It’s no secret that President Donald Trump is waging a war on fraud. But what no one’s talking about is that Congress has the unique opportunity to help the administration win this war.
That’s the most important part of the skinny reconciliation bill that congressional Republicans are preparing to pass. While the bill is largely focused on immigration enforcement, especially the continued and long-overdue crackdown on illegal immigration, it also doubles down on the president’s campaign against the countless thieves who are stealing from welfare programs. This deserves far more attention, given the scope and scale of welfare fraud.
All told, the Republican bill devotes nearly $1.5 billion to the Department of Justice in large part to tackle fraud. That’s a small price to pay at a time when taxpayers have lost at least $100 billion each year to fraud in Medicaid alone. More than one out of every four dollars spent on the program is wrongly spent. In food stamps, more than one in every 10 dollars spent on the program is improper. This isn’t a minor problem in a couple of programs. It’s a systemic crisis across virtually the entire welfare state.
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This reality burst into the open in December, when welfare fraud in Minnesota captured the entire nation’s attention. A relative handful of fraudsters, many in the state’s Somali community, systematically pilfered welfare programs. Medicaid fraud alone in Minnesota has cost taxpayers at least $9 billion, according to federal estimates. And what’s happening there is being repeated across the nation, from California to Connecticut, from New Mexico to New York.
The Trump administration launched its war on fraud in the wake of the Minnesota scandal, and in the past six months, the White House has already made a remarkable difference. Vice President JD Vance has spearheaded this campaign, finding and fighting fraud from coast to coast.
Most notably, the vice president announced that the administration has suspended at least 800 Los Angeles hospice and home health providers from federal funding. The administration believes that half the city’s hospices are fraudulent. Yet after those 800 providers were banned, fewer than 20 called the Trump administration to complain. The other 780-plus didn’t say a word — a surefire sign that they were knowingly bilking taxpayers.
Virtually every day, Vance and other senior officials announce new investigations and fraud-related indictments. And just a few days ago, the vice president touted up to $160 billion recovered for taxpayers. Yet even with these eye-popping numbers, there’s enormous fraud left to be unearthed.
That’s why the new funding from Congress is so important — it can open multiple new fronts in the war on fraud. The Department of Justice will spend the money, much of it through the new National Fraud Enforcement Division that Trump created earlier this year. The division’s already exemplary work could now reach truly heroic levels.
Crucially, this $1.5 billion investment will more than pay for itself. While the Congressional Budget Office doesn’t account for program integrity savings in its cost estimates, this provision is without a doubt a net-saver. All this investment needs to do is uncover $1.5 billion in stolen taxpayer funding — a sum that could likely be reached in a matter of weeks, given how widespread this crisis is. More likely, these funds will help the federal government reclaim tens if not hundreds of billions of stolen welfare money. This could very well prove to be one of the best federal expenditures of the 21st century.
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This anti-fraud funding is reason enough for Congress to pass its skinny reconciliation bill as soon as possible. Naturally, Democrats oppose it, and not only because the rest of the legislation is about immigration enforcement. They built the very welfare state that’s now overrun with waste, fraud, and abuse, and they have so far opposed any attempt to reform the system and protect taxpayers. The good news is that the reconciliation bill doesn’t need a single Democratic vote to pass.
Republicans are right to devote more money to fighting fraud. And the Trump administration deserves praise for championing this cause. The war on fraud is a war America must win — and Congress is on the verge of making victory possible.
Hayden Dublois is data and analytics director at the Foundation for Government Accountability.