Mandatory jail time for fraud vs. taxpayers? Absolutely

Epic fraud, epic prison term. 

That sounds about right. 

California Rep. Ken Calvert this week announced a bill to require prison time of at least one year for fraud involving between $1 million and $5 million, and at least five years for fraud exceeding $5 million.

Good: Mandatory prison time for fraudsters is a sound idea.

While the federal government does impose minimum sentences for some forms of fraud, schemes that target federal health-care programs –– i.e., many cases in the news today –– generally don’t carry minimum jail terms.

Such minimums would give the feds another tool in the fight against fraud.

Mandatory jail time would ensure consequences, deliver some measure of justice, and boost deterrence for would-be grifters going forward.

No longer would brazen thieves plunder taxpayers with so little fear of repercussions that they scarcely cover their tracks. 

Basic minimums would also ensure baseline equal justice for fraudsters, at a time when politicians, ideology, and activist judges have eroded public confidence in the judicial system.

And more prosecutions are coming.

In recent months, the Trump administration has unleashed a coast-to-coast crackdown on fraud, with a focus on those who abuse federal health care programs for the poor and the elderly.

Federal prosecutors on Thursday announced charges against 15 suspected fraudsters in Minnesota; they’re accused of Medicaid schemes that may have skimmed $90 million from taxpayers.

Also this week: The mastermind of a massive Minnesota child-nutrition fraud scheme received 41 years in prison. (Now that makes a statement.)

Meanwhile, in California, Trump officials have said that Gov. Gavin Newsom has presided over hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud.

As we’ve said before: The fraud needs to end, it requires punishment, and we need guardrails, oversight and deterrence to protect the public dime going forward.

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The rampant theft from taxpayers is especially galling now, at a time when so much of life seems unaffordable: when inflation still bites; when interest rates remain high; when gas and energy costs, juiced by leftist climate polices, continue to soar; and when California government at every level keeps pushing for higher taxes.

While residents watch each dollar, fraudsters filch millions from taxpayers through brazen schemes: “Learing Centers” that sit empty; child-nutrition programs that feed adult greed; California hospice centers that use fake addresses, or treat phantom patients, or claim dozens of hospices running in a single building. 

It all speaks to a culture of fraud in which the perpetrators –– often for years –– have been all but open in their grift, with scant fear of repercussions.

Thanks to the Trump administration, that’s starting to change.

As federal prosecutor Colin McDonald said this week, “My message to the fraudsters is this: Eat, drink, and be merry today because your days of frolicking and freedom are numbered.” 

Yes. Enough already. If convicted, lock them up.