not to defraud the government, but to test whether the government’s own rules enabled a millionaire to collect welfare.
Rep. McGovern would have done well in Stalin’s Politburo. We will do well when he and his party are no longer in the majority.