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In response to
"Where's the lie in what they said, though? -- nm"
by
Beryllium
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The broader point is actually pretty good, but the lie is that the federal government doesn't actually spend $100 to ensure every $1 is correct. -- (edited)
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And it depends on how you look at the question.
I did quite a bit of research about six or seven years ago on this very topic (when I worked in the Senate). Social Security paid quite a lot in administrative overhead for determining eligibility for disability claims (a form of means-testing), but that was on the order of about 17 cents per dollar.
However, if you looked at the cost of the Social Security appeals process, from office-level reconsideration to appeals hearings before an administrative law judge, the spending was about 60 cents on the dollar to determine if someone had been wrongly denied benefits and should be awarded benefits.
And then again, if you look a anti-fraud efforts, the Social Security fraud prevention efforts brought in about $1.23 for every dollar spent on investigation and recovery.
If wise financial stewardship is the goal, then the U.S. government does fairly well, but there are exceptions -- Federal Student Aid being one of them.
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