[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE WAR ON WASTE:
STAMPING OUT THE SCOURGE OF
IMPROPER PAYMENTS AND FRAUD
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DELIVERING ON
GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 12, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-5
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
58-806 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia,
Mike Turner, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Gary Palmer, Alabama Ro Khanna, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Pete Sessions, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Andy Biggs, Arizona Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Maxwell Frost, Florida
Byron Donalds, Florida Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Greg Casar, Texas
William Timmons, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Emily Randall, Washington
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Wesley Bell, Missouri
Nick Langworthy, New York Lateefah Simon, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri Dave Min, California
Eli Crane, Arizona Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
John McGuire, Virginia
Brandon Gill, Texas
------
Mark Marin, Staff Director
James Rust, Deputy Staff Director
Mitch Benzine, General Counsel
Peter Warren, Senior Advisor
Lisa Piraneo, Senior Professional Staff Member
Billy Grant, Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Jamie Smith, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia, Chairwoman
Michael Cloud, Texas Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Pat Fallon, Texas Ranking Minority Member
William Timmons, South Carolina Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Columbia
Eric Burlison, Missouri Stephen Lynch, Massachussetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Robert Garcia, California
Brandon Gill, Texas Greg Casar, Texas
Jasmine Crockett, Texas
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on February 12, 2025................................ 1
Witnesses
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Mr. Haywood Talcove, Chief Executive Officer, LexisNexis Special
Services Inc.
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Ms. Dawn Royal, Director, United Council on Welfare Fraud
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Mr. Stewart Whitson, Senior Director of Federal Affairs,
Foundation for Government Accountability
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Mr. Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette (Minority Witness), Director of
Government Affairs, Project on Government Oversight
Oral Statement................................................... 12
Written opening statements and bios are available on the U.S.
House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* Report, AEI, ``Pandemic-Unemployment-Fraud-in-Context'';
submitted by Rep. Greene.
* Statement for the Record, Adam Roseman' submitted by Rep.
Timmons.
* 5 U.S. Code Sec. 3161; submitted by Rep. Burlison.
* Executive Order No. 14158; submitted by Rep. Burlison.
* U.S. Constitution, Article II; submitted by Rep. Burlison.
* Report, Congressional Research Service, ``Removal of
Inspectors General''; submitted by Rep. Casar.
* News Poll, CBS, Feb 5-7, 2025; submitted by Rep. Jack.
* Statement for the Record, CREW; submitted by Rep. Stansbury.
* Statement for the Record, Department of People Who Work for a
Living; submitted by Rep. Stansbury.
Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.
THE WAR ON WASTE:
STAMPING OUT THE SCOURGE OF
IMPROPER PAYMENTS AND FRAUD
----------
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Marjorie Taylor
Greene [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Greene, Cloud, Fallon, Timmons,
Burlison, Jack, Gill, Stansbury, Norton, Lynch, Garcia, Casar,
Crockett.
Also present: Comer, Connolly.
Ms. Greene. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Delivering
on Government Efficiency will come to order. Welcome, everyone.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
Also, for today's hearing, Chairman Comer and Ranking
Member Connolly will each be recognized for 1 minute after me
and the Ranking Member provide our opening statements.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
Good morning. Today we begin the first hearing on the
Oversight Subcommittee on DOGE. This committee will be laser
focused on bringing full transparency to waste, fraud, and
abuse within the Federal Government, and presenting the plans
to fix the tremendous problems we expose. We, as a country, are
$36 trillion in debt. That is such a stunning amount of money.
It is absolutely staggering to even comprehend how we, as a
people, we, as a country, found ourselves here. This is not a
Democrat problem. This is not a Republican problem. This is an
American problem.
To make it clear for everyone, not only are we $36 trillion
in debt, but the compounding interest on our debt is also
growing out of control. Even if we decided to defund the entire
Federal Government, we cannot escape our debt and the
compounding interest owed on our debt, which grows bigger and
bigger every year. In 2025, interest payments are projected to
be $952 billion, which is more than our entire military budget.
In 2026, it will be $1 trillion and by 2035, $1.8 trillion.
Over the next decade, total interest payments are projected to
be $13.8 trillion. These interest payments do not serve a
single American. They do not build a bridge, a road, provide
disaster relief, or fund a single part of the behemoth that is
the Federal Government. These interest payments pay our masters
who own our debt, and the American people are in debt slavery
to everyone who owns our debt.
Our crippling national debt and massively growing interest
on our debt will destroy us. Not destroy one political party or
the other, it will destroy all of us together. It drives
inflation, making life unaffordable for Americans struggling to
financially survive. It is crippling small businesses
struggling to be successful. Our massively growing debt and
interest are the chains and shackles harnessed to every
American and their children and every generation to come.
But first, let us be brutally honest about how this massive
debt came to be in the first place. It came from Congress and
from elected Presidential administrations, and I believe
enslaving our Nation in debt is one of the biggest betrayals
against the American people by its own elected government. The
American people's anger over this betrayal is what gave birth
to the concept of DOGE, the Department of Government
Efficiency. In fact, DOGE became a major part of President
Trump's campaign and led to his overwhelming victory in
November.
Every day Americans go to work. They run businesses. They
have to earn their paycheck. No one guarantees it, and if they
do not do a good job, they get fired. They also have to pay
their bills, credit card debts, balance their checkbooks, and
scrap and save every penny they can in order to plan for that
rainy day and, hopefully, retirement 1 day. Private businesses
only survive on hard-earned income by serving their customers
so well that their customers pay them for the services and
products they consume. If that business fails, its employees
lose their jobs and paychecks, and the owners lose their
business and everything they risked along with it. Many go
bankrupt in this process and lose everything. No one bails them
out. They only survive by excellent customer service and smart
financial management. This is the real world that most
Americans live, work, and survive in every day. This is the
pursuit of happiness, and this is how you pursue the American
Dream.
However, the Federal Government, government employees, and
unelected bureaucrats do not live by the same rules as the
great American people and private businesses. The Federal
Government's income is the American people's hard-earned tax
dollars, their literal blood, sweat, and tears, and taxes are
collected by law at gunpoint. Do not pay your taxes, and you go
to jail. The Federal Government does not have to provide
excellent customer service to earn its income. It takes your
money whether you like it or not. And Federal employees receive
their paycheck no matter what, whether veterans receive their
benefits or not, whether your mail shows up or not, and whether
your tax dollars are used to help Americans in need or are sent
to foreign countries for foreign people, for foreign causes.
No matter how bad the Federal Government fails the American
people, it still takes your money. It still pays its own
Federal employees, and it never, ever goes out of business.
There are no consequences for bad customer service, total
failure, and for enslaving the American people against their
will in the ever-growing and future all-consuming national
debt. Congress has a dismal approval rating that ranges between
12 and 20 percent. I do not blame the American people one bit
for their sentiment and disgust. The American people will be
watching this Committee and how we tackle one of the biggest
problems of our time. While we are a committee made up of the
opposite, far-reaching corners of Congress, we were each
elected to serve and represent the American people and how
their hard-earned tax dollars are spent. We as Republicans and
Democrats can still hold tightly to our beliefs, but we are
going to have to let go of funding them in order to save our
sinking ship. This is not a time for political theater and
partisan attacks. The American people are watching. The
legislative branch cannot sit on the sidelines.
In this Subcommittee, we will fight the war on waste
shoulder-to-shoulder with President Trump, Elon Musk, and the
DOGE team. This week, we turn our attention to improper
payments by the Federal Government, including in Medicaid and
Medicare. I am looking forward to what we find out and how to
solve this crisis. I now yield to the Ranking Member, Ms.
Stansbury, for her opening statement.
Ms. Stansbury. All right. Well, good morning, everyone.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome to the very first
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency. As was said, this
Committee is tasked under the Oversight Committee with ensuring
that the government and the vital services that it provides,
from healthcare to national security, actually work for the
American people. And this is certainly a topic that we have
worked on for many, many years here in the Oversight Committee,
and which I personally have worked on as a former civil servant
who worked at the Office of Management and Budget. And in fact,
for anyone who has ever worked on these issues, you know that
there is ample ground for bipartisan work to make the
government work better for the American people and to ensure
that it operates in a more efficient manner.
And, in fact, all of us here on the Democratic side are
ready to roll up our sleeves and to get to work. And just last
week, I had the opportunity to sit down with the Chairwoman and
to discuss these very issues and opportunities to work across
the aisle. And like the Chairwoman, who shared some of her
background with me, I grew up in a working family. I grew up
working for small mom-and-pop family businesses and understand
the necessity of balancing the books, making sure we can
deliver, and fiscal responsibility. And that is why today's
hearing is focused on making sure that the Federal Government
is doing what it is supposed to and digging into the more than
$236 billion in improper payments that we see going out the
door every single year, and we need to get to the bottom of
that. And we need to make sure that we are putting into place
rigorous oversight and controls to prevent fraud and abuse,
and, of course, to go after bad actors.
And that is why myself and the Oversight Ranking Member
Connolly and other Democratic Members of the Committee sent a
set of bipartisan ideas that we would like to work on together
that would root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and modernize and
streamline how our agencies deliver vital programs for the
American people. These are programs that are important for our
seniors and our families and healthcare and the education
system, and we need bipartisan solutions to get across the
finish line. And we have been trying over the last several
years to get these ideas out of this Committee, but,
unfortunately, the Committee's priorities have been elsewhere
under the current Majority, so I hope we can fix that this
Congress.
But we cannot just sit here today and pretend like
everything is normal and that this is just another hearing on
government efficiency. I mean, all you have to do is look
across this room and see that it is not a normal hearing
because while we are sitting here, Donald Trump and Elon Musk
are recklessly and illegally dismantling the Federal
Government, shuttering Federal agencies, firing Federal
workers, withholding funds vital to the safety and well-being
of our communities, and hacking our sensitive data systems. In
fact, while we were here discussing government waste on the
House Floor yesterday, Elon Musk was standing behind the
Resolute Desk in the Oval Office with the President, and the
Administration was making emergency court appeals to try to
unlock his team's access to the Treasury Payment System, which
they claim they are using to study improper payments, which is
the topic of this hearing.
But here is the thing. The Treasury Payment System--which
includes Social Security information and bank accounts for
millions of Americans and data that is critical to national
security and the operation of the U.S. Government, and payments
that go out the door annually, equal to almost a fifth of the
U.S. economy--is not where the payment decisions are made,
because that happens inside the agencies that are currently
being dismantled. And the people who actually investigate
waste, fraud, and abuse at these agencies are the Inspector
Generals who Donald Trump fired his first week in office in a
midnight massacre.
So, we have to ask ourselves, what is really going on here?
Why did Republicans block Elon Musk from appearing before this
very Committee last week? Why is the Administration so eager to
allow Elon Musk and his hackers to have access to proprietary
and private information in the Treasury Payment Systems? Why
are our colleagues across the aisle shielding them as they are
clearly breaking the law, and why is the Vice President trying
to rewrite the U.S. Constitution by tweet and undermine the
judiciary? So obviously, we are in the Oversight Committee and
we have a lot of questions, and so do the American people,
especially while our colleagues across the aisle are trying to
scoop up the savings from the dismantling of these agencies to
pay for the largest permanent tax break in American history for
billionaires and the folks that they are helping on their side
of the aisle.
So, let me close by saying this directly to Mr. Elon Musk.
We are well aware that you are eager to engage with Members of
Congress on social media, but we are not here to play. If you
have serious desire to engage in democracy and transparency, we
welcome you to the Oversight Committee. Come and testify in
front of the American people under oath because we want to know
what you are up to. So, if you are interested in talking to us,
then please join us here in the People's House in the House of
Representatives, and with that, I yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady yields. President Trump signed
an executive order on his first day in office, called
Establishing and Implementing the President's Department of
Government Efficiency. The EO simply renamed an office in the
White House that was actually established by President Obama in
2014, called the U.S. Digital Service. President Trump can have
Elon Musk into his Oval Office anytime he likes.
I now recognize the Chairman of the Oversight Committee,
Chairman James Comer.
Chairman Comer. Well, thank you, Chairwoman Greene, for
holding today's hearing to launch a war on waste. President
Trump won an electoral landslide with a clear mandate from the
American people to eliminate Washington waste and stop the
theft of American tax dollars, and he is delivering on his
promise. President Trump has empowered Elon Musk and DOGE to
conduct a governmentwide audit to identify solutions to curb
waste and protect tax dollars. That is exactly what the mission
of this Committee is supposed to be, and I am glad that my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle have found a new-
found interest in waste, fraud, and abuse.
With a staggering $37 trillion in national debt, we have no
time to lose. A key place to start is improper payments. Since
2003, the government has lost $2.7 trillion because of improper
payments. Fraudsters, organized criminals, hostile foreign
actors, and even government employees have siphoned money away
from those who truly qualify for assistance. For years,
Republicans and Democrats on the Oversight Committee have
condemned this waste, but now that DOGE is taking real action,
Democrats are choosing to defend the bureaucracy and status quo
instead of standing up for the American people. I want to thank
Chairwoman Greene for holding this very important hearing not
only to expose the problems, but to find solutions. We stand
with President Trump and DOGE in the fight to end waste, fraud,
and abuse in Washington.
With that, I yield back to Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene,
and congratulations again, Chairwoman, on holding this first
hearing of the DOGE Subcommittee.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The gentleman yields
back. I now recognize the Ranking Member on oversight, Mr.
Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Excuse me. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank
you for having this first hearing on DOGE. Improper payments is
not a new subject. I remember joining Steve Lynch and then Todd
Platts, Republican Member from Pennsylvania, in my freshman
year, talking about improper payments. At that time, improper
payments were in the range of $35 billion a year. They are now
in the range of $280 billion a year, and times 10, we could cut
almost $3 trillion from the debt if we addressed improper
payments in a deliberative way, which GAO has called for in the
high-risk category for years. We can also, second, enforce the
Tax Code. It is estimated that at least a half a trillion
dollars a year is left on the table uncollected but owed
because of lack of resources in the IRS. Again, times 10 is $5
trillion over a decade. And finally, we can modernize Federal
IT systems, which we have championed for years on this
Committee. We know that legacy systems alone could save
hundreds of millions of dollars a year in operating and
maintenance costs.
So, if we want to be serious about it, let us be serious
about it. But the way not to do it is to fire the people
charged with the remit of waste, fraud, and abuse, namely
inspectors general. President Trump has already now fired 19,
including, most recently, the USAID Inspector General, who
dared to warn that we could lose a half a billion dollars of
food aid because it is in warehouses, not being moved because
of the funding freeze that was imposed in AID. That is a cost
we need to avoid, and for doing his job, that IG was fired. If
we want to be serious, we have got to have objective, neutral
Inspectors General who are monitoring government waste, fraud
and abuse, and expenditures. And I think you would find
Democrats more than willing partners in that kind of
enterprise, if we are going to be serious. But a wrecking crew,
a wrecking crane, a wrecking ball is not going to do it, and we
are not going to support that approach to waste, fraud, and
abuse in the Federal Government. I yield back. Thank you.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman yields. The President of the
United States has the prerogative to fire anyone that has
overseen $36 trillion in debt, enslaving the American people,
and rightfully so.
I am pleased to welcome today's expert panel of witnesses,
who each bring unique experience and expertise that will be
valuable to today's discussion.
I would first like to welcome Mr. Haywood Talcove, the
Chief Executive Officer for Government at LexisNexis Risk
Solutions, Inc. His commitment to customers' needs allows
LexisNexis to develop market-leading solutions that have
enabled customers to stop fraud, waste, and abuse. Next, we
have Mr. Stewart Whitson, the Senior Director of Federal
affairs at the Foundation of Government Accountability. Stewart
was previously a special agent in the FBI, a U.S. Army veteran,
and now spends his time at FGA advocating to improve welfare,
the workforce, and other policy.
Next, we have Ms. Dawn Royal, a certified welfare fraud
investigator in the state of Wyoming, and Director for the
United Council of Welfare Fraud. She advocates for
investigating and preventing fraud of government benefits and
has done so over the past 16 years. Finally, we have Mr. Dylan
Hedtler-Gaudette, the Director of Government Affairs at the
Project on Government Oversight. Dylan leads advocacy efforts
and policy reforms to a wide range of good governance.
I thank each of our witnesses for being here today, and I
look forward to your testimony. Pursuant to Committee Rule
9(g), the witnesses will please stand and raise their right
hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Ms. Greene. Let the record show that the witnesses answered
in the affirmative. Thank you. You may take a seat. We
appreciate you being here today and look forward to your
testimony.
Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written
statement, and it will appear in full in the hearing record.
Please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes. As a reminder,
please press the button on the microphone in front of you so
that it is on, and the Members can hear you. When you begin to
speak, the light in front of you will turn green. After 4
minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the red light comes
on, your 5 minutes have expired, and we would ask that you
please wrap up.
I now recognize Mr. Talcove for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HAYWOOD TALCOVE
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
LEXISNEXIS SPECIAL SERVICES INC.
Mr. Talcove. Chairwoman Greene, Ranking Member Stansbury,
and distinguished Members of the Committee, for over a decade,
a silent war has been waged against American taxpayers, not
with bombs or guns, but with data and technology. Outdated
government systems permit criminals to access unlimited sums of
money. During the pandemic, they stole $1 trillion. Seventy
percent of those dollars went overseas. Shockingly, it is just
not criminals exploiting the system. It is the flawed system
itself acting as the accomplice. If left unchecked, the U.S.
Government will continue to lead the world in funding
cybercriminals. This is a data and technology problem, and it
demands a data-driven response.
Criminal syndicates have turned benefit programs into their
personal ATM machines, exploiting those in need who wait months
for benefits that may never come. These ruthless crooks use our
money to fund child trafficking, disperse drugs in our
communities, and terrorism. For years, criminal networks have
stolen personal information from the public and private sector.
They exploit real identities to manipulate antiquated
government systems, siphoning off billions in taxpayers' hard-
earned money. We continue to pay benefits to deceased and
incarcerated individuals, direct money to bad actors flagged on
the Do Not Pay list, and overlook duplicate Social Security
numbers by not following best practices.
During the pandemic, a simple cross-check of PPP loan
recipients against IRS records would have exposed massive fraud
and prevented payments to transnational criminals who sold
their ``sauce'' on the dark web. To stop this, we must reclaim
control of our systems, not just from the criminal syndicates,
but the flawed systems enabling them. Smarter technology, data,
and identity verification are not optional. They are
necessities to protect taxpayers and ensure aid reaches those
who truly need it.
Now, the use of AI is fundamentally changing society, but
in the hands of criminals, it has become a weapon. Lawbreakers
are now using it to supercharge their war on taxpayers. They
use AI to create fake identity documents that pass biometric
verifications. Bots flood portals with thousands of fraudulent
claims per second, and deep fakes that mimic real applicants
bypass the outdated NIST 800-63 standards from 2017.
Honest and deserving people seeking access to government
benefits suffer through endless application forms that are
nearly impossible to navigate, but criminals from Russia,
China, and Romania gain access with ease. The private sector
has fraud rates below three percent. Meanwhile, the public
sector operates at a 20 percent fraud rate. The solution is
clear. It is already used every day to protect consumers. You
seamlessly interact with your bank through an app that verifies
your identity in milliseconds. There is no excuse for the
government to lag if we do the following:
No. 1, 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. Pay-and-chase does not work. Of
the $250 billion stolen in pandemic unemployment fraud, less
than $5 billion has been recovered. The idea in government that
you cannot have speed and security is fiction. I urge Congress
to consider making the following legislative changes:
No. 1, update the 1974 Privacy Act to allow for data
sharing and matching.
No. 2, fund a budget for fraud prevention in each
appropriation bill. The USDA spends one-twentieth of one
percent on fraud prevention. Mandate that individuals caught
stealing from entitlement programs pay hefty fines and are
removed from the program permanently. And finally, eliminate
broad-based categorical eligibility.
This Committee has a choice: continue losing this war
against criminal cartels and nation-states, or fight back and
save $1 trillion annually. Fraud prevention is not benefit
prevention. It is the key to ensuring that every dollar reaches
those who truly need it. Hardworking Americans rely on these
programs not just to survive, but to build better lives for
their families. When criminals exploit the system, they just do
not steal money. They steal opportunities.
Stopping fraud is not about denying benefits. It is about
protecting them. This crime has two victims. The first are the
taxpayers, and the second are those seeking benefits. The
fraudsters, cartels, and criminal syndicates are watching this
hearing, I am sure of it. It is time to show them that America
will not fund its own destruction. Thank you, and I look
forward to your questions.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Talcove. I now recognize Ms.
Royal for her opening statement.
STATEMENT OF DAWN ROYAL
DIRECTOR
UNITED COUNCIL ON WELFARE FRAUD
Ms. Royal. Good morning, Chairwoman Greene, Ranking Member
Stansbury, and Committee Members. My name is Dawn Royal. I am a
certified welfare fraud investigator, two-term past president
and a current Director of the United Counsel on Welfare Fraud.
The United Counsel on Welfare Fraud is a national professional
organization dedicated to protecting integrity in our Nation's
public assistance programs. We are the only national
organization singularly focused on the detection, prevention,
and prosecution of welfare fraud.
For too long, agency bureaucrats have pitted citizens'
access to welfare programs against the integrity of those
programs. Access versus integrity should never be an either/or
dichotomy. We can all agree that access to public assistance is
crucial. America's citizens should not be hungry or deprived of
medical care because of their inability to pay. However, making
sure vulnerable citizens have access to these welfare programs
should not mean that we simply turn a blind eye to integrity.
If we do not pursue the prevention, detection, and prosecution
of fraud, taxpayers become the victims as the welfare programs
become slush funds for anyone wanting to supplement their
income with SNAP benefits, absolve themselves from the
financial responsibility of medical bills, and using Medicaid
to further taxpayer exploitation by taking advantage of cash
assistance, energy assistance, childcare, and other social
welfare programs.
One example of welfare fraud is a case that I investigated
that was criminally prosecuted last year. The applicant mother
failed to disclose her children's father, as well as his
employment and income on multiple applications she submitted
for Medicaid, SNAP, and low-income energy assistance. The co-
defendant father worked a steady job, earning a 6-figure
salary, and provided an enviable lifestyle for his family,
including vacations, luxury vehicles, snowmobiles, motorhomes,
lavish gifts, including one from the wife to the husband, which
was a $1,200 bottle of bourbon. Evidence we presented at trial
included candidate registration forms filed by the defendant
father when he ran for town council and later mayor of the town
where he declared he lived at the same address provided by his
wife on her public assistance programs. This was a case of
greed, but it emphasizes how easy it was for these criminals to
make false statements on applications in order to receive
benefits from multiple programs that they were never eligible
for.
I could spend the rest of my day providing countless
examples of how taxpayer-funded programs are exploited, and the
message would be the same. Investigators continue to be
hamstrung by antiquated regulations, conflicting directives
from Federal agencies, and the lack of access to technology.
Sadly, 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
one percent. The disregard for the value of integrity is
evidenced by the less than one-twentieth of one percent of the
SNAP budget spent on the prevention, detection, and prosecution
of fraud. As part of Medicaid unwinding debacle, the
bureaucrats specifically directed states that they ``cannot
recover or recoup the cost of services from a beneficiary, even
if they have been found after an administrative hearing or
criminal proceeding to have committed Medicaid beneficiary
fraud or abuse.''
Sadly, it is already apparent that career bureaucrats are
not being totally transparent as they attempt to protect
spending and broken programs. We fail to understand how
mitigating the rampant fraud in Medicaid, SNAP, and other
welfare programs stands up or strengthens the welfare programs.
Fact is, the opposite is true. Ignoring fraud and gaslighting
fraud statistics erodes the very foundations of the programs
that are essential to their future viability.
There are things this Committee can do to help the
investigators fighting the war on fraud. No. 1, eliminate self-
attestation in the application process for all programs. No. 2,
funding for technology that includes identity verification
tools that will help prevent fraud. The current pay and chase
model is not sustainable. No. 3, immediately implement the
National Accuracy Clearinghouse, the NAC, that 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.
In closing, we are at a crossroads. Those of us who have
firsthand knowledge of the degree in which public welfare
programs are being attacked know that reform is absolutely
necessary, reform to the recipient application process, the
billing process in Medicaid and how SNAP benefits are
processed, and how providers and retailers are authorized. We
thank you for the opportunity for UCOWF to participate in this
hearing. We feel that the investigators who are on the front
lines fighting the daily battle against the war on fraud need
to be at the table and participating in the development of
action plans that will make a difference in protecting the
programs and defending the taxpayers.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Ms. Royal. I now recognize Mr.
Whitson for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF STEWART WHITSON
FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT
SENIOR DIRECTOR OF FEDERAL AFFAIRS
FOUNDATION FOR GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
Mr. Whitson. Chairwoman Greene, Ranking Member Stansbury,
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify today.
On the campaign trail, President Trump promised to take on
the bloated bureaucracy in D.C., rebuild trust in the DOJ and
the FBI, crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse, and restore
common sense. And on day one, he started delivering on those
promises with a wave of executive orders and the official
launch of DOGE, which he, of course, tasked Elon Musk to lead.
Already, DOGE efforts have brought to the public's attention
countless examples of wasteful spending, including $59 million
paid to luxury hotels in New York to house illegal immigrants,
$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia's workplaces, $32,000 for
a transgender comic book in Peru. The list goes on. But rather
than applauding the work of DOGE, the left has launched a
coordinated campaign to try to demonize Mr. Musk with the hope
of shifting focus away from the disastrous waste, fraud, and
abuse that occurred on Biden's watch, but guess what? It is not
working, because no matter what political party people hail
from, the vast majority of Americans agree that $10 million
worth of food funneled to Al-Qaeda was probably not the best
use of taxpayer money.
But there is another source, a key source, of wasteful
spending that DOGE and the Subcommittee should set their sights
on next, and that is Medicaid waste and fraud. While initially
meant as a program for the truly needy, Medicaid has bloated
into a massive welfare program for millions of able-bodied
adults lured into the trap of government dependency. And as
Medicaid has grown, so, too, has mismanagement. Today, more
than $1 in $5 dollars spent on Medicaid is improper. In
Medicaid alone, fraud and mismanagement is on track to cost
U.S. taxpayers--get this--more than $1 trillion over the next
10 years. When it comes to the problem of improper payments,
the Medicaid program is the biggest culprit, encompassing
nearly one-third of all Federal improper payments, and more
than 80 percent of Medicaid improper payments are due to one
thing: eligibility errors. If Congress wants to help President
Trump address wasteful spending, then targeting eligibility
errors in Medicaid should be one of your top priorities.
Bottom line, to address this challenge, Congress can take
three decisive actions. So, first, 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 enrollees.
You can and should do this through reconciliation, and it will
produce $164 billion in savings if you do. You can also
strengthen verification requirements to ensure only eligible
individuals receive benefits and ensure a nationwide NAC is
implemented without delay.
Second thing Congress can do to help President Trump's DOGE
effort by ensuring that entrenched partisan bureaucrats do not
stand in the way of reform. So, Musk and his DOGE team have
already found hundreds of billions of dollars funneled into
wasteful, fraudulent, and flat-out insane projects, but they
have 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. But guess what? All
of these insane projects have one thing in common: they were
all approved and funded by unelected bureaucrats, and these and
other entrenched bureaucrats are already pledging to fight
against President Trump's efforts to improve government
accountability and efficiency. Personnel is policy, and without
competent staff to faithfully execute the President's agenda,
the DOGE project will fail. And this is where Congress can
help.
Congress can support the President in carrying out his DOGE
effort by making all executive branch employees at-will,
codifying the President's authority to fire unproductive or
insubordinate agency employees as needed. At the same time,
Congress can grant the President authority to permanently
eliminate vacant positions and consolidate nonessential
positions across agencies and departments to help promote
efficiency and put the right people in the right seat. The
third thing, Congress can make President Trump's DOGE cost-
cutting and deregulatory reforms permanent by passing the REINS
Act. And so, there is only one big problem with the DOGE
effort. Most of its work can be undone by a future President
with the stroke of a pen. To make President Trump's DOGE
reforms permanent, Congress must act, and the best way to do
this is to pass the REINS Act. This would return Article I
budgetary power of the purse to Congress while promoting
deregulation. It would also help lock in the DOGE reforms and
cement President Trump's legacy as the most consequential
deregulatory and cost-cutting President in U.S. history.
The American people are watching. It is time for Congress
to act. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Whitson. I now recognize Mr.
Hedtler-Gaudette for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF DYLAN HEDTLER-GAUDETTE
DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS
PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT (POGO)
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette. Thank you, Chairwoman Greene, Ranking
Member Stansbury, and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, and I am the Director of Government
Affairs at the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO. I
appreciate the opportunity to be with you here today to talk
about the critical issue of bringing more accountability and
transparency to Federal spending, including rooting out waste,
fraud, and abuse.
Since our founding in 1981, POGO has been focused on
promoting more accountability and rooting out wasteful spending
and promoting efficiency, especially at the Department of
Defense. We have a long and well-established track record on
these issues, and we take a backseat when it comes to promoting
a better and more effective government, which necessarily
includes a Federal Government that is a good and responsible
steward of taxpayer dollars.
Let us take a moment to pause here to talk a little bit
about terms that we are going to hear a lot today and the
differences between them. Waste is different from fraud, fraud
is different from abuse, and abuse is different from both. When
we talk about improper payments, they are a subset of those
other three categories, but that does not tell us the whole
picture either. Sometimes improper payments are a function of
bad recordkeeping. Sometimes they are a function of outdated
information technology systems. Sometimes they come about
through human error, and sometimes they come about through
negligence. There are a variety of reasons why improper
payments happen. It just simply is not the case that improper
payments are only a function of bad people doing bad things
with bad intent. That does not mean we should not focus on
trying to mitigate improper payments, and that certainly does
not mean that the American people should not be concerned with
how their tax dollars are used.
The good news is, is that there are some time-tested
solutions and tools to help mitigate these problems. For
example, when we think about the independence of Inspectors
General, we are talking about a resource that is
extraordinarily valuable to the American people. In Fiscal Year
2023 alone, Inspectors General identified over $93 billion
worth of potential savings to taxpayers. Whistleblowers are
also an incredible resource to the American taxpayer. Through
the IRS's whistleblower program alone, billions of dollars have
been recouped from tax cheats since the inception of that
program in 2007. Whistleblowers have also played an
instrumental role in helping the Department of Justice pursue
False Claims Act cases that have resulted in billions of
dollars in reclaimed settlement costs. It seems to me that if
an administration were serious about wanting to root out waste,
fraud, and abuse, they would support and resource
whistleblowers and Inspectors General. They would not demonize
them, and they would certainly not fire them en masse in an
unlawful midnight purge.
There are other reforms we can think about, too, reforms
that are more technical but just as important. Key statutes,
such as the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency
Act, the Data Act, and critical platforms like USAspending.gov
were really important improvements and innovations when they
came about, but they are in need of overhaul and reform.
Currently, the status quo is that we have an extraordinarily
hard time tracking Federal dollars from end to end. This is due
in large part to a broken chain of data collection, of
reporting information, and the ability to monitor and track in
real time what is happening with Federal dollars. This
informational black hole is where a lot of impropriety happens.
It is where waste, fraud, and abuse live, and, yes, this is
where improper payments often happen. But more importantly, we
also do not have a good, clear, and consistent way of
understanding what is happening with tax dollars at the end
point. What is the impact that we are having? What is the
return on investment that we are having? We now have an annual
budget of close to $7 trillion a year. We cannot say with any
degree of clarity and consistency what we are getting for all
of that money.
We have some more good news, though. There are bipartisan
efforts--and there have been for years--to try and cleanup this
situation. We at POGO have had the privilege and pleasure of
working on some of those initiatives. We were a part of the
Federal Taxpayers Right-to-Know Act being passed into law just
a couple of years ago, which created for the very first time a
program inventory of all the programs in the Federal Government
and that would be available to the public. We have worked with
a Member of this very Committee, the House Oversight and
Accountability Committee [sic], to introduce a piece of
legislation that would bring more transparency to Federal
subaward reporting. We have supported and endorsed multiple
pieces of legislation that take direct aim at the improper
payments issue.
We also have additional ideas that do not yet have
congressional champions. One proposal is to clean up and
modernize and standardize the award descriptions that are
available in USAspending to make them more useful and relevant.
We have another proposal to harmonize the amount of data and
information we collect between contract spending and
noncontract spending. We stand ready, willing, and able to work
with anybody who wants to work with us on these commonsense
solutions.
Last, I want to put in a quick word for Congress--and
specifically, I want to ask----
Ms. Greene. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette. Apologies.
Ms. Greene. Yes.
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette. I cannot see the flashing light.
Ms. Greene. That is OK. Thank you, Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette, we
appreciate your testimony.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questions.
I would like to thank our witnesses today for your
testimoneys and the suggestions that you have brought before
this Committee. I would also like to thank Chairman Comer for
this opportunity to chair the historic Oversight Subcommittee
on DOGE.
Americans are shocked to learn that $2.7 trillion of their
hard-earned tax dollars have been stolen or wasted in improper
payments since 2003. You see, in the private sector, companies
cannot continue to run if they keep employees that allow waste
and abuse with their resources, but that has continued for
decades here in the Federal Government. 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 in the public sector is around 20 percent.
In the private sector, it is around three percent. And it is
really because the tools that are used in the private sector
are not 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 is not taking place by
real individuals. It is individuals whose identities have been
stolen on the dark web. They use that information pretending to
be somebody else, and because of the antiquated systems,
processes, and technologies in place in government programs,
they are able to steal at scale.
Ms. Greene. Right. So, Mr. Talcove, we would say that
private companies that pretty much have to exist on a 20-
percent profit rate. They cannot continue to be successful if
they were to allow their customers' data to be stolen like that
and used by criminals. However, the Federal Government, who can
continue printing checks and continue in operation, never fixes
its problems because it cannot be forced to go out of business.
Would you agree with that? Yes or no.
Mr. Talcove. Yes. One of the things I noticed during COVID
was the criminals learned that government was the mark because
it never runs out of money----
Ms. Greene. Uh-huh.
Mr. Talcove [continuing]. And they focus on it at scale,
and then the likelihood of getting caught is virtually zero.
Ms. Greene. I think it is outrageous for Americans to know
that their identity can be stolen and then used for child-
trafficking, drug-trafficking, and terrorism, like you stated
in your opening statement. Ms. Royal, your testimony states
that many programs operate under essentially an honor system in
which applicants need not verify their identity, income,
residency, or other key eligibility factors. You call this a
trust-everyone instead of a trust-by-verify approach. Does this
mean the Federal Government and some states are giving out
billions of dollars to individuals without verifying who they
are or whether they meet program eligibility requirements?
Ms. Royal. Yes, ma'am. That is correct.
Ms. Greene. That is outrageous. Do states have enough
incentive to prevent fraud and to recover improper payments?
Ms. Royal. No, and, in fact, states are hesitant to spend
their state dollars to protect Federal dollars.
Ms. Greene. Would greater investment in program integrity
efforts yield a positive return for taxpayers?
Ms. Royal. Yes, it could easily be self-funding.
Ms. Greene. Amazing. Mr. Whitson, your testimony states
that both the Biden and Obama Administrations issued rules and
guidance that made it harder for states to verify eligibility
for Medicaid. You say that repealing Biden's Medicaid
streamlining rule would save $164 billion over 10 years because
the rule restricts eligibility verification that states can
perform. Can you explain why this rule is so costly?
Mr. Whitson. Yes. So, the rule does a number of things. For
instance, it prohibits states from verifying eligibility more
than once a year. So, for nondisabled folks to just go in and
look and say, hey, are you still eligible for the program? It
says you are forbidden from doing that any more often than once
a year. And so, obviously, people's lives change and so they
may become ineligible, and so it is designed to keep them on
the program. Another thing, it prohibits in-person or phone
interviews to verify their identity. So, people apply for it,
and then the person on the other end says, well, I just want to
call and make sure this is a real person, not someone in
another country or whatever. The rule prohibits that.
And so, there are a number of other provisions. It also
opens a lengthy reconsideration period, and this is where
illegal immigrants are able to obtain the benefits. And so,
basically, it says once you get these benefits, you cannot
interfere with it for a 90-day period or longer, and so there
are a number of----
Ms. Greene. Wow.
Mr. Whitson [continuing]. Of horrible things.
Ms. Greene. So, we cannot verify if someone is illegal or
legal, receiving benefits, just to correct that? Yes or no.
Mr. Whitson. A state has to wait at least 90 days, and
actually what we are seeing is it has led some states to wait
as long as 13 years on the program. And so----
Ms. Greene. Unbelievable. My time has expired. Thank you
very much. I now recognize Mr. Lynch from Massachusetts for 5
minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. First of all,
let me congratulate you, and also Ms. Stansbury, on your new
positions, and I want to thank the witnesses for your
testimony. We have already heard some good ideas about how to
work together, and, Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette, I, for one, would be
most open to working with POGO and trying to work on some of
the legislative ideas that you have to actually get at some of
this waste, fraud, and abuse.
Since this is my first opportunity to speak in this new
Subcommittee as the Representative for the 8th congressional
District in Massachusetts, I want to, first of all, make clear
that my primary purpose in seeking appointment to this
Subcommittee is for the singular and sacred purpose to defend
our democracy, which I believe is under attack in this country,
and to uphold my oath to support and defend the Constitution
against those who might secretly or openly seek its
destruction.
Make no mistake, this is a moment for representative
democracy. This is a test of our resolve. In the coming days
and weeks, we will all get to decide whether we stand with a
couple of billionaires who, despite their own financial
successes, still harbor such grievances in their hearts that
after all that democracy has provided to them, they remain
animated by the desire to dismantle this democratic government
and to punch down at some of the weakest and most vulnerable in
our society; two men who clearly understand that the easiest
way to incite large numbers of people is to use social media to
exploit the dynamic forces of hatred and fear.
Madam Chair, if we are going after waste, fraud, and abuse,
let us start with abuse. Abuse of power. As of yesterday, there
were 55 lawsuits under consideration by the Federal courts
across our Nation as a result of Elon Musk's and President
Trump's unlawful acts. Many of those lawsuits have already been
sustained by the Federal district courts, and orders have been
rendered to undo those unlawful acts. But this is just the
beginning, and Congress has an important role to play, and I,
for one, look forward to that opportunity. This is a moment of
great consequence for our country and for our democracy, and I
remain grateful to the good people of the 8th congressional
District of Massachusetts who sent me here.
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette, again, happy to join you on some of
your efforts. POGO has worked very closely with our IG
community. Is that right, the Inspector Generals?
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette. Yes, that is correct, Congressman.
Mr. Lynch. I know your work is very much similar to what we
ask our Inspectors Generals to undertake. I want to ask you, so
in the most recent report from the Inspector Generals, and this
is the Council of the Inspector Generals, a nonpartisan group
on integrity and efficiency in government, they identified more
than $93 billion in potential savings. So, the first thing that
President Trump did coming into office was to fire--fire--17
agency Inspectors General. From POGO's standpoint, what does
that do to our ability to identify and root out waste, fraud,
and abuse?
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette. Thank you, Congressman. I would say,
to put it simply, it completely undermines our ability to root
out waste, fraud, and abuse. Inspectors General exist for
essentially one purpose, and they were originally created in
the immediate aftermath of Watergate. And I think you all
probably do not need me to give you a history lesson at all on
what happened in the Watergate era. There is a reason they were
created at that time because there was a lot of waste, fraud,
and abuse happening, and there were not cops on the beat that
were internal, that were independent, that were situated in
agencies to be able to find these things and expose them and do
something about them. That is what Inspectors General exist to
do. So, it is completely, I would say, anathema to any stated
mission to find cost savings and to root out waste, fraud, and
abuse to fire Inspectors General and to undermine them. It
makes no sense. Those two things do not add up.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much. The firings that occurred
when President Trump came into office included the Special
Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, Mr. Sopko. I
actually did over 20 trips to Afghanistan working with him. He
actually uncovered $4 billion in savings in rooting out
American taxpayer waste being conducted in Afghanistan. The IG
at the Department of Defense, the agency----
Ms. Greene. The gentleman's time has expired, but the----
Mr. Lynch. OK.
Ms. Greene [continuing]. The witness----
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back. Thank you.
Ms. Greene. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Lynch. Appreciate that. Thank you.
Ms. Greene. I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Cloud.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Madam Chair. For far too long, D.C.
politicians have gotten away with measuring their personal
value and worth by how much of other people's money they give
away. And for far too long, they self-righteously have opined
that the spending was for altruistic purposes, given out of
care and compassion. For far too long, they have been more
concerned with looking like they cared than having enough care
and concern to actually do the due diligence to ensure that the
tax dollars were being used wisely and effectively. And for far
too long, those of us who have worked to uncover waste, fraud
and abuse have had to deal with what amounts to an
unconstitutional fourth branch of permanent bureaucracy that
has too often worked to ignore, obfuscate, delay, and frustrate
our efforts to bring transparency and oversight.
Over the last few weeks, the DOGE effort has begun to
uncover not only how massive the waste, fraud, and abuse is,
but also the extent at which D.C. politicians and too many
obstinate bureaucrats have coordinated to create what is
essentially the largest money laundering scheme in history. And
while Americans have been working to make ends meet, they have
been using taxpayer dollars to fund unnecessary, egregious, and
even evil things here at home and around the world. Thankfully,
in 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 is understandable to find waste, fraud, and abuse that
has grown and metastasized in this government, even over
decades, certainly accelerated over 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.
Mr. Talcove, you mentioned in your written statement and
talked about it in your statement at the beginning, that this
waste, fraud, and abuse is a national security threat. And
certainly, one of the challenges facing us,--it is a national
security threat--is our fiscal situation. And so, we have got
to find ways to find savings to the American people in order to
bring confidence to the bond markets, to put our country on a
fiscal footing, and to reverse the curse, so to speak, that we
are placing on our children and our grandchildren.
You mentioned a couple of threats, though. You mentioned
internal threats. You said that these cases involve government
employees, individuals entrusted with administering benefits,
who, instead of using their positions to approve fraudulent
claims, override security controls or even sell sensitive
claimant information for profit. Now, this is not every Federal
employee for sure, but within the context of people who are
trying to give their best effort, we have an internal threat.
But you also mentioned transnational fraud rings, terrorist
nation-states; North Korea nuclear weapons programs funded by
our tax dollars; China, Nigeria, Iran, Romania, Russia, not our
friends, necessarily, that are being funded by taxpayer
dollars. Could you give us some examples of how this is
happening?
Mr. Talcove. Yes. So, when you think about what happened
during the pandemic, $1 trillion was stolen. Seventy percent of
that money went overseas, and I can give you some examples. In
a Western state, they had more people applying for unemployment
insurance benefits than they had individuals over 18. The
people that were stealing the money from Romania were using it
to facilitate other fraud schemes that include fentanyl, that
include doing things to impact our democracy.
On the insider threat, right, the first thing you have to
say--and my dad was a public servant--is 99 percent of people
that work in the public sector are honest, hardworking
individuals, but there are some--and what you need is data and
technology to root that out. There were examples during the
pandemic. There were some examples even of last week where
people got into the Medicaid system in a Western state and
stole $50 million in less than 4 months. So, you have to have
these controls in place, right? These are not individuals
stealing, Mr. Cloud. These are organized criminal groups, both
domestic and transnational.
Mr. Cloud. As you mentioned, taxpayers are being forced to
fund the demise of our own country. Mr. Whitson, I wanted to
ask you because there is a lot of talk about reconciliation
right now. You mentioned Medicaid and what could be done to
bring a pretty substantial amount of savings, and this is
without affecting those who truly need Medicaid and for what
the purpose of the program was extended for now----
Ms. Greene. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Cloud. OK. Hopefully----
Ms. Greene. Does the witness want to answer the question
quickly?
Mr. Whitson. No. Only to say that, yes, there is a
tremendous amount of savings that can be found from the
streamlining rule but also work requirements in the program is
another big area that can be done in reconciliation, and that
could save a significant amount as well, $241 billion in
Federal spending over 10 years.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you.
Ms. Greene. Thank you.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Greene. You are welcome. I now recognize the gentleman
from California, Mr. Garcia.
Mr. Garcia. Well, thank you. Thank you to all of our
witnesses for being here, and I want to just start off by
making something clear. I think we are all here to fight
against the lies, the corruptions, and the attacks on our
social safety net. Now, we should in no way be cooperating with
House Republicans who want to shut down the Department of
Education and destroy Medicare and Medicaid, and we should not
stand by as the richest man on the planet gives himself and his
companies huge tax cuts while the American people get
absolutely nothing.
Now, I find it ironic, of course, that our Chairwoman,
Congresswoman Greene, is in charge of running this committee.
Now, in the last Congress, Chairwoman Green literally showed a
dick pic in our Oversight congressional hearing, so I thought I
would bring one as well.
[Photo]
Mr. Garcia. Now, this, of course, we know is president Elon
Musk. He is also the world's richest man. He was the biggest
political donor in the last election. He has billions of
dollars in conflicts of interest, and we know that he is
leading a power grab also abided by and encouraged by Donald
Trump and, of course, the Chairwoman, Congresswoman Greene.
But I also want to run through what DOGE actually is going
to do. It is a demolition plan that is going to run through our
government. DOGE is trying to abolish the Department of
Education. That means opportunities denied to kids. It means
you are ripping away opportunities for children with
disabilities who are dependent on this money. You are also
halting medical research, which is also critical, which we have
to also stop. The idea that we are going to eliminate or
destroy the Department of National Institutes of Health, NIH,
is crazy. Let us talk about the Department of Labor. We are
talking about protections for working people across this
country, where people can actually complain about abuses that
their companies are making against them and their coworkers.
Workers are now going to be in danger.
Let us also talk about the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, another huge issue for us. Think about the scammers and
fraudsters that will be empowered across this country because
Elon Musk wants, essentially, these companies to have more
power over consumers and over people across this country. Look
at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That is
actually what is being discussed partly today, healthcare, we
are talking about, being denied to millions of poor people,
working class people, across this country. And now, of course,
they are on to their largest target, the U.S. Social Security
Administration. We are talking about the destruction of the
actual social safety net in this country. We know that one in
five Americans collect Social Security--seniors, disabled
people. This entire plan is about hurting the American social
safety net and destroying our institutions.
And it is important that we actually call out what is
happening at this Subcommittee. This is not about working with
the richest man on the planet. This is actually about
empowering. This Committee wants to empower the richest person
in the world to hurt people so they can take all of this money
that they so-call want to save, and then give it to themselves,
their companies, and their billionaire friends. That is the
attack that is happening in this Committee and across this
country, and it is important that we call it out.
We also know, of course, that Elon Musk is sending his
unqualified DOGE staff to carry out this agenda across all
these agencies and, in some cases, actually teenage staffers,
no accountability, no experience, and problematic records. They
are trying to rob you, and they are probably a minor. Thank
you, and I yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman yields, and I now recognize the
gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Timmons, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Madam Chair. I find it sad that my
colleagues across the aisle cannot take this seriously. We have
$36 trillion in debt. We run an annual almost $2 trillion
deficit. When I got elected 6 years ago, we had $21 trillion in
debt. So, in 6 years, we have added over $15 trillion to the
debt, and guess what? President Trump ran on fixing this
problem. President Trump told the American people he would
right the ship financially, and he said during the campaign
that Elon Musk was going to be the person to lead this charge,
the man that has turned business after business around. He is
the richest man on the planet because he succeeds at his
endeavors, and that is why President Trump has appointed him
the head of this effort.
This is a very serious problem, and it is incredibly
hypocritical that my colleagues across the aisle are
complaining about this because Joe Biden signed his name and
wanted the American people to believe that he had the ability
to forgive $250 billion with a signature. Guess what? The
Supreme Court ruled he did not. That is our system of checks
and balances. President Biden, he clearly was experiencing
cognitive decline. He did not 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 $1 trillion away, redistributes taxpayer dollars. It
is just crazy that we cannot come together to address the
greatest national security threat facing this country, our
debt.
Now to the task at hand, Medicaid fraud. Mr. Talcove, if we
implement enhanced identity verification and enhanced income
verification, what will happen? How much money will we save?
Mr. Talcove. You will save hundreds of billions of dollars.
Identity verification, elimination of self-certification, and
monitoring beneficiaries will prevent these transnational
criminal groups from accessing those systems at scale so
legitimate people who need the benefits can get them in a
timely fashion.
Mr. Timmons. So, we are going to get actual benefits to
people, to American citizens, that are in need faster because
if you do it electronically through web-based, like they did in
Missouri, where the pilot program saved almost 20 percent of
Medicaid dollars. So, all we have to do is adopt what has
already been proven in Missouri, and we will save 20 percent.
To the people out there listening, we spend almost $900 billion
every year on Medicaid. And if 20 percent of that is saved,
that is almost $200 billion dollars. We got a $1.8 trillion
annual deficit. We just knocked off $200 billion. Let us keep
this train going. The fact that the Democrats are filing
lawsuit after lawsuit to impede the efforts of President Trump
to right our fiscal ship is unforgivable. It is unforgivable.
Mr. Talcove, you talked about pandemic fraud. I have a bill
that would cause the IRS to share data with the Small Business
Administration and the FBI and the Department of Justice that
would show that you were ineligible for PPP loans and you got
them. So, I think that would save probably one hundred billion.
Do you think that we should go back and take money away from
people that fraudulently got COVID money?
Mr. Talcove. Yes. Yes. During the pandemic, the PPP Program
was a virtual buffet for fraudsters, and it was because of that
1974 Privacy Act where data sharing and matching is virtually
impossible. Congress needs to change that.
Mr. Timmons. But we can do it retroactively. We can do it
retroactively. We can find the people that stole this money,
hold them accountable, probably get some of the money back. So,
I already have that bill filed. That bill, I think, would
probably get $100 billion. So, now we got enhanced identity
verification, enhanced income verification that has been proven
in Missouri. It does work, so I am working on that bill. We are
going to drop it soon. That is $200 billion.
There is a competition in Congress. I think we should have
a competition on this Committee. I got $300 billion in savings
proposed. We got to all pull our weight because we have such a
massive problem right now. But I would just ask my colleagues
across the aisle to get out of the way if you do not want to
help. If you do not want to help right the fiscal ship in this
country, get out of the way. Stop filing lawsuit after lawsuit.
We do not have the financial ability to continue down this
path, and we are going to save this country with or without
you. You can kick and scream all the way, or you can get out of
the way. I prefer the former. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman yields. I now recognize the
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Casar.
Mr. Casar. This Subcommittee is supposedly about looking
into waste, fraud, and abuse. So, I would like to start talking
about independent Inspector Generals who are supposed to be
looking into waste, fraud, and abuse. Mr. Talcove, do you know
how many Inspector Generals at agencies that were investigating
Elon Musk's companies have been fired by the Trump-Musk
Administration?
Mr. Talcove. No.
Mr. Casar. It is 5. Ms. Royal, the Inspector General of the
Department of Labor had 17 open investigations into Tesla and
SpaceX. Do you know what the Trump-Musk Administration did to
that Inspector General?
Ms. Royal. No.
Mr. Casar. They fired him, and I think you all know. Mr.
Whitson, the Inspector General of the Department of
Transportation was investigating Tesla. Do you know what the
Trump-Musk Administration did to that Inspector General?
Mr. Whitson. No.
Mr. Casar. They were fired. The Department of Defense's
Inspector General was looking into SpaceX. Mr. Hedtler, do you
know what the Trump-Musk Administration did to that Inspector
General?
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette. I believe he was fired.
Mr. Casar. Thank you. I think everybody on the panel knows
what the answer to these questions were. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture Inspector General was investigating Musk's
Neuralink. Mr. Talcove, now, I will ask you again under oath.
Do you know what Mr. Trump did to that Inspector General that
was looking into one of Musk's companies?
Mr. Talcove. No.
Mr. Casar. He was fired. The Inspector General at the EPA
was repeatedly taking on Tesla. Mr. Hedtler, since it seems
that you are answering the questions that everyone knows the
answer to, do you know what the Trump-Musk Administration did
to that Inspector General?
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette. I believe he was also fired.
Mr. Casar. Also fired. At least five Inspector Generals
that were looking into Elon Musk's companies were fired by the
Trump-Musk Administration. These Inspector Generals who are
independent, protected by law, they are the people that find
the waste, fraud, and abuse, and found many of the cases of
waste, fraud, and abuse that have been brought up today, fired
because they were looking into Elon Musk. At the NLRB, the
National Labor Relations Board, which is supposed to protect
workers from getting their unions busted by folks like Elon
Musk, made functionally broken by the so-called Department of
Government Efficiency that really is the Department of
Government Efficiency for Elon Musk, not for you. They are
trying to shut down the Department of Education, the Department
of Labor.
You know what Elon Musk does not seem to be looking into?
His own contracts. Again, I will ask you, Mr. Talcove, do you
know how much money a day Mr. Musk will receive from the
Federal Government for his contracts?
Mr. Talcove. No.
Mr. Casar. The answer is $8 million a day. Just last year,
Elon Musk was promised $3 billion from close to 100 contracts
with the Federal Government. Ms. Royal, do you know how much
the average person in this country, who survives on Social
Security, one of our seniors who has worked their entire life,
about how much they have to survive on a day?
Ms. Royal. I do not.
Mr. Casar. Sixty-five dollars a day. We are not looking
into Elon Musk's $8 million a day. This Subcommittee, chaired
by Marjorie Taylor Greene and the House Republicans, is looking
into your grandmother's $65 a day. Let me be clear. I think we
would all support taxpayer savings, look into money we might
needlessly send to billionaires and big corporations, find
taxpayer savings, and send it back to your hard-working family.
But instead, what House Republicans and the Trump-Musk
Administration want to do is they want to look into your kid's
lunch money, your kid's teacher's salary, into your
grandparent's Social Security. They want to take that money and
give it out in billionaire tax cuts. And they are talking about
that in Budget Committee tomorrow. They just released their
plan.
So, let me be clear. When Republicans talk about government
efficiency in this Congress, they are not looking into
billionaires who do not pay their taxes. They are not looking
into billionaires who get rich off of government contracts.
They are not looking into Elon Musk firing watchdogs who are
supposed to keep him accountable. They are looking at cutting
your public schools. They are going straight for your Social
Security. They are coming straight for cancer research. They
are coming straight for the Department of Education. They are
not looking at Big Tech. They are not looking at Big Pharma
because those people fund their campaigns.
If this Committee were serious about rooting out waste from
our Federal Government, then today's whole hearing would be
about how Musk and Donald Trump are firing the independent
watchdogs who have done this work for decades. Instead, my
Republican colleagues' actual goal on this committee is to
distract from Trump and from Musk's corrupt war on
accountability. This will not be a Subcommittee dedicated to
making government efficient for everyday people. It is about
helping Elon Musk and Donald Trump be as efficient as possible
in robbing our government and handing out our government
services to the rich. So, this seems that this subcommittee is
just going to be----
Ms. Greene. The gentleman's time----
Mr. Casar [continuing]. Like the agency----
Ms. Greene [continuing]. Has expired.
Mr. Casar [continuing]. It is named after----
Ms. Greene. The gentleman's----
Mr. Casar [continuing]. A sham.
Ms. Greene [continuing]. Time has expired.
Mr. Casar. A total sham.
Ms. Greene. The American people are $36 trillion in debt.
It certainly seems reasonable that someone has been fired. I
now recognize the gentleman from Tennessee----
Mr. Casar. You are going to put us----
Ms. Greene [continuing]. Mr. Burchett.
Mr. Casar [continuing]. Further in debt with your
billionaire tax cuts.
Ms. Greene. You are not recognized. Mr. Burchett, you are
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Chairlady. The gravy train for a
lot of these folks, it has been on biscuit wheels, and it is
about to run off the dadgum tracks, and it is about time. Could
you imagine standing up here and defending waste, fraud, and
abuse? But I think that is what we are seeing. When people
squeal and do not ask questions, I think it shows the American
public what the heck is going on, and that little gravy train
is getting ready to run out. The spigot is getting ready to be
turned off.
Mr. Talcove, that is correct how you say your name,
brother?
Mr. Talcove. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burchett. All right. How can the Federal Government
improve identity verification for these entitlement programs?
Mr. Talcove. Yes, it is doing what the private sector does
every single day. Whether you use your bank, you go to Amazon,
using those tools and moving away from some of the dated
compliance standards that the Federal Government uses, NIST IAL
800-63, 2017, before there was anything called deepfakes and
generative AI tools.
Mr. Burchett. Also, I was informed that PayPal, they have
never been able to crack into that and steal people's vital
information. Are they using those systems that you would be
favorable toward that government seems to be shying away from?
Mr. Talcove. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burchett. And describe how that works.
Mr. Talcove. They are systems that are based on encryption.
They use technology and they use data to validate you are who
you say you are. The people that are stealing right now, I
believe a lot of them are actually ghosts from China, Russia,
Nigeria, and Romania.
Mr. Burchett. I read a report today that North Korea was
involved in some of that as well----
Mr. Talcove. They are.
Mr. Burchett [continuing]. And those people are our
enemies. Again, they will hate us for free. We do not have to
give them taxpayer money. And are there loopholes that can be
closed to avoid these improper payments, and I wish you would
describe those to me.
Mr. Talcove. All right. The biggest, most important thing,
particularly in the benefit program space, is the use of self-
certification. As Mr. Timmons noted, the state of Missouri is
using a solution called SteadyIQ to validate wages and wealth.
You cannot allow individuals to provide the information based
upon what they think. It has to be based on what you know, and
that will stop the ghosts from using people's identities to
steal money from U.S. taxpayers.
Mr. Burchett. How much money do you calculate is wasted due
to waste, fraud, and abuse in the entitlement programs each
year?
Mr. Talcove. Yes. My number right now, between Federal,
state, and local government is you can save $1 trillion a year
by simply putting in front-end identity verification,
eliminating self-certification, and monitoring the backend of
the programs that are providing the benefits, those three
things.
Mr. Burchett. You said you could eliminate that, but are
there others that you feel like some more low-hanging fruit?
Mr. Talcove. I would start with those three things because
they are simple. That will take that 20-percent fraud rate that
you are seeing in the public sector down below 5 percent.
Mr. Burchett. Chairlady, I would suggest that we adopt Mr.
Timmons' legislation and get that out of the Committee as fast
as possible. What actions also could Congress take to fix these
problems quickly?
Mr. Talcove. Yes. I think the first thing is updating and
redoing the 1974 Privacy Act. That is virtually impossible to
do data matching. It is very difficult to have data shared, and
when you look back at the pandemic, data sharing and data
matching would have stopped probably 50 percent of the trillion
dollars that was stolen from taxpayers.
Mr. Burchett. Would any of you all like to add anything to
that?
Mr. Whitson. Congressman, I would just add that rather than
accepting self-attestation, that states should have to be
required to actually verify people's identities--and here is
the key part--before they get enrolled. They should not get
enrolled and then eventually come down later on down the road.
Mr. Burchett. It is amazing to me. I had a doctor's
appointment back in Knoxville, and the verification process is
very extensive. It is more so than the Federal Government
requires for any of this. What type of computer systems are
these agencies using and do they need updating?
Mr. Talcove. They are using very dated technology, but they
are also burdened. I look at the USDA, 6.2 million words in a
10,000-page document that shows how to implement the rules of
the program. Nobody can figure that out. So, one of the things
that I think has to happen is the simplification of these
processes and systems, and then just use the technology that we
use every day in the private sector.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Thank you all so much for being here.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Chairlady.
Ms. Greene. I now recognize the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms.
Crockett, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you, Madam Chair, and, Mr. Talcove, I
am just going to go ahead and pick up where you left off really
quickly. Just to be clear, the upgrades that you are talking
about as it relates to our data processes, these are not things
that would be free, are they? Would they cost some kind of
money? Not looking for a number, but they will cost, correct?
Mr. Talcove. Some are free and some would cost money.
Ms. Crockett. OK. All right. So, I just want to leave it
there because we have had a number of these hearings, so I do
want to be clear. Before the Trump Administration came in, this
Committee did exist in the form of the Oversight Committee, and
our task is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. In that vein,
we had a number of hearings, at least last term--I cannot speak
for any other term as I am only in my sophomore term--and we
dealt with improper payments. And interestingly enough, our
Chairwoman, who was so passionate about this today, she missed
every single one of those improper payment hearings.
But just to be clear, I was there, so I do not want anyone
to believe that Democrats just come to work and do not plan to
do work. In fact, I am trying to figure out exactly what it is
that the Republicans believe our job is because right now, they
have relinquished their constitutional duties over to an
unelected bureaucrat, someone who no one went out to vote for,
and, absolutely, he is occupying the Oval Office, as we saw
yesterday. And that is a first for me, to see someone occupying
the Oval Office who has never actually been elected to the Oval
Office and actually answering more questions than the person
that allegedly got elected. But for whatever reason, this is
the first time we are having a DOGE Subcommittee hearing and
that guy is not here. Instead, we have you all, so I do want to
thank you for coming.
But I will say this. It is also interesting to me that in
the first few days of DOGE existing, we know that they are
trying to get rid of the Department of Education, USAID,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They are laying off FAA
workers. They are going after the FDA, the CDC, the HHS, the
FBI agents, and they are talking about getting rid of FEMA, and
they brought you all in. And I am going to say that I actually
was shocked that there was only one person that seemed like he
was an overt Trumper, as you laid out your opening remarks,
because I anticipated that at least one of you all would say,
yes, what Elon is doing is exactly what we would prescribe. But
instead, I will applaud you because you actually were focused.
You talked about what the American people are looking for us to
do. We have actually, consistently, on this side of the aisle,
promoted this idea of making investments into technology so
that we can do things such as, say, look at the Department of
Defense.
The Department of Defense that takes up approximately, oh,
50 percent of our discretionary income or our discretionary
spending. Approximately 50 percent goes to Department of
Defense. Department of Defense has not been able to pass an
audit in the last 6 audits, and we are not talking about
pennies. I understand that we want everything to be perfect,
and if we could get all waste, fraud, and abuse out, that would
be fantastic, but let me talk about the big numbers.
The big numbers are on that side. When we look at, say, our
entire workforce, our Federal workforce, as we are trying to
somehow fire all of them, they do not even make up a total of
five percent. It is even less than that when we look at our
budget. But let us talk about defense. That just happens to be
the same side of the ledger that Mr. Musk gets the vast
majority of his money from. In fact, at the same time that they
were unlawful, and we will stay in court because on this side,
we believe in law and order. I mean, a number of us are
actually lawyers, but, nevertheless, we understand the
Constitution. We believe in that as well. And so, there are
things such as, you know, impoundment, right, because as Mr.
Whitson said, he said we need to return the power of the purse
to Congress. It never left. According to the Constitution, that
is where it is at.
Now, I know that people are confused right now because, for
whatever reason, we had a guy that went in and you talk about
people invading our data. Listen, people say that they were
upset about TikTok, but I am upset about the guy that runs
Twitter who, for sure, is doing nefarious things because I do
not understand. If you are trying to conduct audits and figure
out where the waste, fraud, and abuse is, I do not know why you
would go to some tech guy. In fact, it was only techies that
were sitting there at inauguration. We did not have auditors. I
would welcome auditors to come in and do forensic audits. In
fact, he sat there in the Oval Office yesterday and he admitted
that he was lying, and he was using his propaganda machine to
do it when he said that we sent millions of dollars to Gaza for
condoms. That was a lie. So, let me tell you something, we----
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady's----
Ms. Crockett [continuing]. Were duly elected----
Ms. Greene [continuing]. Time has expired.
Ms. Crockett [continuing]. And it is time for us----
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady's time----
Ms. Crockett [continuing]. To do our jobs----
Ms. Greene [continuing]. Is expired.
Ms. Crockett [continuing]. And reign in this rogue actor
known as----
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady's time----
Ms. Crockett [continuing]. Elon Musk.
Ms. Greene [continuing]. Has expired. I now recognize the
gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Burlison.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to speak
frankly at first to the American people. We are nearing $37
trillion in national debt. What does that mean? That means that
each and every U.S. taxpayer owes over $323,000. OK. What does
that mean? That means when the EPIC, which is the Economic
Policy Innovation Center, says we have $18 trillion left, that
is it, $18 trillion left to take out, and we are spending $2
trillion in debt every year. Folks, we are at the precipice of
a, like, a debt cycle. We are literally at a point in which the
dollar will be worth nothing. What does that mean? And I mean,
we know, Social Security goes bankrupt in 8 years, right?
Medicare goes bankrupt in 10 years, and then 15 years from now,
the dollar is completely devalued and worth nothing. So, what
does that mean? That means your pension, the money in your
bank, you know, your savings is nothing. It is worthless.
So, what are we doing? We are trying to save this country.
We are trying to save your pensions. We are trying to save your
bank accounts. We are trying to save this country for the next
generation. And it would be nice if we had help, but instead,
we have people that are fighting us on this. And you know, I
would hate to be in the Democratic Party right now because you
are in a really bad bind. You are having to defend all of this
crazy spending, all of this crazy waste. So, how do you do it?
You do ad hominem attacks. You attack the messenger. Oh, Elon
Musk, right? He is rich. He must be evil, right? That is the
attacks. Really? You cannot do any better than that, right?
Let us talk on the policy. On the policy. Help us. We are
trying to save this country, and Elon Musk, who is making no
money doing this, is trying to save this country. Why? Because
he is invested in the United States of America more than
anybody, right. So, I think that we should embrace it. In fact,
not a single company, Governor of any state, would ever turn
down Elon Musk and his team of DOGE from coming in and
providing free services to right the course financially in any
state or organization. It is ridiculous that we would demonize
someone that loves this country so much.
Mr. Whitson, the formation of agencies via the executive
action is not new, right? The formation of DOGE is not new. You
know, are you familiar with any other previous presidencies
where they have 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, but I do not know
if that answers your question.
Mr. Burlison. Yes. The Office of Budget Management was
created. The Environmental Protection Agency was created. The
U.S. Digital Service, which is now DOGE, was created all by
executive order, right?
Mr. Whitson. And actually, one other I would add is USAID
was originally created through an executive order by President
Kennedy and then later formalized.
Mr. Burlison. And then, Madam Chair, I have a video I would
like to end with. Let us review, if we could cue that. And I
want to remind my Democratic friends, at a point in which you
once had the majority of the American people on your side, this
is what your party believed in.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Burlison. I think it speaks for itself. My time has
expired.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank you. I
now yield to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms.
Norton, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you. Our Republican colleagues and the
Trump Administration continue to demonize our friends and
neighbors who work for the Federal Government and swear an oath
to protect the Constitution and serve the public. Thousands of
civilian Federal employees have given their lives in the line
of duty for their country. The Administration seems intent on
dismantling much of the Federal Government in violation of the
Constitution, statutes, and regulations, and our Republican
colleagues are letting them do it. They want to gut the
nonpartizan civil service and to convert a significant portion
of the remaining civil service into political appointees.
Depriving the Federal Government of employees' expertise and
experience will harm the services that the government provides
to all Americans.
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette, the Administration is attempting to
cause a mass exodus from our Federal workforce. Will this
increase or decrease waste, fraud, and abuse?
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette. Thank you, Delegate Norton. I think
it is pretty clear that chaos is not the friend of efficiency.
If you undermine the very functionality of the government, you
are not going to make it more efficient. You are going to make
it worse, and it is going to cost even more money to recoup or
to fix things that go wrong in the interim. Again, I mentioned
earlier that if you care about waste, fraud, and abuse, firing
Inspectors General does not add up. I think if you care about
government being more efficient, then intentionally creating
chaos is the opposite of that.
Ms. Norton. Well, Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette, do Federal
employees operate without oversight or rules and regulations?
Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette. No, absolutely not. They are governed
by plenty of rules and regulations, and when there are
independent Inspectors General at the agency they are supposed
to be at, they also have a cop on the beat making sure that
they do so.
Ms. Norton. I want to highlight some stories demonstrating
exactly the kinds of Federal workers the Administration is
trying to force out. How about Chris Mark at the Department of
Labor, whose pioneering work on mine safety has reduced miner
safety deaths from roof collapses to almost zero today; or
Jarod Koopman, at the Internal Revenue Service, who pioneered
new methods for tracking criminal cybersecurity currency
transactions that led to the rescue of 23 children from rape
and assault, as well as the seizure of hundreds of millions of
child abuse videos and 370 pedophile arrests. This work also
prevented funding from going to terrorist groups; or Ronald E.
Walters, who manages the 155 national cemeteries around the
country and tends to the resting places of almost 4 million
veterans. These are just a few of the Federal workers who serve
Americans every day. The workers are wildland firefighters,
border guards, doctors, nurses, food inspectors, air traffic
controllers, and law enforcement that do their civic duty,
often despite the fact that they could make such more in the
private sector. Thank you, and I yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady yields. I now yield to the
gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Jack.
Mr. Jack. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much,
Madam Chair, and I want to also thank you for convening this
hearing. I think it is incredibly important, and I want to
thank our witnesses for appearing before us today. Like another
Member of this Committee, I, too, was once an employee of the
Executive Office of the President. I worked in President
Trump's White House from the very first to the very last day of
his first term, and I saw firsthand how entrenched and
resistant the Federal bureaucracy was to his agenda. So, it is
no surprise that, today, a few of my Democrat colleagues have
continued that trend by using their time to bash Elon Musk
instead of discussing ways to work together to advance a
bipartisan cornerstone of President Trump's agenda, the mission
to eliminate, finally eliminate, waste, fraud, and abuse.
And I just took a rudimentary count of the Dems' testimony,
or rather comments, today, and I have got 27 mentions of Elon
Musk and 3 mentions of waste, and I do not know if that is, in
fact, the right count. I encourage anybody to fact-check me.
But I think it illuminates and illustrates one of the problems
that we are facing, which is a lack of bipartisan effort to
address these critical things. You know, waste, fraud, and
abuse is something that should be bipartisan. The Chair noted
that in her opening remarks.
Now, Madam Chair, you know how much I enjoy studying public
opinion. So, with your approval, I would like to enter into the
record the CBS news poll from this past weekend conducted
February 5 to 7, 2025. And I would also like to illuminate two
findings. First, 70 percent of Americans, Democrats and
Republicans included, believe President Trump is already doing
the job that he was elected to do, which is interesting because
I have an article here from CNN from September 2024 that notes,
``Trump says Elon Musk Has Agreed to Lead Proposed Government
Efficiency Commission as Ex-President Unveils New Economic
Plans''. So, he is doing exactly what he said he would do by
empowering his Administration to root out waste, fraud, and
abuse, and that is exactly what we are trying to do here today.
I would also like to note one interesting statistic from that.
Sixty-two percent of Americans want Democrats in Congress to
work with us to advance the priorities that President Trump was
elected to, to govern on. So, I think those are two stats that
I hope everyone pays attention to.
But to ask questions of our witnesses, I would first like
to start with Mr. Talcove. You know, 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.
First off, I would love your comments on that, and I would also
like for you to expound upon some of the solutions that we can
deliver, this Congress, in modernizing that 1974 Privacy Act.
Mr. Talcove. These are not people problems. These are
technology problems. You cannot 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 have very quickly
realized that a large portion of the PPP loan funds were going
to the wrong person. You would have been quickly able to match,
and I think the number was 20 percent were on the Do Not Pay
list. You cannot expect people to do what a machine, and
especially AI, can do today.
Mr. Jack. Fair enough. Thank you very much for that. And if
I can also ask Mr. Whitson, I think we share a common interest,
which is to move departments and agencies outside of
Washington, DC. It is something that I campaigned on, something
that I helped President Trump effectuate in his first
Administration. And I have to imagine that if we have
departments and agencies outside of D.C., if we have got, you
know, a workforce that is more reflective of the balance that
America is, we, at the same time, too, could potentially root
out some of this waste, fraud, and abuse by enabling other
Americans, other citizens of our country, to help advance some
of these issues. So, I would love your commentary on that
before my time expires.
Mr. Whitson. No, I think you are exactly right, Congressman
Jack. And so, I think, A, you would save a lot of taxpayer
money. So, building a headquarters in downtown D.C. versus
Huntsville, Alabama, you are going to be able to save a lot of
money. No. 2 is you are actually going to make life better for
the employees as well. So, that is a point that is also missed
a lot, but commuting into D.C. versus being able to go
somewhere else, where it is a better cost of living and things
like that, might be better for the folks. And then last, these
areas where you set up a headquarters are going to be populated
by people that live in the area to fill the rank and file of
staff positions. And so, if you plant these Federal agency
headquarters in the heart of any area that is overwhelmingly
one party or the other, then you are going to naturally get
that sway versus something that is more representative of the
people as a whole.
Mr. Jack. Well, thank you very much to our witnesses.
Mindful of my time, I want to finish before my time expires. I
yield back to our Chairwoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Ms. Greene. Thank you.
Mr. Casar. And Chairwoman, I would like to ask for
unanimous consent to enter something into the record.
Ms. Greene. So, what is it?
Mr. Casar. It is a report from the Congressional Research
Service, nonpartisan CRS, that lays out the rules and the law
for firing inspectors general, which, of course, look into
waste, fraud, and abuse. And that rule----
Ms. Greene. Without objection.
Mr. Casar. Thank you. And that rule requires that for the
law to be followed, for Congress to be notified with 30 days
and a reason for firing Inspectors General, to give Congress a
chance to overrule that, and that is the law. So, thank you for
entering that into the record.
Ms. Stansbury. Madam Chair?
Ms. Greene. Without objection, the materials Mr. Jack cited
are also submitted for the record. I now recognize--yes?
Ms. Stansbury. Apologies. And while we are on it, I would
also like to ask for unanimous consent to submit for the record
two items. One is a statement from the AFL-CIO Department of
People who work for a living with views on working people to
make the government work. And the second is a statement from
the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on ways
to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government.
Ms. Greene. Without objection, so ordered.
I now recognize the gentlelady from New Mexico and Ranking
Member, Ms. Stansbury, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Stansbury. All right. Well, thank you, Madam
Chairwoman, and thank you once again to all of our witnesses
for being here to testify. Thank you to my colleagues.
We are going to have so much fun in this Committee this
Congress. I actually appreciate the video that was shown just a
few moments ago because when I worked at the Office of
Management and Budget, I actually worked on the waste EO that
was referenced that President Obama signed. But there is one
fundamental difference between the Presidents and Vice
Presidents that were shown on that video and what is happening
today, and that is that they followed the law.
So, my colleagues across the aisle who are asking us to get
out of the way and stop trying to block things in the courts,
let me tell you, we do not work for an unelected billionaire
like apparently this guy does. We work for the American people.
And so, if an unelected, unvetted individual private citizen is
hacking our government systems, breaking the law, firing
Federal employees, dismantling statutorily created agencies,
withholding funds, we are going to fight you in the courts.
And I am actually really sad that my dear friend, Mr.
Burchett, left, because I want to talk about that gravy train
on biscuit wheels that he just talked about because that gravy
train is not the Federal workforce. It is the billionaires that
are trying to hack that system right now and which,
unfortunately, my colleagues right now are working on a
reconciliation deal to cut Medicaid, to cut Medicare, and use
that money to give to tax breaks to their billionaire buddies.
That is the gravy train that is actually going on here, but
because this is the Oversight Committee, let us do a little bit
of oversight.
For the last several weeks, I have been talking to Treasury
and OMB officials to try to get to the bottom of why Elon Musk
and his team are trying to hack the Treasury payment system
because this is a completely nonpartisan system that literally
just pays the bills of the Federal Government. So, why are they
so eager to hack this system? And I have to say that over the
last several weeks, we have literally received thousands of
calls in every single congressional office. In fact, we know
that our friends across the aisle are also receiving these
calls because this system pays the bills of the U.S.
Government. It pays our soldiers. It pays for the work that we
do overseas. It pays your Social Security benefits. It pays
your tax refunds. So, why is Elon Musk and his hackers trying
to access that system? And why did a senior civil servant, who
had overseen this system for over 30 years, get asked to stand
down after a 25-year-old intern working for Elon Musk tried to
get access to the code for that system?
Now, thankfully, they were shut down in the Court system,
but Musk has installed, with the President's blessing, one of
his Silicon Valley buddies, who, I want to point out, in which
the media has not paid a lot of attention to, is the CEO of a
private IT company, including Citrix, that has millions of
dollars in IT contracts with the Federal Government. And not
only is he still operating as the installed DOGE person at
Treasury, he is actively still the CEO of this private company.
How is that even legal? Is it legal? I do not think it is legal
because the Federal Court is trying to shut this down. We also
know that that 25-year-old software engineer, in violation of
the Court order, was actually given access to modify the code.
So, what is going on here, and why is this such a threat to
the American people? Why are thousands of people calling us? It
is because of the size and the significance of these payments,
because it is an invasion of the privacy and security of the
American people, because it could threaten our ability as a
country if there was a default in the debt ceiling, and because
it contains highly classified information that our foreign
adversaries are trying to cyberattack us regularly for.
So, why is a private citizen being given access to this
system? We know they are trying to shut down payments. They are
trying to shut down agencies. What is next? Are they going to
shut down your Social Security payments? We do not know because
they have no oversight, and Elon Musk will not come in front of
this Committee. And in fact, the Treasury folks are saying this
is the biggest insider threat they have ever seen in the
history of the agency.
So, we are sounding the alarm. And no matter how many
executive orders that Donald Trump signs or how many tweets
that the VP sends, you cannot rewrite the Constitution, and we
are going to hold you to account. I yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady yields, and I now recognize----
Mr. Burlison. Madam Chair?
Ms. Greene. Oh, yes?
Mr. Burlison. I have three documents I want to submit for
the record. The first----
Ms. Greene. What are they?
Mr. Burlison. The first document is the Constitution,
Article II. I would like to submit that for the record. That
clearly spells out the President's authority. I would also like
to submit, for the record, 5 U.S. Code 3161, the employment
compensation of employees, which clearly spells out his
authority to create DOGE. And then, I want to submit for the
record the executive order that Trump issued on January 20 of
2025, establishing DOGE officially.
Ms. Greene. Without objection, so ordered.
I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gill, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Gill. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for hosting
this Committee.
If we have learned anything so far, it is that Republicans
want to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from our Federal Government
and save taxpayer dollars, and Democrats want to grandstand and
play politics. We can see right now even, of the 6 Democrats on
this Committee, only one can even be bothered to stay for the
duration of this hearing.
All we have heard about for most of this hearing from the
other side of the aisle is ``Elon Musk, Elon Musk, Elon Musk,
unelected bureaucrat.'' And I would like to ask if Democrats
really care about unelected bureaucrats making decisions over
our lives, where were they whenever their god, Anthony Fauci,
was forcing vaccine and mask mandates on the American people
for 4 years during the--excuse me--during the COVID crisis?
Where were they whenever unelected Alejandro Mayorkas was
facilitating the invasion of our country by illegal aliens who
were murdering and raping and pillaging our people? Where were
they whenever the Secretary of Education, unelected Cardona,
targeted states and schools and people who disagreed with his
view of the radical left's transgender ideology. Where were
they whenever Gary Gensler, former Chairman of the SEC, also
unelected, was lawlessly thwarting the development of financial
markets, particularly in the crypto space, by lawlessly
pursuing regulation via enforcement? They were nowhere to be
seen because they do not care because all of those things
benefited their side of the aisle at the expense of ours.
And perhaps that is also why they do not seem to be very
interested in rooting out improper payments from our Federal
Government. If you wonder why so many people are cynical about
American politics, this is it. This is exactly why. The reality
is that Elon Musk serves as an employee of the President, and
we were given a massive mandate to carry out what he is been
doing. His job is to carry out the will of the American people,
as expressed through the executive. That is exactly how the
Constitution is supposed to work. The Constitution did not
create an unelected, unaccountable fourth branch of government
in the administrative state. The American people know this.
My colleague, Brian Jack, discussed some of the opinion
polls recently. We are doing and President Trump is doing
exactly what he was elected to do, and that is why he is
polling at a 53-percent approval rating higher than he was at
any point during his first Administration. Even Elon Musk and
his DOGE efforts now are polling at a 49-percent approval
rating, which, just to point out, is 16 points higher than
President Biden was polling at whenever he finished his term in
office.
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 are 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 governments,
to what people or groups. Nothing. All they want to talk about
is Elon Musk incessantly.
So, it does make me wonder, if they do not care about where
it is going, do they have an idea? Because what we have
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 is funding media outlets that are running cover for
Democrats routinely: NPR, PBS, the BBC, Politico. It is going
to fund leftwing NGO's that are facilitating the invasion of
our country. It is going to fund leftwing transgender activism
and sex changes all over the globe. This is money that is 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. I am very excited to be
on this committee. I am excited to expose what has been going
on. Thank you, Madam Chair, and with that, I yield.
Ms. Greene. The gentleman yields. In closing, I want to
thank our witnesses again for their testimoneys today. I now
yield to the Ranking Member for closing remarks.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Well, I never
thought so many conspiracy theories and wild accusations could
be wound into one 5-minute speech, but I appreciate my friends
across the aisle.
First of all, let us talk about this massive mandate that
supposedly brought Donald Trump into office. Donald Trump did
not run on putting an unelected billionaire in charge of
dismantling the Federal Government. He ran on lowering prices
for Americans, and I think it is interesting that while we are
sitting here this morning, the top of the New York Times is
reporting that inflation has risen unexpectedly as food and
energy prices have soared.
What is going on, guys? I thought you were going to tackle
inflation and food and energy prices. Isn't that what the
executive orders were supposed to do? Oh, wait, or is
dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion in our Federal
agencies and putting in ideological agenda and trying to fire
the Federal workforce your actual agenda? Have you been too
busy trying to actually address the fiscal health of this
country because the numbers are telling us that you have. So,
let us be real about what is going on here.
I also want to point out that, literally, while we have
been sitting here for the last almost 2 hours getting lectured
on fiscal responsibility, literally, the Republicans just
released their plan to raise the debt limit while we were
sitting here, and they want to raise it by $4 trillion. OK,
guys, like, literally, I am just, like, without words.
Inflation is going up. You want to raise the debt ceiling by $4
trillion. You want to gut Medicare. You want to gut Medicaid.
You are talking about going after Social Security after
promising that you would not. I mean, really, what the heck is
going on here? We are not trying to take down Elon Musk as a
businessman. This dude is literally breaking the law inside of
the Federal Government. And for a party that is supposed to be
the ``party of law and order,'' I really do not see you holding
him accountable and doing your most basic constitutional
responsibility in the separation of powers.
So, I want to end where I started. We are the Oversight
Committee. We are the people's House for the United States of
America. We represent the American people. And so, Mr. Elon
Musk, if you would like to appear in front of the Oversight
Committee, you have been duly invited. Please, come tell us
what you are doing. Come testify in front of the American
people, and please come hold yourself to account. With that, I
yield back.
Ms. Greene. The gentlelady yields. I now recognize myself
for closing remarks. President Trump was elected with a mandate
to rein in unaccountable bureaucracy in Washington and to wage
war on waste. I know that because I campaigned alongside him
and so did my colleagues. This hearing was the first battle of
that war, and in the coming days, the Subcommittee will release
a report with legislative solutions to the problems we have
identified here today. We are not going to wait all the way
until the end of this Congress. We are going to get to work
immediately. The bureaucrats who have run Washington for
decades are beyond the point of forgiveness. Their sheer
incompetence and pure spite for the hardworking American people
have resulted in total failure.
The Federal Government has made over $2.7 trillion in
improper payments since 2003, including $236 billion in 2023
alone. Those are trillions of dollars that honest Americans
have paid in taxes at gunpoint over the years. As we approach
April 15, Americans are once again preparing to do their taxes
and fork over their unfair share of money it takes to run this
country. And I have to tell you, the American people have not
been getting their money's worth for a long time. Most improper
payments in recent years were issued through five programs--
Medicare, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Pandemic
Unemployment Insurance, and the Paycheck Protection Program--
but a total of 16 Federal programs had improper payment rates
of 10 percent or more in 2023. That includes SNAP, the Federal
Food Stamp Program, which paid out $10 billion taxpayer dollars
improperly.
To get their arms around this problem, Elon Musk and the
DOGE team went straight to the source. They went to the
Treasury Department's Fiscal Service, which makes about 90
percent of the trillions in Federal payments issued annually.
The audit of these payment systems was long overdue. Treasury
Secretary, Scott Bessent, gave DOGE employees working for the
government read-only access to these systems so they could
conduct that initial audit. That audit is already paying
dividends. Musk learned that the data base's Federal agencies
are supposed to check to prevent payments to fraudsters, crime
rings, and dead people are not being kept up to date. Going
forward, we are going to get more mileage out of these Do Not
Pay data bases. That means fewer improper payments and less
fraud and waste of taxpayer dollars.
Despite this fraud that is already been revealed, a Federal
judge in New York issued a ruling last Friday that ran totally
contrary to the will of the people. The judge blocked not only
DOGE, but the Treasury Secretary himself from accessing his own
Agency's payment systems. That is absurd. Only career Treasury
Department unelected bureaucrats can access the system, the
judge ruled. This turns the Constitution on its head. We will
hold this judge and others who try to stop the will of the
people and their elected leaders accountable. As is written in
the Federalist Papers, ``the judiciary has no influence over
either the sword or the purse, no direction, either of the
strength or the wealth of the society. It may truly be said to
have neither force nor will, but merely judgment, and must
ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm for the
efficacy of its judgments.''
But the whole D.C. swamp is freaking out that the unelected
officials from DOGE were allowed access to these systems. That
makes no sense. Federal judges were not elected, the Treasury
bureaucrats were not elected, and they have failed to fix the
problem that is enabling American taxpayers to be robbed. So,
why not bring in skilled outside experts, like private
companies and private citizens who are successful in the real
world, to do everyday work that we need to get done here, like
audits? Of course, Federal payment systems are only one link in
the improper payment chain. We need to look at other links in
the chain. We need better front-end identify verification to
screen out fraudsters, and we need to close eligibility
loopholes. That means not letting applicants self-attest to
their own eligibility, and it means ending categorical
eligibility, which lets someone who fraudulently qualifies for
one Federal benefit automatically get other Federal benefits.
Finally, we need to better coordinate fraud prevention
efforts between the Federal Government and the states. These
are all issues that we will be taking a hard look at in this
Committee and coming up with solutions to, including
legislation and referrals to committees of jurisdiction, that
will deliver for the American people.
With that, and without objection, all Members have 5
legislative days within which to submit materials and
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:59 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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