Economic Stimulus Fraud

Every American taxpayer probably now realizes that the United States Government is in the process of spending hundreds of billions of dollars to cope with the many economic issues now plaguing the country.  If history is any indicator, and it often is, the unparalleled sums of money being spent may prove too tempting for the unscrupulous.

The economic programs have come through legislation known as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (“TALF”).  These new laws require disbursement of billions of dollars to a whole host of programs.  Virtually every sector of the economy is involved: the financial services industry, the banking industry, the mortgage industry, and programs aimed at energy and water development, state government fiscal stabilization, military and defense construction, mortgage foreclosure relief, and education, to name a few.

The False Claims Act (FCA) can serve as an important protection against fraud in these government programs.  The FCA prohibits attempts to acquire government monies through the filing of false claims, false statements, and false records.  The qui tam provisions of the FCA enable citizens to report and deter fraud in TARP, TALF and other new programs.

President Obama has openly declared that federal private sector recipients of public money must understand that they take federal dollars subject to the anti-fraud laws on the books.  This includes the False Claims Act.  Additionally, Congress passed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 (FERA) that, among other things, strengthened the FCA to help protect these government funds from fraud.  It is clear the government intends to aggressively enforce the FCA against all recipients of public money.