Colorado’s housing scandal goes far beyond a simple accounting mistake; it exposes the consequences of using “compassion” as a shield against accountability. Payments to 221 deceased recipients didn’t happen in isolation—they passed through multiple layers of salaried staff, contractors, and administrators whose job was precisely to prevent such errors. Yet the funds flowed anyway, because enrollment numbers were prioritized over eligibility, and oversight was treated as optional.

This problem isn’t unique to Colorado. Similar failures have surfaced in Minnesota, California, New York, and elsewhere, following the same pattern: expand first, verify later—or not at all. Audits are framed as cruel, and exposed fraud is dismissed as a “systems issue.” But the cost is concrete: every dollar sent to a phantom recipient is a dollar taken from a real family in need.

Real reform won’t come from another committee, report, or carefully worded apology. It will happen only when taxpayers refuse to accept ritualized incompetence as the cost of care, demanding that any government claiming moral authority must first demonstrate it can accurately count, verify, and correct—or lose the power to spend altogether.