Fraud Costs US Taxpayers $500B Annually; Report…

BY SRH

The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) just released a new study that says fraud and wrong payments cost federal taxpayers up to $521 billion a year.

Just the News says that the report says the federal government has made about $3 trillion in wrong payments since 2003.

The Federal Government says that improper payments include payments that are the wrong amount, to the wrong person or someone who is not allowed to receive the payment, or that do not have proper paperwork to prove their accuracy.

I wrote the report and am a senior research fellow at FGA. I told The Center Square, “Fraud against federal programs now costs about $521 billion a year, which is seven percent of all the money Washington spends.” That’s more money than only five federal agencies have.

“And that’s just the fraud we know about,” Crocker said next. Every year, only 64 of the more than 2,200 federal payment programs are checked for wrong payments.

Every year, $521 billion is taken from federal programs. That’s 7% of all the money the government spends. That money was meant to help people who really need it, but it’s going to thieves instead. Liesel Crocker has new research on the FGA. 🤵You can follow The FGA (@TheFGA) at https://t.co/lfrSRacSxM.

Crocker says that a lot of the fraud goes through federal programs like Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and a “pandemic grant for concert venues.”

As Crocker put it, “fraud shows up where the checks are easiest to get.”

The report shows that welfare and administration agencies at the state level often don’t want to be supervised by the federal government or don’t share enrollment and eligibility data that is needed to find fraud early.

The FGA says that attorneys general across the country are busy with more than 8,000 fraud cases. The report says that this is only a “small fraction” of the fraud that is going on.

The FGA says that 21 states are refusing to help the federal government check their food stamp programs for fraud, while 29 states are cooperating and finding people who aren’t allowed to be on the program and people who are collecting benefits fraudulently.

The report praised President Trump’s “War on Fraud” and other efforts to fight fraud, but it also said that states and the U.S. Congress need to do more.

From the report: “The bottom line: Congress and states should build on President Trump’s efforts to crack down on fraud and corruption and save taxpayers billions.”