America rightly takes pride in calling itself a nation of laws. But that description carries an obligation greater than writing laws or prosecuting spectacular cases. The real test is whether the law applies with consistency—whether the same basic standard of accountability follows wrongdoing regardless of who committed it, what profession the offender belongs to, or which government program was cheated.
The latest campaign against pandemic-era fraud raises precisely that question.
The Small Business Administration recently announced the suspension of approximately 870,000 borrowers connected with an estimated $39 billion in suspected fraudulent activity involving the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans. Those suspended are barred from future SBA loans and certain other SBA programs.
Protecting public money from fraud is a legitimate responsibility of government. Money stolen from the Treasury is not some abstract government loss. It is money belonging to taxpayers.
But an important principle follows.
Fraud should not become more or less serious because of the government program from which the money was taken.
If someone deliberately cheated a COVID relief program, the government has every right—after appropriate investigation and due process—to recover the money and impose penalties authorized by law. But why should that principle stop with pandemic programs?
Consider Medicare and Medicaid.
Every year the government investigates doctors, medical businesses and other providers accused of billing federal health programs for services that were unnecessary, improperly billed or never provided. The scale is substantial. In its 2026 nationwide health-care fraud enforcement action, the Justice Department announced charges against 455 defendants, including 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals, involving more than $6.5 billion in alleged false claims.
Some health-care fraud cases are criminal prosecutions. Others are civil cases under the False Claims Act. Some end in settlements, repayment, exclusion from federal programs or administrative sanctions. These distinctions matter: an allegation is not a conviction, and a civil settlement does not necessarily establish a criminal offense.
But once deliberate fraud has been proved, another question arises.
Should writing a large check be enough?
Financial recovery is important. Taxpayers should get back every dollar that can lawfully be recovered. Yet restitution and punishment are different concepts. Returning improperly obtained money—or paying additional civil penalties—should not automatically erase the question of professional responsibility.
This becomes especially serious when the offender occupies a position of trust.
A physician is entrusted not merely with access to public funds but with human life. Medicare and Medicaid exist largely to serve the elderly, the poor, people with disabilities and others requiring medical assistance. Knowingly exploiting those programs therefore injures both the Treasury and public trust.
Where intentional criminal fraud is proved, professional licensing authorities should examine whether the conduct is compatible with continued licensure. Federal authorities should similarly determine, under clear and consistently applied standards, whether the offender should remain eligible for federally financed programs, contracts, loans or other benefits.
But this principle cannot be reserved for physicians either. It should apply wherever comparable misconduct is established.
Contractors who deliberately cheat federal agencies, businesses that falsify records to obtain grants, individuals who knowingly steal government benefits, financial operators who defraud federally backed programs—all should face rules based upon the nature and seriousness of the wrongdoing rather than the political prominence of the program involved.
There must, however, be an equally important safeguard: due process.
Suspicion is not guilt. An administrative flag is not a criminal conviction. Government possesses enormous power, and denying a person or business access to federal programs can have severe consequences. There must therefore be a meaningful opportunity to challenge erroneous findings. Otherwise, in our eagerness to punish fraud, we risk punishing people who did not commit it.
Consistency must operate in both directions: equal accountability for the guilty and equal protection for the innocent.
Then there is another subject that often puzzles ordinary Americans—bankruptcy.
How, people sometimes ask, can somebody declare bankruptcy and later appear wealthy?
The answer is that bankruptcy does not necessarily mean that a person has surrendered every possession and become penniless. American bankruptcy law permits different forms of relief. Some proceedings liquidate eligible assets; others allow individuals or businesses to reorganize debts. Certain property may be exempt, secured interests may survive, and some debts cannot be discharged at all.
Bankruptcy is therefore not itself wrongdoing. It is a lawful mechanism intended, among other purposes, to permit an honest debtor a fresh start. The troubling issue is abuse of bankruptcy.
If assets are deliberately hidden, ownership is deceptively transferred, false statements are made or fraud is otherwise used to escape legitimate obligations, that is entirely different from honestly invoking bankruptcy protection. The law already provides mechanisms for challenging discharge in circumstances involving concealment, false statements and certain fraudulent conduct.
Again, we return to the same principle.
America does not need one morality for COVID fraud, another for Medicare fraud, another for contracting fraud and yet another for financial fraud.
It needs one standard: Public money is public trust.
Anyone seeking government assistance accepts a corresponding responsibility to deal honestly with the government. Anyone entrusted with taxpayer money—recipient, contractor, corporation, professional or public official—should understand that deliberately stealing from the public carries consequences.
Those consequences should be established by law, proportionate to the offense and imposed after due process. They should include recovery of stolen money and, where authorized and warranted, criminal punishment, civil penalties, professional discipline and exclusion from appropriate government programs.
Such a system would accomplish something more important than punishment. It would strengthen deterrence.
The person contemplating fraud should not be calculating whether, if caught, a profitable scheme can simply be settled for a fraction of the gain. The calculation should be much simpler: dishonesty with public money carries lasting consequences.
That principle transcends administrations and political parties.
Presidents change. Attorneys General change. Prosecutorial priorities change. But equality before law cannot be allowed to change with them.
A republic earns confidence not by announcing that it is a nation of laws, but by demonstrating that neither wealth, profession, influence nor status places anyone beyond those laws.
Let us prosecute fraud vigorously. Let us recover the people’s money. Let us protect the innocent through due process. And above all, let us apply the principle consistently.
Fraud is fraud. The law should recognize neither privileged fraudsters nor preferred ones. That is not vengeance. That is equality before the law.
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