patrick.net

I’d like to focus on permission structures. Serious welfare reform is always hard, since progressives always deploy suicidal empathy to protect the racket.




The Minnesota Welfare Fraud scandals echo a pivotal prior chapter in our national history: the 1980s and early 1990s, when perceptions of rampant welfare abuse —fueled by high-profile fraud cases and powerful political rhetoric— created the momentum for the most sweeping welfare reform in generations: the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996.

Under President Jimmy “Peanut Brain” Carter, the 1970s saw programs like Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and food stamps explode. Caseloads soared, costs ballooned, and isolated but sensational fraud cases captured the nation’s attention.

The most iconic was Linda Taylor, a Cadillac-driving, fur-coat-wearing Chicago woman dubbed the “welfare queen” by the press in 1974. Taylor used multiple aliases —up to 80 names, fake addresses, and phony claims for nonexistent children and deceased husbands— to defraud the system of tens of thousands (in some accounts up to $150,000 annually). She was convicted in 1977, and her story became a cause celebré for welfare reform.




Under Reagan’s presidency, 1980s federal task forces uncovered food-stamp trafficking rings in cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and Philadelphia— recipients selling coupons for cash, drugs, or even guns. (Sound familiar?) One 1980s study estimated fraud in some areas was as high as 10-20%, costing billions. Cases like Dorothy Mae Woods in California, who posed as multiple women to claim benefits for thirty-eight fake children, racked up hundreds of thousands in illicit welfare payments, and filed 135 fake tax returns for refunds over $350,000.

All of this attention on a relative handful of welfare cheats sparked long-simmering public outrage, which in turn created what political scientists call a permission structure. The term describes an event or movement that gives someone “permission” —political, moral, or social cover— to take a position that might otherwise be seen as risky, unpopular, or inconsistent with their usual stance. ...

In 1996, PRWORA passed overwhelmingly. It wasn’t even close. It ended AFDC’s presumption of automatic entitlement, and replaced the whole program with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in the form of block grants to states. PRWORA imposed lifetime limits (typically five years), mandated work participation, and devolved power from federal to state control. Caseloads plummeted— plunging over 60% in the following ten years. Poverty rates fell, and employment among single mothers rose dramatically.

Sadly, Democrats —weaponizing Americans’ empathy and generosity— have chipped away at PRWORA’s reforms for thirty years, and you can see the results for yourself in 2025. I suppose it is an improvement that welfare fraud is now mostly confined to blue states and isn’t national in scope. A small improvement. ...

Now, in 2025, the Minnesota fraud scandal is massively worse than the handful of high-profile 1980s welfare queens whose Cadillacs and Caribbean cruises paved the way for generational welfare reform. Ever since, Democrats have complained that the 1980s welfare fraud cases were anecdotal or exaggerated. But Minnesota’s fraud is court-documented, with dozens already convicted, millions in assets seized, paused programs, a half-dozen agencies surging into Minnesota, and a potentially far larger effect— $9 billion+ in one state alone, versus national welfare fraud estimates under $10 billion total, and far less concentrated. ...

At this point, any progressives trying to defend unbounded empathy will just look complicit in fraud tourism. Moderates and independents, seeing billions diverted from the genuinely needful, now have cover to demand accountability— without being guilt-manipulated into feeling heartless.

I cannot conclude without acknowledging the critical role of Twitter/X. This is not like the 80’s, when corporate media helped expose the rotten foundations of the country’s welfare system after 40 years of Democrat political dominance. Now, in 2025, media is completely sold out to the progressive agenda. Be sure that, without social media, corporate media would have successfully buried this story. After all, it did just that for four years under Biden while the fraud continued to percolate despite ongoing investigations.

Without Elon Musk buying and freeing Twitter (now X), there would be no permission structure to talk about. The Minnesota story would still be censored; Nick Shirley’s video would probably have been throttled, shadowbanned, or outright suppressed for violations of community guidelines against racism or something. Instead, the YouTuber’s 45-minute video has garnered 108 million views.