Verification of claims

Given that this is an election year, I get suspicious of
unsubstantiated claims circulated around about reckless abuses of
government programs, especially controversial ones. The other day I
recieved two, and my first thought was "even if this is true where is
the data? Is this a massive problem or an isolated case?show me the
numbers!"

I wish that there was data available so that we could make an unbiased
judgement.