Trillions in fraudulent government payments
On Wednesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) held her DOGE subcommittee hearing and announced it has discovered that over the past 20 years, the U.S. government has squandered $2.7 trillion on improper payments. Just last year alone, the government handed out $170 billion to individuals who were deceased, criminals, or otherwise ineligible for government programs.
Even more alarming, the government made $44 billion in payments with no clear record of where the money actually went — officials simply don’t know.
Medicare and Medicaid are the biggest culprits when it comes to these improper payments. The Biden administration lost a staggering $764 billion due to a combination of inaccurate record-keeping, bureaucratic incompetence, and outright fraud.
Where’s the outrage? Where’s the media coverage?
The fraud did come up during Wednesday’s White House press briefing when Brian Glenn of Real America’s Voice asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to shed light on wasteful payments that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) identified.
During the exchange, Glenn pointedly noted, “Earlier, the subcommittee headed by Chairman Marjorie Taylor Greene found $2.7 trillion in improper payments to Medicare and Medicaid.” His emphasis on the absurdly high amount of fraud — payments going to individuals who should never have received them — sets the stage for a serious examination of malpractice that the public has a right to know about.
Leavitt corroborated Glenn’s findings, stating, “There is a very long list of the fraud, waste, and abuse that DOGE is identifying on a daily basis.” She also mentioned Social Security payments being disbursed to “people who are no longer with us.”
“I would say that is certainly fraud,” she added.
This isn't just fraud; it’s a shocking indicator of how little accountability there is in our government. The issue extends beyond mere dollar amounts. Leavitt presented a hypothetical scenario, saying, “There’s also a lot of contracts they’ve identified that, just as a hypothetical example, are a million bucks but only $500,000 went out the door, so where’s the rest of that cash?”
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Reining in these fraudulent payments would go a long way in reducing the US annual deficits. DOGE should become a priority for everyone interested in fixing what is wrong with government spending. It looks like the government also needs better accountants. They could start by finding out who was responsible for payments, but they do not know where the money went. The Musk team is on to something and every government official should be supporting DOGE efforts.
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