Why are those on the left so often uninterested in the corruption, fraud and theft that goes on within government agencies? [EFFORT POST]

Why don’t people on the left care more about the blatant fraud and corruption happening everyday in government? I know it’s not ever popular to talk about on the left but given that Trump just won’t reelection, I think it’s worth talking about. So let’s talk about it.

I’m not just talking about minor inefficiencies; I’m talking about outright theft from taxpayers, that no one seems to bat an eye to.

The MTA and LIRR in New York are what I’m talking about. The amount of theft and fraud in overtime over the years is incredibly widespread and notorious.

Back in 2018, a few workers gamed the time keeping system, logged so many hours that some of them raked in over a million in overtime. MILLION. A few guys literally made over $1 million in a year. FOR SHIFTS THEY DIDN’T EVEN SHOW UP FOR.

Their fraudulent collection of overtime pay eventually led the men to be some of the highest-paid MTA employees in 2018. Official documents state that the men would often volunteer for overtime work, but they would never actually work the shift. Instead, they would be at home or other unrelated work locations. Caputo allegedly spent the time he was being paid for overtime work at bowling alleys while Gunderson spent the time he was supposed to be working on family vacations.

Caputo, who was an LIRR employee that inspected the train tracks, retired in April 2019. In 2018, Caputo was paid out approximately $461,000 by the MTA. His base salary was $117,000, and an additional $344,000 was paid out for overtime hours that were never worked. His combined salary with the fraudulent overtime pay included made Caputo the highest-paid MTA employee in 2018, even higher than that of the chairman of the MTA.

Another managed to log 4,100 hours of overtime. That’s not just a little bit of fudging the numbers—that’s impossible. THAT’S THE EQUIVALENT OF WORKING 24 HOURS A DAY EVERY DAY FOR 6 MONTHS.

“When there is so much extra pay at stake, and ambiguous time and attendance guidelines, coupled with an easygoing management attitude in the past, no one should be surprised when workers exploit the situation,” E. J. McMahon, research director at Empire Center, wrote in a statement. “This shows why extensive changes to work rules need to be a high priority for MTA management in contract negotiations.”

“The management team takes very seriously any confirmed abuses described in the Inspector General’s letter. Biometric time clocks have been installed across the LIRR. New management controls are in place to ensure overtime is assigned only when necessary and is monitored and approved by supervisors. We are undertaking a legal review of past practice regarding pay for travel time to make certain we appropriately pay employees going forward,” Eng said in a statement.

I’d like to point out that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s salary during this time was $225,000 and was the highest paid governor in the history of the country at that point. Think about that, A RANDOM TRANSIT WORKER WAS MAKING MORE MONEY THAN THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE.

Remember those biometric clocks mentioned in the quote that they installed to track time and cut down on the fraud? The transit workers proceeded to cut the wires. CUT. THE. WIRES.. Can you imagine that level of shamelessness and criminality?

What’s worse is how destructive this is, not just financially but morally. These people are stealing from you. From taxpayers. From people working 40, 50, 60 hours a week just to get by. And what happens to that money? Instead of fixing the broken subway systems or making transit more affordable, it goes to line the pockets of fraudsters. Meanwhile, these same fraudsters retire with enormous pensions (enormous because it’s based on how much they made which includes the defrauded overtime), living comfortably off stolen funds while everyone else suffers.

It’s a billion dollar racket that increases every year.

Overtime as measured using payroll records totaled $1.37 billion, up 6 percent ($75 million) from 2022 and up 22 percent ($246 million) from 2021.

The problem is endemic. Even those that support public transit say it:

There is a difference between necessary overtime due to malfunctioning equipment, accidents or adverse weather conditions when attempting to restore service versus others. There is still significant overtime abuse and out of control pensions. Employees with seniority in their last year of employment enjoy lots of overtime. This results in record pensions upon retirement the following year.

It skyrockets building costs and makes public transit in the US completely dysfunctional and economically insolvent.

The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth

An accountant discovered the discrepancy while reviewing the budget for new train platforms under Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 3.5-mile tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road. But the accountant could only identify about 700 jobs that needed to be done, according to three project supervisors. Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there.

“Nobody knew what those people were doing, if they were doing anything,” said Michael Horodniceanu, who was then the head of construction at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs transit in New York. The workers were laid off, Mr. Horodniceanu said, but no one figured out how long they had been employed. “All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day.”

And before some of you say “Well they just didn’t hire enough workers of course they have to do lots of overtime”.

I’ll let the The NYTimes explain how much that’s not true.

For years, The Times found, public officials have stood by as a small group of politically connected labor unions, construction companies and consulting firms have amassed large profits. Trade unions, which have closely aligned themselves with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other politicians, have secured deals requiring underground construction work to be staffed by as many as four times more laborers than elsewhere in the world, documents show.

The reasons for the M.T.A.’s high costs start with the sheer number of people employed. Mike Roach noticed it immediately upon entering the No. 7 line work site a few years ago. Mr. Roach, a California-based tunneling contractor, was not involved in the project but was invited to see it. He was stunned by how many people were operating the machine churning through soil to create the tunnel. “I actually started counting because I was so surprised, and I counted 25 or 26 people,” he said. “That’s three times what I’m used to.”

The staffing of tunnel-boring machines came up repeatedly in interviews with contractors. The so-called T.B.M.s are massive contraptions, weighing over 1,000 tons and stretching up to 500 feet from cutting wheel to thrust system, but they largely run automatically. Other cities typically man the machine with fewer than 10 people.

It is not just tunneling machines that are overstaffed, though. A dozen New York unions work on tunnel creation, station erection and system setup. Each negotiates with the construction companies over labor conditions, without the M.T.A.’s involvement. And each has secured rules that contractors say require more workers than necessary.

The unions and vendors declined to release the labor deals, but The Times obtained them. Along with interviews with contractors, the documents reveal a dizzying maze of jobs, many of which do not exist on projects elsewhere. There are “nippers” to watch material being moved around and “hog house tenders” to supervise the break room. Each crane must have an “oiler,” a relic of a time when they needed frequent lubrication. Standby electricians and plumbers are to be on hand at all times, as is at least one “master mechanic.” Generators and elevators must have their own operators, even though they are automatic. An extra person is required to be present for all concrete pumping, steam fitting, sheet metal work and other tasks.

In New York, “underground construction employs approximately four times the number of personnel as in similar jobs in Asia, Australia, or Europe,” according to an internal report by Arup, a consulting firm that worked on the Second Avenue subway and many similar projects around the world.

Mind you it’s a corrupt deal between the union, the contracting construction company and the government who gets paid to look the other way. Industrial complex anyone?

At the heart of the issue is the obscure way that construction costs are set in New York. Worker wages and labor conditions are determined through negotiations between the unions and the companies, none of whom have any incentive to control costs. The transit authority has made no attempt to intervene to contain the spending.

The labor deals negotiated between the unions and construction companies also ensure that workers are well paid. The agreement for Local 147, the union for the famed “sandhogs” who dig the tunnels, includes a pay rate for most members of $111 per hour in salary and benefits. The pay doubles for overtime or Sunday work, which is common in transit construction. Weekend overtime pays quadruple — more than $400 per hour.

At what cost to the people of New York?

“It’s sad, really,” said Lok Home, owner of the Robbins Company, which manufactured much of the tunneling equipment used for East Side Access. “Because if they controlled the costs, they could do twice as many expansion projects and still have more money for maintenance.”

Do you know what this does to public confidence in government? It obliterates it. Why should anyone trust a system that allows this kind of thing to happen? And while the left loves to talk about how we need better public services (which I agree with), they turn a blind eye when corruption eats away at the resources we do have. You can’t just keep throwing money at a system that’s this broken. If you ignore waste and fraud, you’re part of the problem.

It’s infuriating. People are working themselves to the bone, paying insane taxes, and this is what they get in return; massive corruption and an utterly indifferent response from the people who claim to care about fairness and justice. Why? Where’s the outrage? Where’s the demand for accountability? How is it fair to tax the average person to give to people who are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars? How is fair to tax people earning $14 an hour to give to people who sometimes earn $400 an hour??

This isn’t just a financial issue; it’s a moral one. It’s a sickness in our system that needs to be cut out if we ever want to have a government worth believing in. Every dollar that’s stolen, wasted or defrauded is one dollar less that can go to helping people who truly need it.

So progressives, I beg you. Don’t lose sight of your reformist roots. Just because Republicans often criticize government in bad faith doesn’t mean the government is functioning as it should. Don’t let hyper-partisanship blind you to real issues. If Trump’s victory taught us anything, it’s that Americans are fed up with a government that fails them at every turn. The first step to fixing it is admitting there’s a problem. So please. Learn about the problem.