I wonder if anyone beside me is aghast at Lester Holt’s evening national news program last week (“Fraudsters use COVID relief program money to purchase luxury items,” April 5).

Our government allotted $1 trillion in 2021 to help save small businesses during the pandemic. Lester said those trillions went mostly to scammers like the “farmer” in Florida who employed 10 workers.

This is one of the very few that the “fact checkers” have looked into, or will ever look into. There was no farm, no workers; just an ordinary home in a neighborhood — a scammer who collected $150,000 by lying.

The “fact checkers” won’t get much of the trillion back — lost, not recoverable? Really?

If regular people owed $800,000 in back income tax the government would be “on us” for every single penny of that, plus late fees and interest. But our government won’t be able to get back much of that money stolen by fraud, liars, scammers?

Headline: America loses trillions to thieves. This astounds me. That trillion could have heated every house in Maine all winter, and maybe more.

Sheila Richardson, Turner

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