These stories, and matters like Medicare fraud, really fry my behind. They provide ammunition to those who criticize social programs, and rightly so. I'm afraid, though, that if one made those programs foolproof the overhead would also be a matter of criticism. And that doesn't excuse these people. And those like them.

These folks should not be tried and sentenced on the dollar value of their chiselling - they should be sentenced on the violation of trust.

One can make a case, though, that they were simply entrepreneurs taking advantage of loose regulation, much like banks, Madoff and so on. That it is an American tradition, similar to WorldCom and Enron. And they, too, need be shown no mercy from the justice system.