Republicans on Capitol Hill and beyond have shifted their focus toward cutting fraud in government programs, an effort they hope will resonate with voters in November.
Lawmakers have rolled out several bills related to stopping fraud in government programs. The raft of legislation adds to efforts by the Trump administration to crack down on fraud and recent news stories highlighting examples of abuse of major government programs like Medicare and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
With voters upset at the government and dissatisfied with the cost of living, Republicans are betting anti-fraud efforts will resonate in the lead-up to the midterm elections.
“I think the whole government corruption, incompetence, and waste thing is really breaking through,” Jason Roe, a veteran Republican political consultant, told the Washington Examiner.
The House was weighing several pieces of fraud-related legislation this week.
For instance, the Fraud Prevention and Accountability Act would enhance how the federal government prevents fraud during national emergencies, particularly after COVID-19 pandemic programs were used by some fraudsters to turn a profit.
That legislation would also establish an Office of the Inspector General for Fraud, Accountability, and Recovery, which would be housed within the Treasury Department.
The Stopping Fraudulent Payments Act would establish requirements to prevent fraudulent or improper payments from federal programs, while the No Aid for Ghost Students Act would establish an identity fraud detection system for student aid applications.
And last week, the House passed the Stop Child Care Scams Act of 2026 in a 217-207 vote, with four Democrats joining Republicans. The Democrats were Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Don Davis (D-NC), Jared Golden (D-ME), and Vicente Gonzales (D-TX).
The legislation, if it clears the Senate and is signed by Trump, would subject states to additional sanctions for improperly using funds under the Child Care and Development Block Grant program.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) said during a news conference this week that the latest undertaking by lawmakers is “just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Here in the House, Republicans are strengthening government programs to defend against fraud and serve the vulnerable Americans they are intended for,” Emmer said. “The contrast couldn’t be clearer: While Democrats facilitate fraud, Republicans tackle it head on, and we’ll be doing even more of that this week.”
Daniel West, government relations director at Heritage Action, told the Washington Examiner he sees this legislative push as being responsive to broader frustrations over fraud from the public. It’s also a reaction to news reports on specific instances of fraud and reporting from independent journalists that gained a lot of media attention.
For instance, Minnesota has gotten outsize attention for fraud in recent months. Many of the fraud allegations centered on Minnesota’s Somali community.
Specifically, some of the fraud involved Somalis registering as medical providers and stealing from Medicaid through the Minnesota Health Care Programs by billing the government for services that were not performed.
One example is Asha Farhan Hassan, who pleaded guilty to carrying out Medicaid fraud by giving kickbacks to parents to enroll their children in therapy to grift off Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention benefit.
West said there is a significant amount of frustration not only toward the people perpetrating the fraud, but also toward the government apparatus that was supposed to prevent such fraud from occurring in the first place.
The Trump administration has also made its own effort to combat fraud alongside Republicans on Capitol Hill. In March, the administration announced an “unrelenting, full-scale assault” on fraud. That involved the creation of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.
Vice President JD Vance also recently waded into the fraud push in a big way. This week, Vance referred allegations involving Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Attorney General Keith Ellison to the Department of Justice’s new fraud division. The referrals come after the GOP-led House oversight committee released a report that officials in Walz’s administration retaliated against state employees who raised concerns about fraud.
Brian Darling, a Republican strategist and former Senate aide, told the Washington Examiner he thinks the effort will appeal to voters because they will contrast it with how much of their taxpayer dollars are spent in Washington.
“When you look at Congress having a hard time cutting any spending — they haven’t cut one cent of spending, they just keep continuing to spend more and more — it’s good to see the Trump administration getting out the word that they’re attacking fraud, which will actually save the taxpayers some money,” Darling said.
Niklas Kleinworth, director of the State Health Reform Initiative at Paragon Health Institute, told the Washington Examiner his group’s research shows a lot of Obamacare enrollment fraud kicked up after the pandemic because of changes the government made, but that there have been long-standing problems with fraud in the Medicaid space.
And the Republican push against fraud isn’t just coming from the federal level. Kleinworth said several states have recently worked to crack down on it.
“A lot of states are taking this fraud very seriously, and they’re making a lot of efforts to try and try and root it out,” he said.
For instance, Ohio Republican state Rep. Mike Dovilla recently released a legislative package designed to combat fraud within Ohio’s Medicaid program, a package that includes provisions like bolstering electronic verification of in-home personal care services.
Darling said he thinks Republicans will be able to tie the anti-fraud effort to cost-of-living concerns. He tied inflation to the government.
“Because government has control of the money supply, and so the fact that the Trump administration is going after fraud and trying to save tens of billions of dollars, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars, that’s going to help with inflation, because money is going to have more power because the federal government will run smaller deficits,” Darling said.
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West said he expects the whole-of-government effort to continue this year in the lead-up to the midterm elections, suggesting this current Republican effort isn’t just a flash in the pan and will be looked into for months to come.
“I think we’re just kind of on the front end of all this,” West said.