What is the fundamental premise of the attempts to stop DOGE from discovering and laying upon the table the full scope of fraud, waste and abuse in the government? It's simple: Those screaming are the ones that profit most from the theft.

What happens when you tolerate this sort of thing over the space of decades? You get more of it.

It was rather amusing to see Elon say that he was "astonished" that Social Security numbers are not de-duplicated in the IRS and Treasury systems. I've known this for literally decades. Well duh; were they de-duplicated you couldn't successfully use one from a dead person nor have 10 people using the same one. Attempting to use a dead person's SSN would instantly get rejected because its already in the system and that person is dead, so unless that person is Jesus this is hard proof of fraud. Send the cops and, assuming its not a mistake of transposed numbers, into prison you go for said fraud.

Got 10 "employers" all claiming someone with the same SSN is working for them? No they're not; that's fraud. Dispatch the cops to all 10 employers, find said persons in each case, arrest the nine of them that are using someone else's SSN.

Oh, some of those fraudsters file for refundable (e.g. EITC) tax credits and the children claimed are on false or duplicates SSNs? Send the cops there and arrest all but the one legitimate parent. Nine of the ten are committing fraud; its not a mistake, its fraud and they're stealing money, in many cases as much as $10,000 each and every year.

This stuff isn't hard folks -- in fact its trivially easy.

Which states are screaming the loudest? They're screaming because if you cut this fraud off and jail people for it then their states have a problem in that they gain revenue from each of these illegally-claimed "dependents", never mind the EBT funds that are then spent in that state.

In other words those AG's are not only beneficiaries of the fraud they are directly conspiring by filing this action to force it to continue, and thus by doing so are committing Racketeering. And no, a State Agency employee is not immune from federal prosecution if they commit a federal crime.

Charge them and lock them up.