- what benefit does the government get from faking it?
It allows for advancing an agenda.
Form a government bureaucracy, say the EPA for example, then staff it with ideologues. Once the agency has been taken over, then charge businesses and property owners outlandish fines for dubious offenses. Once the fines are collected, transfer the money to radical environmental groups of like-mind in the form of government grants. This increases the power of both groups; the one receiving the grants and also the now entrenched bureaucrats at the EPA. All in the name, of course, of "environmental justice" and the "transformation of America."
This is nothing new. The same thing has been done over and over. Hundreds of millions of the trillions spent on "The War on Poverty" since the 1960s have ended up in the hands of radical groups of various types in the form of government grants.
Look no further than the State of California. Here’s how the state is run: The public employee unions donate heavily to the coffers of Democrat politicians. Once elected, the politicians do the bidding of the unions. On the side, they try to run the state. In reality, they have run the state into the ground. The unfunded liabilities of the State of Californa stands at over a trillion dollars ... mostly unfunded public employee retirement pensions. Ridiculous promises made by the unions and supported by the politicians ... with the taxpayers eventually on the hook.
"what benefit does the government get from faking it?"
Follow the money.
Hockey sticks, anyone??
Frank
