Years after a fed audit slammed the U.S. government for awarding $1.4 billion in COVID-19 assistance to dead people, the Treasury Department has recovered more than $31 million in scams and improper payments to decedents in just a few months, reports Judicial Watch.
“These results are just the tip of the iceberg,” the Treasury’s Fiscal Assistant Secretary David Lebryk said in a news release. He urged Congress to give the Treasury full access to the master file, saying it would “significantly reduce fraud, improve program integrity, and better safeguard taxpayer dollars.”
This is more proof that we should be grateful to Elon Mush and his team, who are willing to find these losses. We are deeply in debt, and this must stop.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that DOGE is “one of the most important audits of government” in his lifetime.
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“These are highly trained professionals. This is not some roving band going around doing things. This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says @DOGE is “one of the most important audits of government” in his lifetime.
“These are highly trained professionals. This is not some roving band going around doing things. This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings.” pic.twitter.com/pBEvFEuJ8f
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 8, 2025
In 2023, Congress granted the Treasury Department temporary access to the special database as part of an effort to curb an epidemic of erroneous payments to people who had already died. The access, which expires in 2026, should be extended since it has proven to be instrumental in saving taxpayers large sums of money.
SSA has staffing and funding problems.
The Treasury Department stepped in because SSA was not taking sufficient action to end the pervasive fraud.
Within a few months, the Treasury Department uncovered millions of dollars doled out due to fraud or errors.
Judicial Watch writes:
Improper payments are a long-standing and significant governmentwide problem, a federal probe made public just days ago affirms. The audit reveals that since fiscal year 2003 executive branch agencies have reported an astounding $2.8 trillion in cumulative improper payments, including a whopping $161.5 billion for fiscal year 2024, which ended in September.
The spending is so out of control that Congress passed a law (Payment Integrity Information Act) in 2019 requiring federal agencies to cut down on improper payments, which are identified in the legislation as those that should not have been made or were made in an incorrect amount under statutory, contractual, administrative, or other legally applicable requirement. This includes duplicate payments as well as any payment made to an ineligible recipient.
It’s the tip of the iceberg for every overly large government agency. They all have grants and guns. Maybe that should be looked at, too.
SSA needs an overhaul:
Just learned that the social security database is not de-duplicated, meaning you can have the same SSN many times over, which further enables MASSIVE FRAUD!!
Your tax dollars are being stolen. https://t.co/hSZdNY4wxf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 9, 2025
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