[Brybry]

He cites the 50% number from Jay Swanson, a CCAP Investigations Unit manager, and then dismisses criticism of the number by saying the criticism requires an unreasonable standard (only criminal convictions).

But if you read the cited source of how Swanson came up with that number he said it wasn't just for over-billing (claiming more kids than the places actually had).

Instead, by his estimation, the employees working are not actually working because 'children are unsupervised, running from room to room while adult “employees” spend hours in hallways chatting with other adults' and so all of the funds to those providers are fraudulent. [1]

I think it's pretty easy to criticize the logic for that 50% fraud rate number without requiring criminal convictions.

[1] https://www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/sreview/ccap.pdf#page=16

[tptacek]

This is a great argument. I wish this is what we were discussing rather than Nick Shirley and the partisan politics of the issue.

[plorkyeran]

Oddly enough starting an article with a defense of Nick Shirley leads to the comments on an article being about that.

[tptacek]

I mean, I wouldn't have led off that way either, but I know what Patrick is talking about and I read the article. I genuinely believe the current administration is the worst in the history of the country, and I also believe that to oppose it effectively we need every government body we run to be completely on the ball, so it's really dispiriting to see people reflexively defend misconduct and incompetence. That shouldn't be a habit we share with the party we oppose.

(I can't speak for Patrick's politics, only for mine.)

[themacguffinman]

No government body is run completely on the ball, which is why it's such an effective bad-faith demand.

I don't even know where this belief comes from. I'm certainly not aware of any historical scenario where authoritarian regimes end when their opponents finally embody perfect behavior above reproach.

[tptacek]

It would be a bad-faith demand if I was asking people to assume every blue-state government was bad. But I'm not: I'm simply asking to recognize one that clearly is.

[themacguffinman]

You don't need to ask people to assume every blue-state government was bad, Nick "name a Democrat city that's prospering right now" Shirley will do that after you, you just have to tee him up by saying the first part: "we need every government body we run to be completely on the ball".

I doubt you yourself are engaging in bad faith (of course I recognize your username) but it's still a bad-faith demand to expect "completely on the ball" behavior above reproach and your intentions don't matter when you echo the demand.

For the author, it wasn't enough to simply recognize a failure to prosecute fraud fast enough, such a failure must be characterized as the cause of the irresponsible demagoguery that followed. Then turns around and wonders why his article isn't treated as the apolitical dissection of fraud that he claims it to be.