Editorial Board
How Much Covid Relief Was Stolen? No One Really Knows
Hundreds of billions of dollars were likely siphoned off of aid programs. The government should recover as much as possible.
What’s a billion here or there?
Photographer: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
In some respects, Congress’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic amounted to a striking bipartisan success. Amid crisis conditions, legislators passed six laws doling out more than $5 trillion in relief measures, helping to keep businesses open, households afloat, and the economy from outright collapse.
Unfortunately, it also wasted money on a historic scale.