Opinion

WILLIAM BENNETT: California's welfare state is a fraud machine. It could make all Americans into victims

California’s handout economy is incentivizing joblessness, fraud and the breakdown of social order

By William J. Bennett , Rob Noel Fox News

Published May 7, 2026 5:00am EDT

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It’s a difficult time to be an honest Californian.

The state faces the highest cost of living in America and some of the highest taxes, levied to fund a massive welfare state. For that investment, taxpayers do not get less poverty or a better quality of life, but rather an epidemic of fraud — with an estimated $180 billion or more stolen under Gov. Gavin Newsom alone.

Consider this a warning for America as Democrats look to export the state’s model nationwide. Fraud is not merely an enforcement problem, as the Left wishes to believe. It is the inevitable result of policies that ignore human nature and expand government beyond its constitutional and moral bounds.

America’s Founders understood an essential truth: People are not angels. They are shaped by human nature and by incentives. Government can only influence the latter, and California’s handout economy is incentivizing joblessness, fraud and the breakdown of social order.

DAVID MARCUS: BLUE STATE FRAUD SCANDALS HIGHLIGHT SHOCKING REALITY IN RED STATES

Take the state’s unemployment insurance program, among the most expansive in the country. With no time limit on benefits, no work requirements and minimal oversight, it has turned joblessness into a vocation and the program into a........

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