PD Editorial: Big ‘grift’ was side effect of virus

California’s unemployment agency made headlines during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, paying out millions to scammers, including prison inmates, while some legitimate claims languished for months.

The Golden State, it turns out, wasn’t alone.

Thieves plundered at least $280 billion in COVID relief funds, according to a mind-boggling Associated Press investigation published this week. This was, AP concluded, “the greatest grift in U.S. history.”

The perpetrators weren’t only criminal gangs and inmates. More than 2,200 people have been charged with pandemic-related fraud, among them a soldier in Georgia, the pastors of a defunct church in Texas, a roofing contractor in Montana and a former state legislator in Missouri.

None of the news agency’s findings excuse epic failures by the California Employment Development Department or other government agencies.

Indeed, mismanagement at EDD may doom President Joe Biden’s nomination of Julie Su, a former state labor secretary, to fill the same job in Washington.

In addition to brazen theft, AP estimated that $123 billion was either misspent or wasted. That’s about 10% of the $4 trillion appropriated by Congress in 2020 and 2021 for COVID relief.

Any huge government spending program is bound to attract people eager to pocket some of the money. As several readers have pointed out, “60 Minutes” recently broadcast a report alleging price-gouging by defense contractors.

If there is a common denominator, it’s inadequate oversight.

The Pentagon, “60 Minutes” reported, granted contractors unprecedented leeway to monitor themselves. Likewise, people seeking government loans and other forms of emergency COVID relief were allowed to “self-certify” their eligibility. Due diligence gave way to expediting relief — a humanitarian response in a crisis, but with predictable results.

“If you open up the bank window and say, give me your application and just promise me really are who you say you are, you attract a lot of fraudsters, and that’s what happened here,” said Michael Horowitz, a U.S. Justice Department inspector general who chairs the federal Pandemic Response Accountability Committee.

Investigators say they’re still pursuing more than 80,000 leads, and AP reported that prosecutions could continue for years. Good. COVID relief wasn’t an invitation to buy a new car or take a tropical vacation at public expense.

In case anyone has forgotten: There were no effective treatments nor any vaccines when COVID hit in early 2020. In some U.S. cities, hospitals were overwhelmed, and bodies stacked up in refrigerator trucks. Stay-at-home orders were a stopgap measure to try to slow the spread.

With millions of businesses closed and tens of millions of people thrown out of work, federal relief money saved jobs and businesses and homes and ensured that an economic shock didn’t mushroom into another Great Depression.

COVID has killed 1.1 million Americans, and despite development and widespread availability of effective vaccines, it still is killing about 7,500 a month.

The past three years demonstrated why we need robust public health programs, including preparation for pandemics. And, as investigations like those by AP and “60 Minutes” show, careful oversight is a necessity whenever and wherever large sums of public money are involved.

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