Connecticut taxpayers are fed up with government fraud. The recent school construction scandal is just the latest example of taxpayer money being stolen, and citizens losing valuable government services because of false claims and fraudulent activity committed by public contractors.
And yet few know a critical reason Connecticut public dollars are so easily stolen by contractors: an odd loophole in the Connecticut False Claims Act (CFCA), the main whistleblower and enforcement law designed to fight false claims and records submitted to the state. The loophole? The CFCA only covers fraud in health care contracts and programs. By contrast, the federal False Claims Act and similar laws in other states apply to all contractors.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and others are fighting to close that gaping loophole with long overdue legislation. The Connecticut legislature needs to join the fight.
More than 150 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln created the federal False Claims Act (“FCA”) to expose, fight, and clamp-down on crooked federal contractors. He was concerned about military contractors ripping off the Union army. However, Lincoln foresaw government being called upon to enact great infrastructure works as well. Lincoln’s FCA thus empowered the government to sue any federal contractor —military or otherwise —that submitted “false claims” to the government, and to sock them with multiple damages and civil penalties.
Critically, the FCA also expanded the...
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