Then I think you need to read more about Tammany Hall, because it was not simply a widespread pattern of fraud in social services.
There was few social services at the time. It was a patronage system. Different rewards but buying votes all the same. My point is that patronage is a long storied American tradition so I don’t know why people are al shocked that such schemes are still ongoing. Republican and anti castro cubans is or was a similar patronage system.