> Fortunately, we don’t need to know what the money is spent on to measure whether or not the program is working.
I could not disagree more- we absolutely do not have adequate measure of how these programs are working. You are trying to solve a problem upstream of a million factors- we aren't anywhere near measuring outcomes of single decisions.
Which would we be more profitable monitoring and enforcing: who we’re paying out to, or who’s supposed to be paying us?
Generally speaking, this assistance doesn't come as a big lump sum payment, they're usually structured as ongoing payments (or other benefits with a cash value).
Because of the nature of this structure, money must be continually appropriated. The appropriation of resources by the government is something that, at least in democracies, the populace expects to have some input on.