[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SHIFTING GEARS: MOVING FROM RECOVERY
TO PREVENTION OF IMPROPER PAYMENTS
AND FRAUD
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
U.S.HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 11, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-12
__________
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
59-604 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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
Bill Womack, Senior Advisor
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 Government Operations
Pete Sessions, Texas, Chairman
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Kweisi Mfume, Maryland, Ranking
Gary Palmer, Alabama Minority Member
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Brian Jack, Georgia Columbia
Brandon Gill, Texas Maxwell Frost, Florida
Emily Randall, Washington
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 11, 2025................................... 1
Witnesses
----------
Ms. Kristen Kociolek, Managing Director, Financial Management and
Assurance, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Oral Statement................................................... 5
Mr. Ken Dieffenbach, Executive Director, Pandemic Response
Accountability Committee
Oral Statement................................................... 7
Ms. Jennifer Wagner (Minority Witness), Director of Medicaid
Eligibility and Enrollment, Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities
Oral Statement................................................... 9
Written opening statements and bios are available on the U.S.
House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* Opening Statement; submitted by Rep. Sessions.
The document listed above is available at: docs.house.gov.
SHIFTING GEARS: MOVING FROM RECOVERY
TO PREVENTION OF IMPROPER PAYMENTS
AND FRAUD
----------
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Subcommittee on Government Operations
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room 2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Pete Sessions
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Sessions, Foxx, Palmer, Burchett,
Jack, Gill, Mfume, Norton, Frost, and Randall.
Also present: Representative Moskowitz.
Mr. Sessions. Good morning. The Subcommittee on Government
Operations will come to order, and I want to welcome everyone
to this, what I think, is going to be an important bipartisan
hearing today.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time, and I recognize myself for making an opening statement.
To our witnesses that are here today and to the people who
have taken time to come here to see today, as well as my
colleagues, I want to really dispense with my opening statement
and, without objection, I will enter that into the record.
But what I would like to say, is that this is a follow-up
to the meetings which we have held for the last few years where
there was active discussion not just about what we were going
to do to recognize what might be considered waste, fraud, or
abuse, or money that was spent by the Federal Government that
did not equal that which it was intended to do, which kept
money away from the real recipients and for people who would
have been benefited with congressional intent.
As you will recall, last year, we held what was a meeting
in October whereby we had GAO and others who came to speak with
us, and they came up with what might be a 3-year number of
their ideas about inappropriate payments--then, waste, fraud,
and abuse--but things that were paid that we felt like were not
permissible or following the intent of the law or the needs of
the money.
Mr. Mfume and I, at that time, looked at each other and
said, ``We are going to work together. We are going to
challenge GAO to come back to us. We are going to find within
the government other particular people who have talent, data,
information, and can lead us to a better solution.''
I am pleased to say, Mr. Mfume, I believe this is the
beginning of that turning the corner to where we will then not
just work together but try and discover the things that reside
within the government to gain the information that is
necessary, and I think today's hearing will prove that end. So,
I am delighted that you are here. I am going to put my opening
statement in the record, but that is what I wanted to say.
This is about identifying and preventing fraud, improper
payments in Federal programs, and we are going to learn today
how we are better prepared if we work together, if we find a
way--and I think we will--not just to work together but to use
the important elements of this government for data information
and lessons learned. And I would say thank you for being here.
Does the distinguished gentleman wish to have time for an
opening statement?
Mr. Mfume. I do.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Mfume. I do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Good
morning to you.
Good morning to our witnesses who are here.
And I want to just personally thank Chairman Sessions for
the manner in which we continue to meet each other halfway,
even though we are on different sides of the aisle, to come
together to find a way at least to release the Federal
Government of some of its ailments, particularly this whole
notion of improper payments, waste, fraud, and abuse. We did
that throughout the 118th Congress, and my colleagues and I on
this Subcommittee all remain laser-focused on combating those
matters.
And I think we also have always agreed that this is a
nonpartisan matter. No matter where we are in our country or
philosophically, we agree that every dollar directed to every
program ought to go to the intended purpose.
From the very beginning of this President's term, the so-
called Department of Government Efficiency--and some of you
know that I have referred to it as the ``Department of
Government Evil'' for my own particular purposes because of the
way it has affected working men and working women and their
families across this country.
I think hardworking, dedicated men and women exist in every
congressional district throughout the country, and while there
is still no full complete public accounting on all of them who
have been dismissed other than numbers--we do not know the
names and the faces and the families and the children and the
mortgages and everything else that has been disrupted by this--
I have had no doubt that, among the hundreds of thousands of
Federal employees affected by the ``Fork in the Road'' email
and the mass firings of probationary staff, that many, many are
experiencing the pain that we do not feel right now.
And that is not to even mention, as I am sure the Chairman
would mention also, the 18 Inspectors General that have been
dismissed. They were like the sheriffs that were running the
town and doing a damn good job at it and reporting back to this
Committee and both to Chairman Sessions and myself on real
clear ways of trying to move us forward deliberately and
focused, and I commend their work. I look forward, hopefully,
to the return of some of them, and I know that their role
cannot be understated.
We are already in a situation where 10 of 24 agencies
subject to the Payment Integrity Information Act were not fully
compliant with improper payment reporting requirements as of
2022. It is the furthest thing from common sense, in my
opinion, to fire the Inspectors General who have a real set of
experience and a body of experience addressing this problem.
As witnesses have discussed in many of our previous
hearings on this issue, particularly last September, combating
fraud, improper payments, and abuse is not as simple as waving
a magic wand or a chain saw. Real progress relies on access to
quality data, it means thoughtful partnership with agency
leaders, and it means investments into the technology and the
staff needed to create proper internal controls to prevent
improper payments and fraud.
I was proud to join with many of my colleagues on the
Oversight Committee in introducing, recently, the Taxpayer
Funds Oversight and Accountability Act, which, in many
respects, would make important strides in addressing these
challenges.
Simply put, I think we have a real challenge before us, not
to mention the fact that sometimes we are not focusing on some
of the real issues. I would call everyone's attention to the
fact that the largest agency with the largest budget is still
the Pentagon, and we have witnessed seven straight audits that
have failed because of problems at the Pentagon. I do not know
how you can fail seven straight audits and not become the focus
of waste, fraud, and abuse. That is another story perhaps for
another time, but it is something that continues to cry out for
very real attention.
The GAO reported recently a total of 162 billion in
improper payments in governmentwide matters in Fiscal Year
2024, and that marks a significant reduction--it is almost
embarrassing to say that that is a significant reduction--from
the 236 billion in improper payments in Fiscal Year 2023.
In recognition of this shared challenge, Chairman Sessions
and I, in a bipartisan way, worked to discover real pathways to
reducing fraud and to reducing improper payments. This past
October, both he and I sent a joint letter to the GAO
requesting that they review, as was mentioned earlier, the $2.7
trillion in improper payments and fraud that have occurred
since 2003 and provide actionable recommendations before this
Committee.
So, as I conclude, I must mention the importance of staying
grounded in the scope and the breadth and the depth of this
problem. While improper payments and some fraud exists, that
does not mean that the bedrock of social safety net programs
like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security should be cut or
privatized. The existence of these problems does not justify in
any way mass firings of workers; failures to pay nonprofit
organizations; it does not justify the fact that the government
owes for work done in so many instances; and that the effort
really is moving to destroy many of the Federal agencies as we
have come to know them.
Even despite the claims that Social Security is rife with
fraud and fraudulent payments due to, quote, ``long-dead
individuals who are about 133 years of age,'' that program has
a payment accuracy rate of over 90 percent, and that is
according to the Center for Budget Priorities.
So, as we move forward together, hopefully, with our own
differences of opinion--but, in an effort to move forward
together to combat waste, fraud, and abuse as we know it and as
we are defining it, I hope that we, as a Congress, will
remember that the purpose of this weighty task is not to
exploit these problems or to destroy the Federal Government in
the process, but to work for a better country. And to do that,
as the Chairman has said, hand in hand, working together
despite our differences, to come up with a consensus.
That is what we really want: Consensus approaches that are
not on the extreme left or the extreme right but in the middle
where most people are and in the middle where the problems are
so that we can deal with this issue in a very responsible sort
of way and be able to report back to the American people that
we really have made an impact in dealing with the issues of
waste, fraud, and abuse.
Again, I cannot say enough about Chairman Sessions' work in
this regard and this Committee's work. We did not get a lot of
attention, but we were in the forefront for the last 2 or 3
years. So, it is good to know now that people are paying
attention. We just have to make sure that we are doing this the
right way and in a way that is responsible.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would yield back.
Mr. Sessions. I appreciate the gentleman's dialog. I want
to say that maybe 10 percent or more--I think more--of the
American people want, expect, and need us to work together, and
you have my promise that it will continue to be done and we
will work together.
You have a strong voice. You have a strong idea of what you
are after. But what we are dealing here is something that must
be overtaken. We have to win on this, and it will be a
bipartisan effort. And I think the three witnesses that we have
today are shining examples that can lead the way--not to
partisanship but to answers, and I think that is what we seek.
I want to thank your conversation today, and I think that
we will see that also, sir.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you.
I want to request unanimous consent that the gentleman, Mr.
Moskowitz from Florida, be waived on to today's hearing for the
purpose of asking questions.
Without objection, so ordered.
OK. We are now going to get to the big deal, and the big
deal is our witnesses, who take seriously not only that effort
that you and I and this Subcommittee share but also ideas and
answers leading us to that.
I would first like to introduce Kristen Kociolek. She
serves as Managing Director of the Financial Management and
Assurance team at the GAO. In her role, she oversees issues
involving accountability, professionalism, auditing standards,
and DoD financial management and improper payments. Please know
that you are being heard, as well as your party, when there are
conversations about DoD.
Next, we have Mr. Dieffenbach. Ken was appointed to the
Pandemic Response Accountability Committee in June 2024. He
brings over 28 years of experience in the oversight community
and has served in various roles relating to investigation and
data analytics.
We also have Jennifer Wagner. She joined the Center for
Budget and Policy Priorities in 2015. She focuses primarily on
Medicaid eligibility and enrollment issues, which certainly
highlights some of the discussions that the American people
want us to delve into.
I am delighted that all three of these witnesses are here.
I would now ask that all the witnesses rise. Pursuant to
Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will stand as required and
raise their right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that
the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
[Chorus of ayes.]
Mr. Sessions. Let the record show that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
Thank you very much. You may now take a seat.
I tried to keep my comments short. Mr. Mfume did the same.
But we speak from one voice. We are both delighted that you are
here today.
So, let me remind the witnesses that we have your written
statements, and I would encourage each of the staff and the
Members who are here to look through this, if they have not up
to now, data and information about--actual data and actual
solutions is what today's hearing is going to be about.
So, I want to first make sure that we go right to this. I
will let everybody turn to their information that they have got
there.
Ms. Kociolek--I did not get it right yesterday, and I am
not going to get it right today. Please correct me.
Ms. Kociolek. Kociolek.
Mr. Sessions. Kociolek. Bill had me say Kociolek five times
yesterday. That was not today. We are delighted that you are
here.
Please know this, that we traditionally will follow the 5-
minute rule as we always have, but I think that, as we go
through there, if you want to finish questions or the
statements you want to make. But, as we get into questioning, I
am very interested in both sides, Members and our witnesses,
getting to where they want to get.
And, without further discussion, we will recognize Ms.
Kociolek.
STATEMENT OF KRISTEN KOCIOLEK
MANAGING DIRECTOR
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND ASSURANCE
U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Kociolek. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Sessions,
Ranking Member Mfume, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank
you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss the
longstanding and pervasive issue of improper payments and fraud
in the Federal Government.
Whether it involves an established program, or one created
to respond to an emergency, improper payments and fraud erode
the public trust in government and result in hundreds of
billions of dollars lost.
Improper payments and fraud are two distinct concepts that
are related but not interchangeable. Simply put, improper
payments are payment errors, payments that should not have been
made, or payments that were made in the incorrect amount. These
could be overpayments, underpayments, or payments to ineligible
recipients.
Fraud involves obtaining something of value through willful
misrepresentation, individuals or organizations deliberately
lying to defraud the Federal Government. While all fraudulent
payments are considered improper, not all improper payments are
considered fraud.
Since 2003, Federal agencies have made an estimated $2.8
trillion in improper payments, including an estimated $162
billion in Fiscal Year 2024. Since these year-to-year estimates
are based on a subset of government programs, 68 programs in
2024, the actual improper payments amount may be significantly
higher.
Last April, we estimated that, based on data from fiscal
years 2018 to 2022, the Federal Government annually lost
between $233-and $531 billion or about 3 to 7 percent of
Federal spending to fraud. Our fraud estimate includes all
Federal programs, and the wide range reflects the different
risk environments during the 5-year period, including normal
operations and COVID-19 relief programs and spending. Fraud at
this level indicates the importance of fraud risk management.
However, most government spending is not fraudulent.
While my written statement more fully covers GAO's wide
body of work in these areas, I will focus this morning on how
agencies and the Congress can work to better prevent improper
payments and fraud.
The best way to reduce improper or fraudulent payments is
to not make them. Preventive controls, as their name implies,
are meant to stop improper and fraudulent payments before they
occur. One key governmentwide preventive control is the use of
Treasury's Do Not Pay system. Do Not Pay consolidates much of
the data matching agencies have done individually to flag
potentially improper or fraudulent payments. Federal agencies
and some state programs can and should leverage Do Not Pay to
ensure program integrity.
Another important action agencies can take is to assign
responsibility for tackling improper payments and fraud to
senior-level officials. This helps establish accountability and
endows those officials with the authority to lead and make
change.
In our March 2022 testimony before the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, we recommended 10
actions that Congress could take to increase accountability
over improper payments and fraud across the Federal Government.
As of today, these recommendations to Congress remain
unaddressed.
To improve transparency and accountability over fraud
management, we recommended that Congress reinstate the
requirement that agencies report on their anti-fraud controls
and fraud risk management efforts in their annual financial
reports. And, to better prepare for future emergencies, such as
hurricanes, wildfires, or pandemics, we recommended that
Congress require OMB to provide guidance for agencies to
proactively develop internal control plans that will be ready
for use in future crises and require agencies to report these
plans to OMB and Congress.
Finally, to facilitate data access and data sharing, which
is key to effective prevention, we recommended that Congress
consider amending the Social Security Act to explicitly allow
the Social Security Administration to share its full death data
with Treasury's Do Not Pay system.
In December 2020, Congress passed legislation requiring the
Social Security Administration to share its full death data
with Treasury's Do Not Pay system for a 3-year pilot period.
This requirement is set to expire in December 2026, and we
think Congress should make it permanent.
Earlier this year, Treasury reported that data sharing
during the pilot had led to $31 million in improper payments
prevented and recovered over its first 5 months, and the
pilot's projected net benefit is over $215 million for the full
3 years. Congress can make an immediate impact by ensuring the
Do Not Pay system continues to have access to the Social
Security Administration's full death data.
Continued congressional oversight is critical to ensuring
that agencies address improper payments and fraud in their
programs. Along with the actions detailed in my written
statement, Congress can use a variety of tools--such as
hearings and the appropriations, authorization, and oversight
processes--to incentivize agencies to improve program
integrity.
This concludes my opening statement, and I would be happy
to answer questions.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much.
The distinguished gentleman, Mr. Dieffenbach, you are
recognized.
STATEMENT OF KEN DIEFFENBACH
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
PANDEMIC RESPONSE ACCOUNTABILITY COMMITTEE
Mr. Dieffenbach. Thank you. Chair Sessions, Ranking Member
Mfume, Members of the Subcommittee, it is an honor to be here
today to talk about the critically important topic of
preventing fraud in Federal programs.
This Subcommittee has been at the forefront of bipartisan
efforts to find solutions to reduce fraud and other types of
improper payments. Today's hearing comes at a critical time
because, unless Congress takes action, one of the most
significant tools it has created to improve program integrity
will be lost.
As the Executive Director of the Pandemic Response
Accountability Committee, or PRAC, an entity Congress created
almost 5 years ago to oversee $5 trillion in relief funding, I
can point to untold examples where fraudsters stole hundreds of
billions of dollars from taxpayers and the intended
beneficiaries of these programs.
As a Federal law enforcement officer who has spent over 28
years bringing to justice fraudsters who stole from Federal
programs, I know firsthand that, unless we invest in cross-
agency prevention and enhance data sharing, we will continue to
be victimized by increasingly sophisticated and well-resourced
bad actors. Pay and chase is not the solution. Prevention is.
To be clear, agencies have the primary responsibility to
prevent fraud, but the PRAC and the OIGs also play an important
role. Since its formation in 2020, the PRAC has time and again
alerted Federal agencies, Congress, and the American public to
the lessons learned from the pandemic and our recommendations
to help strengthen Federal programs. For example, we issued a
fraud alert on the use of suspicious Social Security numbers in
obtaining over $5.4 billion in SBA relief programs.
We have not only identified potential fraud, but we are
also actively working to recover stolen funds. We are
partnering with 48 Federal law enforcement agencies to support
over a thousand investigations related to over $2.4 billion in
potential losses.
As we will discuss today, the time to prepare for the next
disaster is now, not when new funds start flowing. We must act
on these lessons learned. For example, we must address obvious
anomalies, such as Social Security numbers that have never been
issued or issued to people who are now deceased, dates of birth
indicating an applicant is 10 or 110 years old, applicants who
have already applied in five other states, or applicants who
use names like Charlie Chaplin, Abraham Lincoln, or Foghorn
Leghorn, as at least three people did in pandemic programs.
Those three were stopped before the money was disbursed, let me
assure you.
The government must pause and more closely review suspect
claims before money is disbursed. We must look across multiple
programs for red flags, as fraudsters do not follow our
government organizational charts. They steal from wherever it
is easiest to steal. We must also responsibly leverage more
data, especially data already in the possession of the
government, to identify suspicious patterns and trends
indicative of fraud schemes.
Today, the PRAC has the capacity, infrastructure,
relationships, and talent to conduct pre-award vetting and a
more complex network and trend analysis. We know from our work
that fraudsters can apply to all 50 states and territories from
behind one keyboard. They can hit multiple Federal programs
using the same false information. They can outsource these
tasks to artificial intelligence and bots.
But the PRAC is scheduled to sunset in September 2025, and
we are only 2 months away from having to begin deleting our
data that we have collected and curated over the last 5 years.
This includes over 60 major data sources and some 1.7 billion
data points. We are also concerned about losing more of our
staff, whose outstanding analytical expertise is in great
demand.
We will soon reach the point of no return in which
rebuilding this capacity would take several months, if not
years, and a significant new investment of taxpayer dollars.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has expressed strong
support for the PRAC and estimated that our analytics
capability could result in an annual financial benefit of a
billion dollars or more a year.
If the PRAC ceases operations in September, the next time
the government responds to a natural disaster, an economic
crisis, or another event where we are quickly disbursing
benefits to people in need, fraudsters will again swoop in and
steal. We will then inevitably ask ourselves, how did we lose
so much money to fraud?
If this happens, it will be because we chose not to be
prepared, and we chose not to invest in fraud prevention and
increased data sharing. Instead, we should continue the
investment that Congress has made in the PRAC, which has a
proven track record and a demonstrated return on investment.
American taxpayers deserve nothing less.
I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much.
For the audience that may be watching, that is the Pandemic
Response Accountability Committee that was referred to as PRAC.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Wagner, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF JENNIFER WAGNER
DIRECTOR OF MEDICAID ELIGIBILITY AND ENROLLMENT
CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES
Ms. Wagner. Chairman Sessions, Ranking Member Mfume, and
Members of the Government Operations Subcommittee, I am honored
to be here today to discuss something I have spent over 20
years working on: improving government systems to get the right
benefits to eligible people in a streamlined and accurate way.
I started my career as a food-stamp case worker in North
Carolina and then worked for the Illinois Department of Human
Services before joining CBPP. I am going to focus today on
Medicaid and SNAP, specifically on three key points.
First, Medicaid and SNAP have a rigorous eligibility
verification process, and the vast majority of people are
eligible for the benefits they receive. Mistakes are made, but
most improper payments are paperwork issues, not fraud.
Second, running an accurate program means making sure
eligible people can get and keep benefits. When we talk about
program integrity and accuracy, we need to talk about how
adding red tape can harm eligible families.
And, third, there are effective ways to reduce improper
payments and improve program integrity, but some of the
solutions proposed do not match the problems. They don't solve
improper payments and will increase errors.
Let us dig in. First, nearly all of the people enrolled in
SNAP and Medicaid are eligible for their benefits. Applicants
fill out complex forms with details about their household,
expenses, and income. Agencies verify that information against
Federal, state, and commercial data bases. If the application
and data base do not match, the applicant must send
verification, like a pay stub.
Improper payments are not the same as fraud and are
primarily caused by paperwork errors. For example, a Medicaid
worker might check a data base to verify an applicant's
eligibility but not capture and retain the data viewed in that
moment. When a reviewer comes and looks at that case months
later, they cannot confirm the case is correct because they
cannot see what the worker looked at when the case was
approved. There is no indication that the applicant is not
eligible, but since the paperwork is missing, it is considered
an improper payment. This is a technical problem, not a fraud
problem.
Second, it is important to acknowledge one shortcoming of
improper payment measures: They only consider those who receive
benefits. They do not consider those who are eligible but could
not enroll due to confusing notices or agency mistakes. We must
keep this in mind when evaluating solutions to improper
payments, which brings me to my third point.
Many proposed solutions do not match the problems and will
not reduce improper payments or improve accuracy. For example,
requiring Medicaid renewals every 6 months instead of every
year will cause more problems than it solves. More paperwork
will lead eligible enrollees to miss out on benefits for
procedural reasons, not because they do not qualify for the
program but because they do not receive a return notice or the
agency does not process that paperwork timely. And more work
for already overwhelmed state staff will lead to more mistakes
and more improper payments.
So, what would work? The Government Accountability Office
identified two strategies that have been successful in reducing
improper payments: establishing accountability and facilitating
internal collaboration and providing technology, tools, and
training targeted to root causes.
Federal agencies overseeing SNAP and Medicaid need
sufficient staff in key roles to make this happen, such as
Inspectors General to audit eligibility determinations and
staff to provide technical assistance and hold states
accountable for fixing the issues that are discovered in
audits.
We saw this approach work. Federal agencies recently helped
states better implement the requirement to conduct ex parte
renewals, which happen when data sources confirm ongoing
eligibility and enrollees do not have to fill out complex
paperwork to renew. The United States Digital Services worked
with states, and more than 5 million people were renewed for
coverage with less red tape last year.
Another solution is the Medicaid eligibility enrollment
rule, finalized in April 2024, which updates outdated
regulations on case record maintenance and will substantially
reduce the frequency of improper payment resulting from
inadequate records.
It is not an easy task to address improper payments in
large programs serving millions of people. Proposals that
suggest billions of dollars can easily be saved, do not address
improper payments and would result in cutting eligible people
off from vital help. But embracing solutions that match the
actual problems can bring us closer to the goal of getting the
right benefits to eligible people in a streamlined and accurate
way.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look
forward to your questions.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mfume, you heard me say that I felt like our witnesses
all were not only vital to our decision-making but have
appeared in a way to give us answers to these problems.
Thank you very much. I want to thank each of our witnesses.
I am first going to go to the distinguished gentlewoman
from North Carolina, Chairwoman Virginia Foxx. The gentlewoman
is recognized.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank our
witnesses for being here today.
Ms. Kociolek, the Payment Integrity Information Act
codified the Do Not Pay initiative, which provides agencies
with access to certain data bases that can assist in preventing
improper payments and requires a review of the available data
bases prior to the release of funds. Despite this requirement,
it is unclear that agencies are utilizing the Do Not Pay
system. For example, the Department of Transportation Inspector
General reported in November 2023 that the agency did not use
the Do Not Pay portal in prepayment processes as the law
requires.
In your opinion, why do agencies not use all the tools at
their disposal to prevent improper payments, and do you believe
that there are ways to improve the Do Not Pay system?
Ms. Kociolek. Thank you. Yes. I think there are ways to
improve the Do Not Pay system. As I mentioned, making sure that
full death master file is in there and that all relevant data
sources are in there is key to making sure that that source of
information is as complete and reliable as it can be.
A way to encourage agencies to use it is really to think
about how you would do reporting, I think. Right now, agencies
kind of report on the back end of what went wrong. Thinking
about how you would have agencies report about preventing.
So, for instance, the Do Not Pay system and Treasury
payment integrity tools can flag payments that potentially
would have indicators that they may be improper. However, as
noted, it really is up to the agencies to make decisions about
whether a payment will be made.
You could consider having agencies report on when those
flags are not upheld, for example. If something is flagged in
Do Not Pay but a payment is made anyway, having agencies track
that, identify that, and report back when that is happening
would help folks determine if there are instances where the
payment should go ahead anyway or if truly that payment should
have been stopped.
Ms. Foxx. Let me follow up with another question for you
and Mr. Dieffenbach.
Once an improper payment is made, what can an agency do to
recover the payment, and how much does it cost in human hours
and dollars to recoup an improper payment? First you, Ms.
Kociolek.
Ms. Kociolek. Sure. There are requirements for agencies to
attempt to recover improper payments, and I believe it is up to
the agencies to determine when it is cost-beneficial to do so.
So, there can be instances where an agency may determine it
is not cost-beneficial to pursue all avenues in recovering
that. You would hope that agencies would, but I think it is
left to their determination to determine when it is cost-
beneficial.
Mr. Dieffenbach. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman.
Agencies have a number of options for trying to recover
improper payments. There are administrative possibilities or
options. The Congress did just pass the Administrative False
Claims Act in December, which is a significant new tool for
agencies and OIGs to work with jointly that allows agencies to
go through a very rigorous process where they can then recover
funds and damages in some instances.
But, to your point, recovering funds through the judicial
system--the pay-and-chase model we have now--is exorbitantly
expensive, which is why we and others in this hearing are
focused on the prevention piece because it is very expensive to
do any of those recovery actions.
Ms. Foxx. So, what investments could agencies take to
prevent improper payments? Could investments in artificial
intelligence help lower the improper payment rate? Again, what
we want to do is not have the payment go out to begin with by
using what is available to the agencies now.
So, I will start with you, Mr. Dieffenbach.
Mr. Dieffenbach. Yes. So, technology is part of the
solution. Another piece of it is culture, is ownership, and the
Inspector General Act was passed in 1978 to create this
community of watchdogs to prevent fraud. However, before 1978
and today, the agencies have the primary responsibility to do
those things, to resource things properly, to explore
technology that you just mentioned, and to ensure that they are
doing good risk assessments and they are following through on
those to make sure they are mitigating the biggest risks in
their programs.
Ms. Foxx. Ms. Kociolek, any further comments?
Ms. Kociolek. Yes. So, as we mentioned, prevention is
really the key in this and having the right data. So,
artificial intelligence can be helpful if you have the right
data in the system. So, we do have recommendations to encourage
agencies to collect all the necessary information that is
needed to ensure the data bases are complete, that they are
accurate. If you are using artificial intelligence and other
data-mining tools but you have inaccurate or unreliable data in
the systems, that is not going to be very helpful.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much. The gentlewoman yields
back her time.
Mr. Mfume, the gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Mfume. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. I have got a
couple quick questions. I know we are a smaller committee, and
I am hoping that we might even get a second round, and I want
to obviously defer to both the Members here on my side of the
aisle.
I do want to be redundant--maybe deliberately redundant--
about a few things. No. 1, I appreciated the testimony that
nearly all Medicaid and SNAP recipients are eligible for
benefits, which would explode the myth that has been
circulating that people are getting things that are not
eligible.
I want to underscore again: What I heard was that most
improper payments are due to paperwork, paperwork errors, and
not necessarily conniving persons trying to find a way to get a
check. However, what I think I want to stop along more than
anything else is the notion that was just annunciated that we
have got to stop it before it starts.
And, Mr. Dieffenbach, I appreciate your comments that we
cannot play the game of pay and chase. That will go on forever,
deplete resources, and frustrate everybody.
I do want to ask if the 10 recommendations that you
presented in your Senate testimony can be made available. I do
not know that I have them, but I would like very much to see
them.
And one overarching question, and then I am going to get
out of the way and yield to some of my colleagues, Mr.
Chairman.
Can all of you, individually or collectively, give me your
assessment of what has happened and what will happen now that
all these Inspectors General are no longer in place to do the
good job that they were doing to point out the crooks and the
bad guys and to follow up with bodies like this, both in the
House and Senate, that would allow us the ability to do what we
have been able to do in a bipartisan way? I know, I think, what
the effect is, but I need to hear it from the three of you. Any
of you.
Ms. Kociolek. Sure. I can start.
So, certainly, the Inspectors General play a key oversight
role. They have responsibilities related to improper payments.
Beyond that, they do audits of the programs, day in and day
out, and can be very helpful in identifying some of the root
causes that may lead to improper payments in the programs. And
then, also, they are really helpful in coming up with solutions
once they identify those root causes, identifying
recommendations that the agencies can take.
So, certainly, the lack of their presence in some of the
agencies would have a significant impact on----
Mr. Mfume. And, in many of the agencies--and I am just
trying to figure out--now that they are gone, what do we do? I
mean, what are agencies faced with, and is there a greater
propensity for the kind of fraud and abuse that we have seen?
Mr. Dieffenbach. So, Congressman Mfume, the loss in the
Inspectors General was a great loss on a leadership level, on a
productivity level. Our vice chair of the PRAC, Paul Martin,
was the USAID Inspector General who was dismissed, and we
greatly miss his leadership.
I think the biggest thing for the Congress is you are going
to have less transparency and less visibility on what is
actually occurring in agencies because that is--one of the
hallmark principles when Congress set up the Inspector General
Act was to give you and the taxpaying public more visibility
and transparency and an objective view of what exactly is going
on. So, I think you are going to have reduced visibility.
Mr. Mfume. Ms. Wagner?
Ms. Wagner. And, just to add an example to what my
colleagues have said here, the HHS OIG is really important in
supporting and funding state Medicaid fraud control units that
investigate and prosecute Medicaid provider fraud. As I
indicated, beneficiary fraud is very low in these programs, but
provider fraud is common. In Fiscal Year 2023, these units
recovered $1.2 billion in criminal penalties and civil
judgments.
And, also, the IGs in HHS would audit eligibility
determination processes, and they were very effective in
identifying major issues in states, such as duplicate payments
to managed care organizations, incorrect interpretations of
Federal policy, and case worker errors. So, identifying these
problems and working with the states to get them addressed is
really a key role that is diminished right now.
Mr. Mfume. Yes. I think it would be fair to say that their
dismissal has clearly exacerbated a problem that is clearly out
of control now.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you very much.
Mr. Burchett. Mr. Chairman, let me ask a question real
quick. A procedural question.
Mr. Sessions. One moment please, sir. Thank you very much.
Does the gentleman have a question?
Mr. Burchett. Well, no. I was wondering if I could yield
Mr. Mfume a minute of my time. I was enjoying his line of
questioning.
Mr. Sessions. As soon as we get to you, I bet he will take
that and even more.
Mr. Burchett. OK. OK. I just wanted to make sure. I am
sorry.
Mr. Sessions. Yes, sir. As the gentleman does know, the
Chairman wants us to get to the bottom of this, and I do not
intend to cut us off. As long as we are staying in the margins,
I think we are better off. I keep we are better off when
someone like you does yield time to learn more about what is on
someone else's mind. Thank you very much.
I will now move to----
Mr. Burchett. I apologize.
Mr. Sessions. No, you are great. You are great. I am just
saying I do want to when we get to you.
The gentleman, Chairman Palmer, is recognized.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Kociolek, in 2002, Congress passed the Improper
Payments Information Act. In 2010, Congress passed the Improper
Payments Elimination and Recovery Act. In 2012, Congress passed
two more bills: the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery
Improvement Act and the Improper Payments Transparency Act.
Yet, GAO said that the Federal Government is losing between
$233-to $521 billion per year. If you just split the
difference, that is $377 billion. Over a 10-year window, that
is $3.7 trillion, not counting the interest that we are having
to pay.
And, in regard to the Inspectors General, it sounds like we
are not going to miss the Inspector General. I do not mean to
be dismissive of that. I have great high regard for the
Inspectors General. But, in terms of actually lowering our
improper payment rate, it keeps going up year after year. How
do you explain that?
Oh, sorry. I am looking at the wrong person. I need to sit
up straight so I can see the names.
Ms. Kociolek. No worries.
Mr. Palmer. OK. Go ahead.
Ms. Kociolek. I think we really need to get back to basics
and having internal control in payment processes. As you noted,
there has been numerous amounts of legislation adding on
requirements, reporting improper payments, but we really need
to get back to the fundamentals of having internal controls in
payment processes, understanding what the root causes are for
the improper payments going out and, focusing on that,
requiring agencies to report their plans for prevention to you
and having accountability for having those prevention plans in
place.
Mr. Palmer. Isn't the problem, though, here, the failure to
have enforcement in any of these bills? I have been working on
it since I have been in Congress. I believe I might have been
the first one to get the Budget Committee to really take into
account improper payments. I have been working with Mr. Dodaro
this whole time on it, and it is not getting better.
As a matter of fact, in Fiscal Year 2024, there were 16
agencies that reported a total of about $162 billion in
improper payments. When you dig down into it, about 54 or 55
percent of the improper payment problem is administrative
error, failure to verify eligibility, and antiquated data
systems, which brings me to Mr. Musk.
And I know there is a lot of consternation about what they
are doing, but, literally, he has brought in some computer
experts with 21st century technology and done better oversight
of the Federal Government in the last 6 weeks than we have done
in the last 40 years. I mean, isn't that one of the biggest
problems we have with improper payments, is that we have got
antiquated data systems, and we do not have the 21st century
technology we need to do oversight--proper oversight?
Ms. Kociolek. Having reliable data is very important.
Having accurate, reliable, complete data in the systems to be
able to do those integrity checks is critical, yes.
Mr. Palmer. Well, after we passed the Improper Payments
Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act, I know of one outside
company that was brought in that did some analysis of
Department of Labor contracts and found millions of dollars in
fraud, overpayments, and other moneys that should have come
back to the Federal Government through credits that were not
recovered, and when this was disclosed, the Department of Labor
at that time basically waved it off as disinterested. Isn't
that a problem?
Ms. Kociolek. The pay-and-chase model is a problem. Trying
to recover the payments after the fact is much less effective.
Mr. Palmer. So, what we need to do is focus on stopping it
on the front end.
Ms. Kociolek. Absolutely.
Mr. Palmer. And that is where we need the improvements in
technology and where we need the investment in technology.
This is a huge issue when you are reporting 16 agencies are
accounting for $162 billion. In a 10-year window, that is $1.6
trillion. And we are running a deficit of over $2 trillion
every year. If you just look at the totality of it, $377
billion--that is $3.77 trillion, not counting the interest we
are paying on that money because every dollar we send out
improperly is a borrowed dollar.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you
very much.
The distinguished gentlewoman from Washington, DC, is
recognized.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just days after he took office, President Trump summarily
fired 17 Inspectors General across 18 positions in the dead of
the night. Inspectors General fulfill a vital oversight and
accountability function in the government, including to
identifying and preventing improper payments. IGs are also
responsible for keeping Congress informed of fraud and other
serious problems and informing us about progress in
implementing solutions. As we consider ways to attack the
problem of improper payments, it is critical that we do not
undermine these officials who serve as our partners in this
fight.
Ms. Wagner, I am aware that much of your work has focused
on the challenges that states may have in complying with
complex requirements for Federal payments programs. How do
Inspectors General help to identify and address these problems?
Ms. Wagner. Inspectors General play a critical role in
auditing state operations. States are trying to run an accurate
program, but they have many pressures on them, and they
sometimes make mistakes in their policy, in their operations,
in their systems. And audits, through Inspectors General and
others, come in and identify these mistakes and lift them up
and hold the state accountable for addressing these. So, it is
really a critical role when we are looking to improve improper
payments and to get benefits to eligible people.
Ms. Norton. Thank you.
Ms. Kociolek, how does the firing of Inspectors General
affect Inspector General Offices' ability to address and
prevent improper payments?
Ms. Kociolek. The role the Inspectors General plays is
critical. One of the other things, they are often the first
line of defense in investigating allegations of fraud and
improper payments. So, without having, you know, strong
Inspector General presence in there, that can certainly be an
impediment. They are also an objective voice in identifying
problems and doing investigations. So, certainly, having a very
strong Inspector General role is critical.
Ms. Norton. Inspectors General use rigorous, evidence-based
approaches to target fraud. This is important because a
reckless approach to fighting fraud risks collateral damage. It
could keep Federal assistance from going to those who most are
in need of it. GAO's fraud risk management framework notes that
agencies should consider the cost of fraud controls when
designing systems, including potential delays for illegitimate
applicants.
Ms. Kociolek, how does the work of Inspectors General
ensure that people get the benefit for which they are eligible?
Ms. Kociolek. Certainly, the role they play in doing the
various program audits--so, certainly, they have a role in
improper payments, but they also, as I mentioned, you know, do
program audits throughout the year: Looking at the operations
of the various programs, are they being executed efficiently
and effectively to make sure that the proper recipients are
receiving the benefits that they are entitled to.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Dieffenbach, the Inspectors General serving
on the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee have done
great work in identifying improper payments throughout our
pandemic response. What has been the impact of President
Trump's purge of so many Inspectors General been on the
Committee's work and capacity going forward?
Mr. Dieffenbach. Well, we have lost, again, the leadership
and the institutional knowledge of individual Inspectors
General, but the Offices of Inspectors General still exist and
are fully functioning. We work with them day in and day out on
investigations.
And we are, of course, an independent committee within the
oversight community--the PRAC--that does operational data
analytics literally every day to support investigations to
proactively find problems and to issue reports on lessons
learned and preventive measures that agencies can follow going
forward.
So, we are continuing to do our important work to support
the OIGs and to be a centralized hub, if you will, for
analytics to support the OIGs that are smaller and do not have
their own capabilities.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much, the distinguished
gentlewoman. We are delighted that you are here, and as you
have proved in your service, we all want to, as well as Mr.
Mfume and your side, want to stop improper payments and move to
the areas that they would be needed.
We now would move to the distinguished gentleman, Mr. Gill,
from Texas. You are recognized.
Mr. Gill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding this
hearing today.
Ms. Kociolek, thank you for being here as well. Could you
remind us, in Fiscal Year 2024, what was the amount of improper
payments that were sent out?
Ms. Kociolek. One-hundred-sixty-two billion dollars.
Mr. Gill. OK. And which agencies were primarily responsible
for that?
Ms. Kociolek. Some of the programs that had the largest
dollar amounts were Medicare and Medicaid, Earned Income Tax
Credit. Those are some of the larger ones.
Mr. Gill. And how much do you guys at the GAO estimate we
lose in fraud every year?
Ms. Kociolek. We did a fraud estimate for looking at data
for years 2018 through 2022, and we came up with an estimate of
$230-to $250 billion annually.
Mr. Gill. In what agencies do you primarily see fraud?
Where do you see it the most?
Ms. Kociolek. That estimate was based across all programs.
Mr. Gill. OK. Got it. Let us just use a specific example.
If I am a fraudster and I want to collect unemployment checks
that I should not be receiving and I steal somebody else's
identity to do that and I apply to the Department of Labor,
what are the processes that you would expect to see the
Department of Labor go through to ensure that I do not
improperly or fraudulently receive a check?
Ms. Kociolek. So, unemployment insurance is an interesting
one. It's a Federal-state partnership program. So, there are
responsibilities at the Federal level and at the state level.
As I mentioned, really having those preventive controls in
place and doing those data-matching checks are some of the key
controls that you could expect to see--to have an entity have
in place, and in this case, you need to have those types of
controls in place at the state and at the Federal level.
Mr. Gill. What do we actually see? On a realistic basis,
how often are some of these checks actually applied?
Ms. Kociolek. We have seen instances and have
recommendations for unemployment, I believe, where there could
be additional use by the states of some of those data checks,
and I believe we have some recommendations that there could be
requirements to have the states be required to do that data
matching.
Mr. Gill. But they are not doing it right now?
Ms. Kociolek. Right now, it is encouraged, but we have
found instances where in all cases that is not being done, and
that can be a root cause of some of these improper payments.
Mr. Gill. So, in other words, we are mailing out checks
without verifying who they are going to?
Ms. Kociolek. In some cases.
Mr. Gill. Got it. And what are the consequences for agency
heads as they are mailing out American taxpayer dollars without
verifying who they are going to?
Ms. Kociolek. The consequence is that--anytime there is
improper payments or fraud or money going out for not the
intended purpose, that's money that could be going to rightful
recipients and used for other purposes.
Mr. Gill. Right. But, I mean, from an incentive standpoint
on the agency level, is there any consequence for either
employees at the agency or agency heads for mailing out checks
fraudulently?
Ms. Kociolek. One of the things we have recommended is
having an accountable official at the agencies.
Mr. Gill. But, I mean, right now--as opposed to the
recommendations, right now, are there--is there anything to
hold these people accountable?
Ms. Kociolek. Agencies are supposed to have an accountable
official to oversee this, but we have----
Mr. Gill. Right. But what is the accountability structure?
Do they receive less bonuses, for instance? Are they fired?
What is holding them accountable?
Ms. Kociolek. I think that is determined by the agency as
to how that mechanism is 100 percent set up. But, certainly,
Congress can have accountability mechanisms----
Mr. Gill. What do you see? Have you ever seen an agency
head get fired, for instance, for mailing out billions of
dollars in fraudulent checks?
Ms. Kociolek. I have not seen that.
Mr. Gill. Got it. OK. And, once we mail these checks out,
is there any way of clawing this money back and holding the
fraudsters accountable?
Ms. Kociolek. That is what we were saying. The pay-and-
chase model is not generally effective. There are requirements
that, anytime there is an improper payment, agencies are
supposed to attempt to get that money back, but we have found
that the percentage that you get back when you are following
that model as opposed to not having to go out--preventing it
is, by far, much more effective.
Mr. Gill. Right. Right. Completely agree.
It seems to me that we have got an overextended,
bureaucratic, administrative leviathan that is mailing out
American taxpayer dollars fraudulently with virtually no
accountability at all, bankrupting the American people with
impunity, and this is from a Federal Government that ostensibly
works in the interest of American citizens that is instead
wasting our taxpayer dollars on a scale that is difficult to
fathom. I think this is precisely why we need DOGE so badly to
get this nonsense under control.
And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back, and thank you
very much.
Mr. Sessions. I appreciate the gentleman's questions.
The distinguished gentlewoman from Washington, Ms. Randall,
is recognized.
Ms. Randall. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
And thank you as well to our witnesses for taking the time
to be here today and share your expertise.
You know, I have been pretty open about sharing my sister
Olivia's story. She was born with really complex disabilities
and was able to receive the care she needed because of
Medicaid. And she was one of an estimated 2.4 million
Washingtonians enrolled in Apple Health, our state Medicaid
program. And so, ensuring that we are protecting that program
is very important to me, not just personally but on behalf of
all of my constituents.
And I think I share the goals of so many of my colleagues
here to ensure that we are using taxpayer dollars efficiently
to provide essential services to our neighbors who need them,
but what we may have some disagreement on is how to make the
Federal Government and our programs work better for the
American people.
You know, my colleague talked about fraudsters. And,
certainly, there is some fraud in some of our programs, some
improper payments, but I think what we also have to underscore
is the individual people that are trying to access these
programs. And we had a subcommittee hearing on Health Care and
Financial Services a week or two ago in which we collectively
and bipartisanly discussed and understood the barriers that
exist for many families trying to access Medicaid, including
and especially those married couples that have a hard time
getting the healthcare that they need to be successful.
But I want to reiterate the difference between fraud and
people perpetuating fraud and the improper payments. And, Ms.
Wagner, could you reiterate, is it true that the vast majority
of improper payments are paperwork issues, not fraud?
Ms. Wagner. Yes, that is correct. It is usually a mistake
in the process when you talk about a program like Medicaid. It
could mean an eligibility worker did not follow correct
procedures or the participant was issued the wrong amount of
benefits. But it is often an error, an inadvertent error, by
the household or a mistake by the agency staff or system.
The incidence of fraud, which is intentional deceit to gain
a benefit, the incident of beneficiary fraud is very low on
these programs.
Ms. Randall. Yes. Thank you.
You know, I have experienced in my family and heard so many
anecdotes from Washingtonians, particularly parents of severely
disabled children who have this, like, stack of paperwork on
their counters, who feel like they need to be attorneys in
order to access the system, to provide healthcare for their
kids, and who are overwhelmed so often with late nights, little
sleep, worry about what, you know, new medication their kids
need to be on, what specialist appointment they need to get
into, who spend so many hours on the phone, appealing denials
of claims, trying to get in to an appointment with someone,
trying to get answers for their kid and take care of them,
while many of them also have another day job.
You know, to characterize these parents as fraudsters or to
try and lump in, you know, individuals who are just trying to
stay alive in so many cases, feels really challenging to me.
And, you know, I talked to the Health Care Authority in
Washington, our agency responsible for administrating Medicaid,
and because of Washington's fraud-abuse detection system, which
I supported funding for, as a member of the State Senate, they
have uncovered 35 to 40 credible allegations of fraud. That is
35 to 40 out of 20 million claims that they receive a year, and
to do that math for us, it is 0.0002 percent of fraudulent
claims.
And, you know, none of us are claiming that no fraud
exists, but I think we need to keep in mind the scale of the
problem here and who is perpetrating the incorrect payments.
I also want to raise one thing that the Health Care
Authority suggested might be helpful as we talk about
efficiencies in government, and they said that there is a
Federal system to which the states do not have immediate
access, to understand whether folks are concurrently enrolled
in Medicaid programs from one state to the other.
Now, I know there is--we will have, in the next couple of
years, some changes to that data base to monitor when someone
moves and changes their address, but it does not allow
agencies, like the Health Care Authority in Washington, to
track whether there is concurrent enrollment. And that would be
something that I would love the chance to work on with my
colleagues.
And I yield my time.
Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time. Thank
you very much.
We move to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee, Mr.
Burchett.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, ma'am, for sharing that story about your
sister. I did not know that. Gave me a lot to think about.
Ms. Kociolek--is that correct? Did I get that close?
Ms. Kociolek. Yes.
Mr. Burchett. You got Kweisi Mfume and Tim Burchett up
here. Nobody gets our names right, and I probably did not get
his name right.
So, let me ask you a question, ma'am, if I can see through
this big head of hair right here in front of me. What are some
of the key issues that have prevented these agencies from
prioritizing prevention of improper payments and fraud? And I
wish you would also talk a little bit about just human error,
how that plays into this.
Ms. Kociolek. Yes, so there certainly can be human error.
And I just wanted to clarify, the fraud--to be sure, fraud is a
big problem. The fraud numbers that we estimated over those
years was about 3 to 7 percent of the funding, but to be sure,
as we noted, you know, any amount of fraud is money not going
to the intended purpose.
So, some of the key issues, I think, that prevent folks
from being able to effectively put the right controls in place
does have to do with some data sharing, some access, having--
truly understanding the eligibility requirements, the data
attributes that should be checked, and then having that right
information to be able to do that checking, to make sure that
the payments are valid, going to the right person is really
what is critical and can be some of the key challenges and
issues that agencies face.
Mr. Burchett. The agencies in Fiscal Year 2024, they
collectively estimated approximately $161.5 billion in improper
payments. Do you think Congress can get to the point where we
can stop that?
Ms. Kociolek. I think the goal is to reduce that. You will
probably never get rid of the risk of fraud. It is innate in
all programs, but there should be a concerted effort to have
that as low as possible and have the right preventative
controls in place to not leave so much money on the table to
that.
Mr. Burchett. I guess in this case it is the original sin,
so to speak.
How many agencies and programs are using the GAO's Fraud
Risk Framework now? And why aren't they using it, the ones that
aren't?
Ms. Kociolek. You know, I do not know if we know the true
reason why not all of them are using it. We do certainly have a
recommendation to Congress to require agencies to use that. We
think it is a critical technology.
Mr. Burchett. And they are currently not required to follow
that?
Ms. Kociolek. Not specifically.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Thank you.
What can we do to enable that these agencies recover
overpayments, or are they just gone?
I always hear people say, oh, we are going to claw that
back. I was in the legislature in Tennessee for 16 years, and I
never saw--I mean, it is hook or crook, you know. It is a bogus
corporation or something got money somehow, or some criminal,
and they are in jail. They are not paying it back. They are
getting----
Ms. Kociolek. Right.
Mr. Burchett [continuing]. Twenty cents an hour stamping
out license plates.
Ms. Kociolek. And that is the challenge. In many cases it
is not easy to get that money back.
Mr. Burchett. OK. Thank you.
And I want to yield the rest of my time to my dear friend,
Mr. Mfume, if that is all right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mfume. Well, I want to thank the gentleman for
yielding. Totally unnecessary, but----
Mr. Burchett. And you are not making any points calling me
a gentleman.
Mr. Mfume. Mr. Burchett and myself are like a guitar and a
fiddle. We both have strings but we make different sounds. And
we have worked together whenever we can. Usually, we are 100
percent on different sides of the aisle, but in moments like
this, on something like this, I appreciate the gentleman for
yielding, appreciate his sense of humor and the ability to work
with him.
I do want to just go to two quick things that I heard that
I do not want to have fall to the wayside and get out of the
way for the other Members, particularly Mr. Frost on our side
and whoever, Mr. Chairman, you have next coming up.
Mr. Palmer made a good point, and I am really saddened that
he is not here, because he talked about this whole enforcement
mechanism and whether or not there is any enforcement
mechanism, and without an enforcement mechanism, how can you
expect agencies or agency heads to do anything at all if we are
not going to enforce existing law or practice.
And the other interesting thing was Mr. Gill who mentioned
consequences to agency heads, which I think is something that
we ought to talk about, particularly the flip side of that,
which is incentives to agency heads. And I do not know if we
are providing them right now.
So, if I am running agency A, B, or C, I see a problem, and
I work my tail off to get it fixed so that improper payments
are not going out, seems to me there ought to be some incentive
there for agency heads to do that, and there ought to be a
hammer on the other side for agency heads who fail to do it at
all.
So, I just wanted to go back to both of those points. I
want to thank the gentleman--I will call him a gentleman,
again--from Tennessee, Mr. Burchett, for yielding this time.
And I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Burchett yields back his time. Thank you
for the distinguished gentleman.
We would now recognize the distinguished gentleman from
Georgia, Mr. Jack.
Mr. Jack. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And first and foremost, if I could follow on that effective
line of statement from Mr. Mfume and that potential line of
questioning, I was also inspired by Mr. Palmer's statements as
it relates to enforcement.
If I could just go down the line, what say you about
enhancing the enforcement capability, whether through
legislative action or executive action?
Ms. Kociolek. Yes. So, I think holding people accountable
is critical for doing anything but in this case particularly.
Certainly, I think agencies should have accountable officials
and hold those people accountable. And like I mentioned,
Congress can have an accountability role too through the
appropriations process, through having agencies and officials
report on their preventative controls that they are putting in
place to hold them accountable and demonstrate how they are
doing that.
Mr. Jack. Thank you.
Mr. Dieffenbach?
Mr. Dieffenbach. Thank you for the question.
So, we spent the last 5 years at the PRAC, developing and
learning lessons learned. We put out a program, a Blueprint for
program integrity. So, agencies need to operationalize that and
follow that.
We have perfected ways to find simple frauds and more
complex frauds. So, I think one of the answers is they need to
have the tools to be able to detect, again, the simple
noneligibility issues, but also the more complex, hidden,
criminal enterprises, sometimes international criminal
enterprises, which we have done a good job--I think a
phenomenal job--of finding new ways to do that with big data.
Mr. Jack. Wonderful.
Ms. Wagner?
Ms. Wagner. The key to preventing improper payments and
reducing fraud is information and technical assistance to the
states. States are trying to run a good program. They do not
want headlines. They do not want their money going to the wrong
people. And so, by supporting them in these efforts with funds
with Federal support, we can go much further.
Penalizing them, massive cuts to these programs, will
actually go against this purpose and will lead to increased
improper payments.
Mr. Jack. Thank you all.
Just in closing, a lot of my colleagues have asked very
effective questions today, but I love history and I would love,
if I could, Ms. Kociolek, I think we understand, since 2004,
2003, we have seen $2.8 trillion in improper payments. I think
that is from GAO. Is that correct?
And would you say, has there been an influx in recent
years? If you were to try to catalog year by year, I mean, I am
trying to understand the history of how this ramped up, and,
you know, is this something that was happening in the 1940s,
1950s, 1960s? Have you seen it just really skyrocket as
government's grown and government programs have grown? Would
love for you to just offer some thoughts on the history of how
we got here.
Ms. Kociolek. Yes. I think certainly some of the
challenges, and as we mentioned, the importance of having
really foundational, good, internal controls is critical. So
that over the years, as emergencies are going to arise, you
have those foundational controls in place. You have plans and
controls ready to go.
I think, you know, as agencies and the government is forced
to function in dynamic ways, if you do not have those
foundations in place, that is when I think you see that
fluctuation, and that just exacerbates the problem.
Mr. Jack. And, sir, if you want to comment on the history
of how we got here.
Mr. Dieffenbach. Please. The threat is always evolving. The
friction for getting public benefits is gone. Anyone with a
computer anywhere in the world can apply for public benefits.
Some of those programs have a lot of protections in place. As
we found in the pandemic through our work, many did not. So, it
really takes a big data approach, using all the tools available
to find the hidden connections that you cannot find manually.
We are working on--we have 142,000 known pandemic fraud
cases, and they have a fingerprint, and we have been able to
figure out that fingerprint. And our hope is to be able to
continue our work to help people proactively defend against
these things and prevent them early, because you cannot fight
today's fraud issues with yesterday's tools.
Mr. Jack. Wonderful.
Ms. Wagner?
Ms. Wagner. So, Medicaid and SNAP are a little bit
different than some of the other programs that are more recent
or were really ramped up during the pandemic. They have a long
history of working to reduce improper payments.
They were challenged during the pandemic by some new
programs, by increased demand, and by reduced staffing. So, now
we really need to kind of look at the other side of that and
stabilize the workforce, improve the IT systems to continue
reducing those rates.
Mr. Jack. Well, I would like to thank all three of the
witnesses for appearing before us today. I want to thank the
Chairman for calling this hearing.
And with that, I yield my remainder of 30 seconds to the
Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Sessions. I appreciate the distinguished gentleman and
welcome him not just to the Subcommittee, but really to
Congress, with an eye toward, as a new Member--as well some
other people, including Mr. Frost, Mr. Moskowitz--making sure
that their words that they say back home are met with the
reality of other senior Members working with you to achieve
those things.
And I think that that is the sense that I get, that it is a
100 percent buy-in that we have about the problem. Mr. Mfume
and I want to come to a 100 percent working toward that answer.
And I want to thank the distinguished gentleman.
Mr. Jack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sessions. The distinguished gentleman from Florida is
recognized, and good to see you, Mr. Frost.
Mr. Frost. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Hello. Thank you so much for being here today. You know,
when I was back home in the district over the weekend,
everywhere I went--the grocery store, walking around the park,
doing anything--people were coming up to me asking about Social
Security.
And I think a lot of people are worried and scared right
now. I think part of it has to do with a lot of the mis-and
disinformation that is going around. I mean, we have heard this
constant lie from Elon Musk that tens of millions of dead
people are getting Social Security paychecks.
Claiming fraud on Social Security, I think, is one way that
folks are going to justify cutting it, pocketing the benefits
for billionaires, privatizing it.
Ms. Kociolek, Elon Musk is now calling Social Security a
Ponzi scheme. How concerned are you that Social Security is a
Ponzi scheme?
Ms. Kociolek. I do not think we have seen indications in
our work that that is the case.
Mr. Frost. Musk is calling it a Ponzi scheme as an excuse
to destroy it, in my opinion.
Americans earn Social Security through years of hard work,
and it is a good investment. It could be a better investment
for Black men because we are pretty much donors because we live
less time. But that is another conversation for another time.
It is one of the most popular government services, and most
people support more funding for Social Security, not less.
Ms. Wagner, you know, people want shorter wait times,
payments processed more quickly, but at the same time, the
Administration wants to cut 7,000 employees from the
Administration.
Yesterday somebody from my office called Social Security.
Thirty days to process something on retirement, 30 days on
Medicaid, 230 days as it relates to disability.
What would be the effects of these cuts to the Social
Security Administration right now?
Ms. Wagner. When staff shrinks, there are fewer people to
take appointments, to answer phones, to process applications
for different benefits, and that hurts people nationwide. And
in addition to their own staff, Social Security Administration
funds state Disability Determination Service employees who
decide whether applicants' disabilities are severe enough to
qualify for benefits. Their processing time was already at a
record high of 7 months, and we expect cuts will have further
impact. In addition, 7 in 10 of Social Security staff do serve
the public directly, so this will have a major impact on
customer service.
Mr. Frost. Thank you.
And it is not just, you know, billionaires like Elon Musk
who are going around attacking it. My own Florida senator, Rick
Scott, the richest person in Congress, which on the topic of
fraud, you know, my senator made history. He is the man
responsible for the largest Medicare fraud in the history of
this country--$1.7 billion.
He says that Republicans are, quote, ``going to have to cut
Social Security'', end quote.
Why are they doing this? Well, to take money from Social
Security to use it for tax cuts for people who are too rich to
need it.
House Republicans plan to make $880 billion in cuts to
healthcare. This means cuts to Medicaid and Medicare too.
Ms. Wagner, 4 in 8 American children are Medicaid
recipients, including over 60,000 people in my district alone.
For an Orlando family currently receiving Medicaid, what could
be the financial fallout from losing access to Medicaid?
Ms. Wagner. Well, first, when states are forced to cut back
on funding, they are going to cut back on who is eligible and
the benefits they receive. But cuts will have broader impacts
than just those who are no longer eligible. They will directly
or indirectly affect the amount of funds available for state
staff, for IT systems that support Medicaid, and they will
probably lead to more improper payments and reduce program
integrity.
And it will impact people even whose eligibility is not
cut--longer call center wait times, more errors, uncertainty,
stress, and possibly not being able to get approved for
benefits, or losing coverage at renewal even though they remain
eligible.
Mr. Frost. Thank you.
You know, before coming to Congress, I worked in
organizations, and one of the proudest things I did was work at
March For Our Lives. It came after the shooting that happened
in Parkland.
I traveled this country, speaking with people that
disagreed with me on the issue of gun violence, but it made me
a better person. And something I learned during my travels is,
in order to speak about something in a bipartisan way, I think
it is really important to make sure people are coming at this
on the right foot, in good faith.
And I am all for the modernization of our government. I
think it is really important, and I say that as the youngest
person in the U.S. Congress. I think it is very important.
But when I see the people leading the effort, like Elon
Musk, call something like Social Security a Ponzi scheme, and I
hear crickets on the other side of the aisle, I have a really
hard time taking any of this seriously when I go home and I
have people coming up to me in the grocery store, who are
living paycheck to paycheck, asking me, what are you going to
do to protect Social Security?
So, thank you so much, and I yield back.
Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
The distinguished gentleman from Florida, Mr. Moskowitz,
who has asked to be waived on this Committee--sir, we are
delighted that you are here--the gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Moskowitz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
granting my waiver. I appreciate it.
You know, I have been committed to helping the government
become more efficient, save dollars, go after fraud, waste, and
abuse. I was the first Democrat to join the DOGE Caucus, which,
by the way, has not done anything and has not been included in
anything Elon Musk has done. But, you know, it is nice that we
have a caucus.
And so, this is a bipartisan effort, like the Chairman
mentioned. We do want to get at waste, fraud, and abuse, but I
do think dispelling myths, dispelling fact from fiction, is
important. And I want to drill down real quickly first on what
my colleague from Florida, Mr. Frost, said, and I am going to
be even more direct, because I think it is important.
We will just go down the line. So, you gave an answer on
whether Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. The answer is no,
right? It is not a Ponzi scheme.
Ms. Kociolek. We have not reported that it is a Ponzi
scheme.
Mr. Moskowitz. Right. So, it is not a Ponzi scheme?
Mr. Dieffenbach. I am not aware that it is a Ponzi scheme.
Mr. Moskowitz. OK.
Ms. Wagner. Agreed, not a Ponzi scheme.
Mr. Moskowitz. OK. So, Mr. Musk is wrong. No one is going
to get fired for saying it. All right. He is wrong. You can say
it. It is not a Ponzi scheme. I will say it for you. It is not
a Ponzi scheme. It is not a Ponzi--OK. He is wrong. I know we
are afraid to say it, and, see, that is part of the problem. We
are afraid to say that Elon Musk is wrong.
That is what Mr. Frost was talking about when he says he
hears crickets from my colleagues. We hear crickets from the
witnesses because everyone is afraid, when Elon says something,
if it' is patently false, we are afraid to say it is false.
All right. Let us talk about something else. The IGs
getting fired. You support the IGs getting fired? I mean, I got
to imagine, if you are interested in getting rid of fraud,
waste, and abuse, they are the people trying to get rid of
fraud, waste, and abuse.
So, they got fired from Agriculture, Interior, HUD,
Department of Defense, the EPA, the State Department, HHS,
Veterans Affairs, Labor, Transportation.
You support that? In the mission of getting rid of fraud
and waste and abuse?
Ms. Kociolek. The Inspector General community is critical.
There are--certainly an administration can----
Mr. Moskowitz. No, I get that, but you have no opinion
whether that was good or bad? Again, we will not say Elon's
wrong. I know you will not go there. But was that the right
decision?
Ms. Kociolek. You did lose institutional knowledge.
Certainly, the Administration has a right to change the
Inspector Generals. There are reporting mechanisms, though,
that were not necessarily followed.
Mr. Moskowitz. All right. Let me make it easier. So, like,
let us use numbers, let us use data. So, like, 51-49, 51 bad
idea? Right, that was a bad idea? I am trying to help.
Ms. Kociolek. The proper protocols were not followed in----
Mr. Moskowitz. Right. Oh, well, we know it was illegal. Do
not get me wrong. I did not want to make you say that. I
appreciate you saying that on the record. It was illegal. The
proper protocols were not followed.
But is it good policy if you want to go offer fraud, waste,
and abuse? Was that good policy?
Ms. Kociolek. To lose institutional knowledge----
Mr. Moskowitz. No, not good policy.
Ms. Kociolek [continuing]. Of the top officials?
Mr. Moskowitz. Good policy?
Mr. Dieffenbach. I do not think it improves the ability to
fight fraud, waste, and abuse.
Mr. Moskowitz. Not good policy?
Ms. Wagner. Not good policy.
Mr. Moskowitz. OK. Right. And if you are telling the
American people that this is a focus of your administration,
and then you go fire all of the IGs, that does not seem to
compute.
OK. Last, did fraud and improper payments start with Joe
Biden? In his Administration, was that the first time the
government has experienced that?
Ms. Kociolek. That is not the first time----
Mr. Moskowitz. No.
Ms. Kociolek [continuing]. That fraud was reported.
Mr. Moskowitz. First time?
Mr. Dieffenbach. No.
Mr. Moskowitz. First time?
Ms. Wagner. No.
Mr. Moskowitz. So, we got to depoliticize this stuff
because all we are hearing is what happened in the last 4
years, in the last 4 years.
In 2017, $140 billion of improper payments. That sound
accurate?
Ms. Kociolek. In 2024, we reported $162 billion in improper
payments.
Mr. Moskowitz. No, no, hold on. In 2017, $140 billion in
improper payments; in 2018, $150 billion of improper payments;
in 2019, $174 billion of improper payments; and in 2020, $206
billion of improper payments. Those are GAO numbers.
So, let me just do some math. In the first Trump
Administration, there were $670 billion of improper payments. I
am not blaming him, but he is blaming Joe Biden, and so is Elon
Musk, blaming for the improper payments for what happened in
the 4 years of Joe Biden.
And my point is, Mr. Chairman, if we do want to solve this
on a bipartisan basis, then we got to separate fact from
fiction. We got to depoliticize it.
$670 billion dollars of improper payments in fraud, waste,
and abuse in the first Trump Administration. Isn't that
correct?
Ms. Kociolek. Correct.
Mr. Moskowitz. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Dieffenbach. I do not have any reason to doubt your
math, sir.
Mr. Moskowitz. OK. Isn't that correct?
Ms. Wagner. I believe so.
Mr. Moskowitz. Perfect.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sessions. Does the gentleman seek to give back his time
or is the gentleman----
Mr. Moskowitz. Mr. Chairman, I had no time back, but I am
happy to give you back the time.
Mr. Sessions. Would the gentleman--your Ranking Member has
asked if we would have a second round. The distinguished
gentleman is recognized, Mr. Mfume.
Mr. Mfume. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank Mr. Moskowitz and just, I--to the gentleman
from Florida, I will say, Elon Musk is a lie, on the record,
which I have said many times, so I guess he is coming after me.
One of the things we want to do here is to allow everybody
freedom of expression. This is an issue particularly for the
Chairman and I. We have been working this for a long, long
time.
And getting to the root of this, by implementing what we
are hearing today and what we have learned from previous
hearings, is extremely, extremely important.
I do not want to be redundant, but, again, this whole
notion about, do we have an enforcement mechanism in place when
agency heads just watch this sort of thing occur under their
tenure and do nothing about it, or watch it and feel like they
cannot do anything about it? And for those brave souls who do,
how do we reward them, and what do we do as a Congress to make
sure that we are tightening up their spine and that they are
doing the right thing?
I think it is fair to say that there will be legislation
coming out of this hearing at some point in time. I know the
Chairman has expressed an interest, and I hope to join him in
that regard.
If we do not do anything else, once the shouting and
everything else is over with, we have got to find a way to make
sure that dollars that could be used to help people in this
country actually get to people. If we are able to slow down
this--I cannot call it a trickle of fraud, waste, and abuse--an
avalanche that has been going on.
And I have been looking at the GAO numbers going all the
way back to 2003. So, Mr. Moskowitz was right, it did not start
under Joe Biden. This has been going on and on and on.
And I think we will have a gross failure on our part if we
do not find a way in this Committee, with this wind to our
back, to do something about it. It is going to take calm, clear
thinking, a resolute determination to make sure that whatever
legislation we are able to come up with jointly over and over
again that passes, really does get us to where we want to be.
I would think that everybody in this country is appalled to
know that there are crooks out here who feed on the government,
who lie, who cheat, who steal, who deliberately find a way to
get around the law. And I do not know that there is any safe
haven for those individuals wherever they are.
I do know that we have got to bring the hammer down on
them, which is why I am so dismayed that the Inspectors General
are not in place to do just that. They had started a process,
and it was yielding results.
So, I am going to yield back to our Chairman. My commitment
is to work through these issues, to work in a bipartisan way
where possible--and I hope that is very possible--and to keep
saying what we have been saying over and over again, which now
is starting to get some sort of audience just because I guess
Elon Musk has a bigger bullhorn than my microphone here. But we
have been at this, this is not new, and we have got to find a
way to do it in a way that is surgical, deliberate, verifiable,
and allows for due process.
With that, I am going to yield back. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I appreciate the time.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much. And also, the gentleman
does--I do not know if that was your closing comments?
Mr. Mfume. Uh-huh.
Mr. Sessions. OK. Then I am going to yield myself my time,
and then I probably will put those together with my closing
comments and then we will get out.
I want to thank not only the witnesses who are here today
but so many others who are in the audience. I think today you
saw very classic events that happen almost every day on the
Hill, and that is people missed the opening statements. They
missed some of the nuggets of information that each of you
gave.
But what resides in each of us is a desire when we hear the
term $800 billion, whether it is waste, fraud, or abuse, or
unintended payments, whatever you would want to put that term
with, it is frustrating. It is frustrating for us. It is
frustrating for you.
I will tell you that I think what Mr. Mfume described was
the two of us when he said the answer needs to be. I think the
answer needs to be a bipartisan answer. I think it needs to be
looking at this together. I think it needs to be this
Subcommittee, through his leadership and, perhaps, hopefully
through mine, that we can guide us to decision-making, that his
strong voice, my voice, can move us where we need to go.
Where is it that we need to go? I think today that we heard
about the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, is one of
those answers. It is an answer that currently exists, and it
was a bipartisan answer. It still maintains a good bit of data,
but it was done just for the pandemic. It was not done for
other programs that would reside across the government.
I think that the expertise that Mr. Dieffenbach spoke to me
about yesterday when I met with him for a good period of time
was that he sees that they could be a potential front-side
answer to not just waste, fraud, and abuse, but on an
individual basis for the various organizations: Social
Security, Veterans Affairs, IRS.
We spoke about how 18F for some time provided some
assurance that they would know who a person was on coming in,
but we now recognize it did not quite work that way.
But the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee has
effectively been able to prove that the work that they have
done.
And so, a piece of legislation--and I spoke to Chairman
Comer about it this morning--will be in order within 2 weeks.
We are going to go to a markup. We are going to work together.
We are going to, I think, see the same answer, and that is, we
think that you worked, Mr. Dieffenbach, we think that that
answer is an upfront answer, and we will then have to find a
way to mirror not only what you do but find a way to bring the
avenues of data and information up front, and apply those same
principles to the biggest problem.
I do not think that we will go overnight directly to you. I
do not think there is staff for that. I do not--we will work
together. But I do think that the answer lies in up front
gaining the information.
If the Members had all been here up front, they would have
heard all three of you concur on that. They would have said,
well, we need to do this on an upfront basis as a person goes
through this process, in particular, before we send out
billions or trillions of dollars to people, which is something
that I have tried to echo.
Our government is not prepared to send money out on a mass
basis at this point. We are not prepared. And I am not trying
to disappoint anybody in this Administration, but we are not
prepared for it.
We need to get prepared. And I believe that Mr. Mfume and
I, who have been given this authority and/or responsibility,
will continue to work with you.
I will be quite honest, I was delighted with what I heard
yesterday from GAO. I think that they have provided us a lot of
information which is allowing us to hone in, not only on the
problems, but the answers.
And I think if we move ourself to answers through a process
that people understand and expect, it will mean that a lot of
people gain confidence in not only the Federal Government but
the workforces that are there.
Last, I do not want to do this necessarily because the
gentlemen are not here--Mr. Frost, Mr. Moskowitz--but I think
it might be slightly a revision to what he said about they are
hearing crickets.
In fact, the $800 billion is a 10-year number. These will
be votes that will be taken, and we have already seen where
these numbers, which are being looked at by this DOGE
organization, OMB, and the government, is reporting that they
believe the huge numbers of, quote, ``cuts,'' could be achieved
by reducing the amount of unintended payments.
And we could look back--I did not do that--to line up
whether it is Medicare, whether it is Medicaid, whether it is
VA, whether it is SBA. I did not look at that from the
information that GAO has given us.
What I will tell you is, is that people like me, and I
think people like Mr. Mfume, want to do something about it.
People like me--I am a Republican--believe that we can get
credit for cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. And we have laid
down the gauntlet to say, we are going to do the things that
would be necessary to cut unintended payments. And we are going
to work those into the government, and we are going to make
sure this happens. And that will be done on a bipartisan basis.
But for us to assume that we would make it better by
growing the organization, I would submit to you, I do not agree
with that. I do not agree that we can do it by keeping workers
at home rather than in the office, working with data bases and
figuring out who wants to get committed.
And this is where I saw the process that is political,
where the President said, if you choose not to want to come
back, he understood that. He would offer a buyout plan. It was
immediately attacked.
We live in a political world, and there are people who will
attack President Biden or President Trump, just from their word
go--the word go of their name.
So, I would submit to you that I think that we are not
having crickets. We are having a plan that we are laying out. I
have got to do a better job as one of the co-chairmen of DOGE.
It is my opportunity and my real need to talk to the American
people with clarity.
But as the father of a Down syndrome young man who is 31
years old, I, too, have been through and seen how our services
that we offer to those people who cannot take care of themself
and their families should not be the ones that find themself on
the wrong end of these changes.
It is true what was stated here today that families that
have disabled people, disabled children, disabled adults,
people they care for, have a higher threshold of frustration of
working through the system. And I think that system will get
better as we hone ourself through the work that would be done
on a bipartisan basis unless fear--the fear that people have
about losing Social Security--is, in fact, not true. It would
not be true.
It is not the goal of Elon Musk or of this government--and
I do recognize there have been some words stated about their
problems with what they see as an aggregate amount of
unintended payments. But I will tell you that there is more
than enough room to stop the unintended payments that would
equal the amount of money that is almost destined to be cut.
We deal with 10-year numbers, not 1-year numbers. We deal
with numbers that are exponentially high, and it sounds almost
like, oh, my gosh, they are going to shut down the program.
In fact, there needs to be thought process behind it. I, in
no way, am afraid of a town hall meeting, of explaining what we
are doing, but as a Member of Congress, if we accept that where
we are and where we have been, is acceptable to our future, we
are missing the boat.
So, I would ask that each of you know that you got asked
tough questions today--does not bother me--but to have the
confidence that if we move forward together, including Mr.
Mfume and myself, that we can end up in a point where we look
at each other and say, we made this better. We saved the money
that was actually destined for people that it was intended to.
And then we will see what the score is.
I have great confidence we can do this.
So, I do not want conversation that they hear crickets to
be part of this. There are not crickets. There is a really
daunting task of us to take this $1.7 trillion or $2.7
trillion, whatever the amount was, that is laid in front of us.
And we were never talking about cuts that were bigger than
that. We were talking about cuts that are way less but that
make sense.
So, I want to thank each of you for being here today. I
think each of you did well enough to be invited back, but
perhaps more importantly, we would like to work with you.
And Mr. Mfume and I are going to deal with this, and
legislation, we will pass it to you and also see what your
opinion might be for that.
But I want to thank you each for being here today.
The gentleman--does the gentleman wish further time?
Mr. Mfume. Just to thank our witnesses. Thank you.
Mr. Sessions. We do thank our witnesses. And if they stick
around a second, Mr. Mfume and I are going to end this hearing
and come and thank you for being here.
This concludes the hearing today. I want to thank the
witnesses, and you are now excused.
I have to get my script right. Whoops, we will--where is
the 5-day?
Well, hold on just a second. I am sorry.
We will, without objection, we will extend to--where is the
statement that you want me to read? The 5 days? It is all--5
legislative days for people to ask for questions and to receive
information. Where is that, Bill?
Counsel. Where is it?
Mr. Sessions. I do not see it, and I apologize. It is a
normal thing we do. All right. Yes, I know what it says, but I
am going to read--oh, there it is.
With all that said, without objection, all Members will
have 5 legislative days within which to submit additional
written questions for witnesses which will be forwarded to
witnesses for their response.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:48 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]