Recently, Americans for Prosperity and the Maine Heritage Policy Center released a video that was supposed to be proof that there is rampant welfare fraud in Maine.

Apparently, there has been a steady increase in the number of people applying for assistance. According to those groups, it obviously has to be fraud.

After the financial woes the nation has experienced, it is not a wonder to me. Lots of people have lost their jobs and their houses. That is probably beside the point since, in this case, no benefits were awarded to the bogus applicant. Therefore, there is no proof of anything. The most they have is a criticism that a new employee took 28 minutes before getting a supervisor and this “faker” was denied.

The group sat on the video for six months. The governor wants to know why. My guess is that they spent the six months trying to get a more damning video and could not. This is the best they could do so they went with it.

I wish politically conservative people were at least that concerned about perpetrating fraud by the banking industry and insurance companies. There was a $700 billion bailout of those businesses because of questionable practices and fraud — a bailout that taxpayers paid for.

I wish those watchdog groups were as passionate about regulating them.

Marian O’Brien, Lisbon