Hearing Wrap Up: DOGE Subcommittee’s First Hearing Uncovers Billions Lost to Fraud and Improper Payments, Launches “War on Waste”

WASHINGTON—The Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) held its inaugural hearing today titled “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud” to investigate the hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars wasted annually on improper payments and fraud. Expert witnesses shared step-by-step plans to improve payment systems, close loopholes, decrease fraud, and save American taxpayers billions of dollars every year. Members explained how the DOGE Subcommittee will aid President Trump and Elon Musk in their efforts to rein in the runaway bureaucracy. Majority members also cited potential legislation that would help facilitate DOGE’s efforts to improve payment accuracy and eliminate improper payments and fraud across federal agencies. The DOGE Subcommittee’s “War on Waste” will help ensure Americans see their tax dollars spent efficiently and effectively.

Key Takeaways:

The DOGE Subcommittee will actively work with President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency to root out waste, shore up vulnerable payment systems, and fully investigate schemes to defraud taxpayers.

• Dawn Royal, a certified welfare investigator and the Director of United Council on Welfare Fraud, explained how career bureaucrats, currently facing scrutiny from President Trump and Elon Musk, play down problems in the system in an effort to protect their political interests: “Investigators have also found themselves at odds with the career bureaucrats who recite watered down facts about fraud in order to promote their political agendas. Specifically, we can look to the career bureaucrats who have historically claimed that the fraud rate in SNAP is less than 1%. The disregard for the value of integrity is evidenced by the less than 1/20 of 1% of the SNAP budget spent on the prevention, detection, and prosecution of fraud…Sadly, it is already apparent that career bureaucrats are not being totally transparent as they attempt to protect spending and broken programs.”

• Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) celebrated the success of President Trump, Elon Musk, and their Department of Government Efficiency in swiftly rooting out government waste and also thanked Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene for her efforts to bring the DOGE agenda to Congress: “Thankfully with DOGE, we have a president bringing the leadership needed and a focused effort, along with the talent, technology, tools, and transparency to this waste, fraud and abuse. And to those who would stand opposed to this effort, I would just point out, while it’s understandable to find waste, fraud and abuse that has grown and metastasized in the government even over decades, certainly accelerated in the last few years, to continue to protect it is corruption. I want to thank the Chair for beginning this war on waste on this side of Pennsylvania Avenue and bringing together this Committee. This effort is so important as we work to relieve the American people of this burden of waste, fraud and abuse.”

Fraud and abuse of federal taxpayer dollars can be curbed dramatically by closing eligibility loopholes, improving identity verification, and refining payment tracking mechanisms at both the federal and state level.

• Haywood Talcove, the Chief Executive Officer of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government, laid out a three-step plan for reclaiming control of federal payment systems: “There’s no excuse for the government to lag if we do the following. Number one, implement identity verification on the front end. Criminals should never receive a dime. Eliminate self-certification. No more honor system for billion-dollar programs. And continuous auditing. Keep verifying because criminals never stop adapting.”

• Ms. Royal detailed commonsense solutions to closing loopholes, improving technology, and reducing fraud across all payment systems: “There are things this Committee can do to help the investigators fighting the war on fraud. Number one, eliminate self-attestation in the application process for all programs. Number two, funding for technology that includes identity verification tools that will help prevent fraud. The current pay and chase model is not sustainable. Number three, immediately implement the National Accuracy Clearinghouse, the NAC will provide data to states to prevent duplicate participation in all of the social welfare programs. And four, allocate direct funding with mandates restricting the use of the funding to the prevention, detection, and prosecution of fraud.”

The Biden-Harris Administration exacerbated an already massive improper payment problem by expanding faulty welfare programs without proper oversight mechanisms in place and by failing to hold America’s bureaucracy accountable.

• Stewart Whitson, the Senior Director of Federal Affairs at the Foundation for Government Accountability, described how policies pushed by the Biden Administration exacted a cost on Americans: “Congress can strengthen the Medicaid program through legislative action. That would include repealing Biden’s disastrous Medicaid streamlining rule, which ties the hands of states trying to remove ineligible release….Congress can help President Trump’s DOJ’s effort by ensuring that entrenched partisan bureaucrats don’t stand in the way of reform so much as DOJ’s team of 30 found hundreds of billions of dollars funneled into wasteful, fraudulent and flat-out insane projects. But they’ve only scratched the surface if this much fraud has been exposed in just a few weeks. Imagine what else is buried under layers of red tape and government excuses.”

• Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) slammed former President Joe Biden for abusing federal payment systems and contributing to the dangerously high national debt: “Joe Biden signed his name and wanted the American people to believe he had the ability to forgive $250 billion with a signature. Guess what? The Supreme Court ruled he did not. That’s our system of checks and balances. The President, Biden, he clearly was experiencing cognitive decline. He didn’t even have the ability to be charged with a crime as determined by his own Department of Justice. But he signs his name, and he thinks it gives a quarter of trillion dollars away, redistributes taxpayer dollars. It’s just crazy that we can’t come together to address the greatest national security threat facing this country, our debt.”

Member Highlights:

DOGE Subcommittee Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) shed light on a striking disparity in fraud rates between the public and private sectors, noting that while private sector businesses experience fraud at a rate of around 3 percent, the federal government’s fraud rate is about 20 percent.

Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene: “Mr. Talcove, do private sector companies have a lower rate of improper payments than the federal government?”

Mr. Talcove: “Yes. The fraud rate, that the criminals are taking advantage of the public sector is around 20%. In the private sector, it’s around 3%. And it’s really because the tools that are used in the private sector, aren’t used in the public sector. Front end identity verification, self-certification, and then finally, making sure that individuals are who they say they are. If we start using these tools, you will see the fraud rate go down dramatically because for the most part, this fraud isn’t taking place by individuals. It’s individuals whose identities have been stolen on the dark web.”

Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene: “We would say the private companies that pretty much have to exist on a 20% profit rate. They can’t continue to be successful if they were to allow their customers data to be something like that and used by criminals. However, the federal government, who can continue printing checks and continue an operation, never fixes its problems because it can’t be forced to go out of business. Would you agree with that, Yes or no?”

Mr. Talcove: “Yes.”

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) blasted DOGE Subcommittee Democrats for defending schemes to defraud American taxpayers. He also pointed out that self-verification systems at local doctors’ offices are more secure than federal payment systems.

Rep. Burchett: “The gravy train for a lot of these folks, it’s been on biscuit wheels. It’s about to run off the dadgum tracks. It’s about done. Could you imagine standing up here and defending waste, fraud, and abuse? But I think that’s what we’re seeing. When people squeal and don’t ask questions, I think it shows the American public what the heck’s going on and that little gravy train is getting ready to run out. The spigot is getting ready to be turned off.”

…

Mr. Whitson: “Rather than accepting self-attestation, states should have to be required to actually verify people’s identities and, here’s the key part, before they get enrolled. They shouldn’t get enrolled and then eventually come later on down the road.”

Rep. Burchett: “Including at a doctor’s appointment back in Knoxville, and the verification process is very extensive. It’s more so than the federal government requires for any of this.”

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) detailed how the Department of Government Efficiency is well-positioned within the Executive Office of the President to ensure federal payment systems are protected from future abuses.

Rep. Burlison: “Mr. Whitson, the formation of agencies, via the executive action, is not new. Right? The formation of DOGE is not new. Are you familiar with any other previous presidencies where they formed organizations like DOGE via executive action?”

Mr. Whitson: “Yes. So actually the agency that DOGE is occupying is one that was created in a previous administration. So it is something that happens routinely.”

Rep. Burlison: “Yeah, the Office of Management and Budget was created, Environment Protection Agency was created, the US Digital Service, which is now DOGE, was created, all by executive order.”

Rep. Brian Jack (R-Ga.) described technological inefficiencies, established by the 1974 Privacy Act, that must be updated to allow federal payment systems to use AI and other cutting-edge technologies to reduce improper payments.

Rep. Jack: “One of the things that I found very interesting from your opening testimony is you talked, and I think you engaged with Mr. Burchett, on the 1974 Privacy Act. And I had some interesting folks visit my office yesterday who noted that one third of all prior authorizations are still done manually by phone, fax, or direct post mail. I would love your comments on that. And I’d also like you to expand upon some of the solutions that we can deliver to this Congress in modernizing the 1974 Privacy Act.”

Mr. Talcove: “These aren’t people problems. These are technology problems. You can’t process the number of individuals that are accessing our systems person by person. It just takes too much time. So, by updating the 1974 Privacy Act and allowing for digital matching, you would very quickly realize that a large portion of the PPP loan funds were going to the wrong person. You would have been quickly able to match, I think the number was 20%, and were on the do not pay list. You can’t expect people to do what a machine and especially AI can do today.”

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) held the Biden Administration accountable for aiding abuses of taxpayer dollars and weaponizing the administrative state against the American people.

Rep. Gill: “The Democrat Party has for decades systematically grown and weaponized the administrative state against the American people. And the American people have had enough of it. Right now, we’re talking about $2.7 trillion in improper payments since 2003. We are uncovering what could be the biggest money laundering scandal in American history and the other side of the aisle could care less. They have no concern about where this money went to, what entities it went to, what government, and what people or groups. Nothing…So it does make me wonder if they don’t care about where it’s going, do they have no idea?

“Because what we’ve uncovered so far is that so much of the waste, fraud, and abuse of our federal government is actually funding their side of the aisle. It’s funding media outlets that are running cover for Democrats routinely, NPR, PBS, BBC, Politico. It’s going to fund left wing NGOs that are facilitating the invasion of our country. It is going to fund left wing transgender activism and sex changes all over the globe. This is money that’s being used, taken from the American people and used against their interests. If you care about rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, we should be serious about this.”

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