No doubt the social security, Medicare/Medicaid and government retirement systems meet this definition of fraud directly.  But we may also apply it to other sectors of the federal government, including how the government funds defense, conducts a vast system of student loans, or pays the interest on the federal debt.

Consider the cost of the Pentagon, and the related cost of the CIA and the federal intelligence apparatus.  These agencies spend over a trillion dollars each year, with annual built-in increases – all without a single declared war being conducted since 1941, nor any of the numerous executive-directed and illegal "war-like" activities being won, or even remotely paying a dividend to taxpayers.

Homeland Defense is no different – trillions spent since 2001, and borders wide open, literally uncontrolled in a way unimaginable even 20 years ago.

Payable federal student loans constitute $1.7 trillion.  The US taxpayer via Congressional authorization made this money available, and as it is paid back (or not), more tax-funded loans go out. For most people, time in college and degrees don't substantially increase real inflation-adjusted income; yet Congress continually authorizes this spending program.

New money flows to all these programs every year, just as the USG seamlessly rolls over old debt for new, with no measurable value is created for anyone except for the government and banking elites running the scam.

I don't mean to complain about the various Ponzi schemes conducted by the US government, or even to suggest that we – the taxpayers – have little choice in where or how our government spends its annual haul, and its unlimited borrowing in our name.  This situation has existed and grown worse for my entire lifetime.  I may not intellectually accept it, or even understand it,  but I bear it along with every other American alive today.