Everybody, it seems, loves a government handout.

Each year, the U.S. federal government pays out hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidy programs: grants, loans, insurance, scholarships and other benefits. As you might imagine, all that cash has plenty of takers—including a lot of liars and cheats.

In the words of a Republican American editorial, “[W]hen you call a pig pile on ‘free money from the government,’ you will have no shortage of swine.”

Last week, the lid was peeled back on the unsightly world of Medicare fraud. An elaborate network of doctors, nurses, clinic owners, patients and patient recruiters in five states were indicted for scams totaling $251 million. Doctors billed Medicare for equipment they didn’t need and treatment they never gave. One clinic paid cash to elderly immigrants so it could use their Medicare numbers. Several patients shopped their numbers to several different health centers. One 82-year-old patient will be prosecuted for submitting over 3,700 bogus Medicare claims. All told, 94 people were nailed in the crackdown.

Federal authorities say that sadly, the $251 million these folks collected is small potatoes: Medicare fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers a staggering $60 billion to $90 billion every year.

“Violent criminals and mobsters are also tapping into the scams,” the Associated Press reported, “seeing Medicare fraud as more lucrative than dealing drugs and having less severe criminal penalties, officials said” (emphasis mine).

Medicare, though, is just one corner of the federal feeding trough. Federal programs pay student loans, help families with their rent, find work for released prisoners, fill city buses with cleaner fuel, educate people in motorcycle safety, train museum professionals, and so on and so forth. The number of federal subsidy programs is soaring: It jumped 21 percent in the 1990s and another 40 percent in the 2000s. As of this past January, there are more than 2,000 of them. And it’s practically a given that someone is looking for ways to cheat every last one.

The Government Accounting Office tries to track all the waste and fraud it can, but given the enormity of the chore, it can be difficult. “Every year, frauds grab $1.7 billion earmarked for food stamps, $1 billion for low-income renters, more than $1 billion for student loans, $1.4 billion for school lunches, $4.6 billion for supplemental security income payments, $800 million for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, $900 million for child care, $1.7 billion for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, $800 million for veterans’ health care, almost $4 billion for unemployment benefits and more than $500 million for farm aid. (A 2007 gao report found the Department of Agriculture paid $1.1 billion in farm subsidies over six years to 170,000 dead people),” says Republican American.

These numbers expose the ugliest side of the entitlement mentality. In a society that encourages government dependency, such is the misbehavior that breeds and thrives. The more a government takes from its citizens and redistributes, the more that people expect to receive. A negative cycle begins; an unintended adversarial relationship develops. People begin looking out for themselves alone, even in unprincipled ways—seeking every possible means of collecting what they consider their “fair share” without regard for the wider repercussions.

For every ruthless mercenary contributing to those jaw-dropping fraud numbers, there are likely one or two or more Joe Shmoes who have convinced themselves they’re not doing anything wrong. Hey, the government is full of liars and crooks—it’s only fair that I take what I can get.

In his book The Cheating Culture, David Callahan wrote, “Cheating is everywhere. By cheating I mean breaking the rules to get ahead academically, professionally or financially. Some of this cheating involves violating the law; some does not. Either way, most of it is by people who, on the whole, view themselves as upstanding members of society. Again and again, Americans who wouldn’t so much as shoplift a pack of chewing gum are committing felonies at tax time, betraying the trust of their patients, misleading investors, ripping off their insurance company or lying to their clients.”

Human nature is a devious thing. It can dress up lying and stealing to look principled and noble. Billions upon billions of dollars are being embezzled by people neck-deep in self-deceit and rationalization. They willfully overlook the fact that the people they are defrauding are actually their fellow taxpayers—or that it is the very subsidy programs they’re exploiting that are helping to bankrupt the country—or that they are party to the very fraud precipitating the decline of their own nation.

One has to applaud the federal authorities’ success last week in nabbing these criminals. But even the gao admits this was just filling a bucket in a raging river of fraud. The same problem is overwhelming other nations as well, and it’s getting worse. Britain, for example, recently reported that business fraud broke through the £1 billion barrier for the first six months of this year—the highest level ever and almost as much as for the whole of 2008. Figures released Monday also show a record year for fraud in New Zealand, nearly three times worse than over the same period last year. The epidemic infects every aspect of our world—politics, business, sports, education, even religion. God prophesied that deceit and fraud would be pervasive in these end times (e.g. Jeremiah 9; 2 Timothy 3).

The universality of the problem makes it easier for people to justify their actions with everybody-does-it and that’s-just-how-the-world-works. But it doesn’t make it any less wrong.

Man’s best efforts at solving such mammoth evils tend to have unintended side effects because he is cut off from God and from spiritual knowledge. Absent that knowledge, man typically treats the effects of the problem rather than the cause.

Government sting operations will do little to prevent more fraud because they ignore the cause. More legislation and government oversight, even if they manage to alleviate the problem somewhat, are certain to create still more problems.

There is another choice, though. There is a solution that will actually work.

A detailed study of God’s biblical laws reveals a multi-pronged solution that would slash fraud dramatically. If implemented, government subsidy programs would be almost completely eliminated. Welfare benefits would be handled on a local, person-to-person level, eliminating adversarial relationships between needy people and faceless bureaucracies, and replacing them with strong personal connections that strengthen the nation. Moral education would be mandatory, discouraging theft and deceit. Business ethics intended to benefit employers, employees and consumers would be instilled and enforced.

Even carrying out these laws, however, would not completely stamp out the problem. Until human nature is changed, man will still find ways to circumvent the law. To change human nature, we need God’s help. Today, however, man will not yet yield to God! The only permanent and workable solution cannot be implemented until people come to realize deeply how much they need God! That time is almost here.

When Jesus Christ returns, prophecy shows He will directly address the root cause of society’s evils. God promises, at that time, “I will give you a new nature, and I will put a new spirit into you, I will take away your hard nature …” (Ezekiel 36:26, Moffatt translation). What a fantastic prophecy! That is the solution to fraud—and to all of man’s problems.