Davin News Server

On 2025-02-19 11:42, tye syding wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Feb 2025 11:33:50 -0800 Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> wrote:
> 
>> no evidence posted that anything they listed is actually waste.
> 
> LYING PIECE OF CANUCK SHITE!
> 
> https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-doge-
> subcommittees-first-hearing-uncovers-billions-lost-to-fraud-and-
> improper-payments-launches-war-on-waste/

Below, there are many mentions of the word "fraud"...

...but no actual evidence is cited.

None.

> 
> Hearing Wrap Up: DOGE Subcommittee’s First Hearing Uncovers Billions
> Lost to Fraud and Improper Payments, Launches “War on Waste” 
> WASHINGTON—The Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency
> (DOGE) held its inaugural hearing today titled “The War on Waste:
> Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud” to
> investigate the hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars wasted
> annually on improper payments and fraud. Expert witnesses shared
> step-by-step plans to improve payment systems, close loopholes,
> decrease fraud, and save American taxpayers billions of dollars
> every year. Members explained how the DOGE Subcommittee will aid
> President Trump and Elon Musk in their efforts to rein in the
> runaway bureaucracy. Majority members also cited potential
> legislation that would help facilitate DOGE’s efforts to improve
> payment accuracy and eliminate improper payments and fraud across
> federal agencies. The DOGE Subcommittee’s “War on Waste” will help
> ensure Americans see their tax dollars spent efficiently and
> effectively.
> 
> Key Takeaways:
> 
> The DOGE Subcommittee will actively work with President Trump’s
> Department of Government Efficiency to root out waste, shore up
> vulnerable payment systems, and fully investigate schemes to defraud
> taxpayers.
> 
> Dawn Royal, a certified welfare investigator and the Director of
> United Council on Welfare Fraud, explained how career bureaucrats,
> currently facing scrutiny from President Trump and Elon Musk, play
> down problems in the system in an effort to protect their political
> interests: “Investigators have also found themselves at odds with
> the career bureaucrats who recite watered down facts about fraud in
> order to promote their political agendas. Specifically, we can look
> to the career bureaucrats who have historically claimed that the
> fraud rate in SNAP is less than 1%. The disregard for the value of
> integrity is evidenced by the less than 1/20 of 1% of the SNAP
> budget spent on the prevention, detection, and prosecution of fraud…
> Sadly, it is already apparent that career bureaucrats are not being
> totally transparent as they attempt to protect spending and broken
> programs.” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) celebrated the success of
> President Trump, Elon Musk, and their Department of Government
> Efficiency in swiftly rooting out government waste and also thanked
> Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene for her efforts to bring the DOGE
> agenda to Congress: “Thankfully with DOGE, we have a president
> bringing the leadership needed and a focused effort, along with the
> talent, technology, tools, and transparency to this waste, fraud and
> abuse. And to those who would stand opposed to this effort, I would
> just point out, while it’s understandable to find waste, fraud and
> abuse that has grown and metastasized in the government even over
> decades, certainly accelerated in the last few years, to continue to
> protect it is corruption. I want to thank the Chair for beginning
> this war on waste on this side of Pennsylvania Avenue and bringing
> together this Committee. This effort is so important as we work to
> relieve the American people of this burden of waste, fraud and
> abuse.” Fraud and abuse of federal taxpayer dollars can be curbed
> dramatically by closing eligibility loopholes, improving identity
> verification, and refining payment tracking mechanisms at both the
> federal and state level.
> 
> Haywood Talcove, the Chief Executive Officer of LexisNexis Risk
> Solutions for Government, laid out a three-step plan for reclaiming
> control of federal payment systems: “There’s no excuse for the
> government to lag if we do the following. Number one, implement
> identity verification on the front end. Criminals should never
> receive a dime. Eliminate self-certification. No more honor system
> for billion-dollar programs. And continuous auditing. Keep verifying
> because criminals never stop adapting.” Ms. Royal detailed
> commonsense solutions to closing loopholes, improving technology,
> and reducing fraud across all payment systems: “There are things
> this Committee can do to help the investigators fighting the war on
> fraud. Number one, eliminate self-attestation in the application
> process for all programs. Number two, funding for technology that
> includes identity verification tools that will help prevent fraud.
> The current pay and chase model is not sustainable. Number three,
> immediately implement the National Accuracy Clearinghouse, the NAC
> will provide data to states to prevent duplicate participation in
> all of the social welfare programs. And four, allocate direct
> funding with mandates restricting the use of the funding to the
> prevention, detection, and prosecution of fraud.” The Biden-Harris
> Administration exacerbated an already massive improper payment
> problem by expanding faulty welfare programs without proper
> oversight mechanisms in place and by failing to hold America’s
> bureaucracy accountable.
> 
> Stewart Whitson, the Senior Director of Federal Affairs at the
> Foundation for Government Accountability, described how policies
> pushed by the Biden Administration exacted a cost on Americans:
> “Congress can strengthen the Medicaid program through legislative
> action. That would include repealing Biden’s disastrous Medicaid
> streamlining rule, which ties the hands of states trying to remove
> ineligible release….Congress can help President Trump’s DOJ’s effort
> by ensuring that entrenched partisan bureaucrats don’t stand in the
> way of reform so much as DOJ’s team of 30 found hundreds of billions
> of dollars funneled into wasteful, fraudulent and flat-out insane
> projects. But they’ve only scratched the surface if this much fraud
> has been exposed in just a few weeks. Imagine what else is buried
> under layers of red tape and government excuses.” Rep. William
> Timmons (R-S.C.) slammed former President Joe Biden for abusing
> federal payment systems and contributing to the dangerously high
> national debt: “Joe Biden signed his name and wanted the American
> people to believe he had the ability to forgive $250 billion with a
> signature. Guess what? The Supreme Court ruled he did not. That’s
> our system of checks and balances. The President, Biden, he clearly
> was experiencing cognitive decline. He didn’t even have the ability
> to be charged with a crime as determined by his own Department of
> Justice. But he signs his name, and he thinks it gives a quarter of
> trillion dollars away, redistributes taxpayer dollars. It’s just
> crazy that we can’t come together to address the greatest national
> security threat facing this country, our debt.” Member Highlights:
> 
> DOGE Subcommittee Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) shed
> light on a striking disparity in fraud rates between the public and
> private sectors, noting that while private sector businesses
> experience fraud at a rate of around 3 percent, the federal
> government’s fraud rate is about 20 percent.
> 
> 
> 
> Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene: “Mr. Talcove, do private sector
> companies have a lower rate of improper payments than the federal
> government?”
> 
> Mr. Talcove: “Yes. The fraud rate, that the criminals are taking
> advantage of the public sector is around 20%. In the private sector,
> it’s around 3%. And it’s really because the tools that are used in
> the private sector, aren’t used in the public sector. Front end
> identity verification, self-certification, and then finally, making
> sure that individuals are who they say they are. If we start using
> these tools, you will see the fraud rate go down dramatically
> because for the most part, this fraud isn’t taking place by
> individuals. It’s individuals whose identities have been stolen on
> the dark web.”
> 
> Subcommittee Chairwoman Greene: “We would say the private companies
> that pretty much have to exist on a 20% profit rate. They can’t
> continue to be successful if they were to allow their customers data
> to be something like that and used by criminals. However, the
> federal government, who can continue printing checks and continue an
> operation, never fixes its problems because it can’t be forced to go
> out of business. Would you agree with that, Yes or no?”
> 
> Mr. Talcove: “Yes.”
> 
> Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) blasted DOGE Subcommittee Democrats for
> defending schemes to defraud American taxpayers. He also pointed out
> that self-verification systems at local doctors’ offices are more
> secure than federal payment systems.
> 
> 
> 
> Rep. Burchett: “The gravy train for a lot of these folks, it’s been
> on biscuit wheels. It’s about to run off the dadgum tracks. It’s
> about done. Could you imagine standing up here and defending waste,
> fraud, and abuse? But I think that’s what we’re seeing. When people
> squeal and don’t ask questions, I think it shows the American public
> what the heck’s going on and that little gravy train is getting
> ready to run out. The spigot is getting ready to be turned off.”
> 
> …
> 
> Mr. Whitson: “Rather than accepting self-attestation, states should
> have to be required to actually verify people’s identities and,
> here’s the key part, before they get enrolled. They shouldn’t get
> enrolled and then eventually come later on down the road.”
> 
> Rep. Burchett: “Including at a doctor’s appointment back in
> Knoxville, and the verification process is very extensive. It’s more
> so than the federal government requires for any of this.”
> 
> Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) detailed how the Department of Government
> Efficiency is well-positioned within the Executive Office of the
> President to ensure federal payment systems are protected from
> future abuses.
> 
> 
> 
> Rep. Burlison: “Mr. Whitson, the formation of agencies, via the
> executive action, is not new. Right? The formation of DOGE is not
> new. Are you familiar with any other previous presidencies where
> they formed organizations like DOGE via executive action?”
> 
> Mr. Whitson: “Yes. So actually the agency that DOGE is occupying is
> one that was created in a previous administration. So it is
> something that happens routinely.”
> 
> Rep. Burlison: “Yeah, the Office of Management and Budget was
> created, Environment Protection Agency was created, the US Digital
> Service, which is now DOGE, was created, all by executive order.”
> 
> Rep. Brian Jack (R-Ga.) described technological inefficiencies,
> established by the 1974 Privacy Act, that must be updated to allow
> federal payment systems to use AI and other cutting-edge
> technologies to reduce improper payments.
> 
> 
> 
> Rep. Jack: “One of the things that I found very interesting from
> your opening testimony is you talked, and I think you engaged with
> Mr. Burchett, on the 1974 Privacy Act. And I had some interesting
> folks visit my office yesterday who noted that one third of all
> prior authorizations are still done manually by phone, fax, or
> direct post mail. I would love your comments on that. And I’d also
> like you to expand upon some of the solutions that we can deliver to
> this Congress in modernizing the 1974 Privacy Act.”
> 
> Mr. Talcove: “These aren’t people problems. These are technology
> problems. You can’t process the number of individuals that are
> accessing our systems person by person. It just takes too much time.
> So, by updating the 1974 Privacy Act and allowing for digital
> matching, you would very quickly realize that a large portion of the
> PPP loan funds were going to the wrong person. You would have been
> quickly able to match, I think the number was 20%, and were on the
> do not pay list. You can’t expect people to do what a machine and
> especially AI can do today.”
> 
> Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) held the Biden Administration
> accountable for aiding abuses of taxpayer dollars and weaponizing
> the administrative state against the American people.
> 
> 
> 
> Rep. Gill: “The Democrat Party has for decades systematically grown
> and weaponized the administrative state against the American people.
> And the American people have had enough of it. Right now, we’re
> talking about $2.7 trillion in improper payments since 2003. We are
> uncovering what could be the biggest money laundering scandal in
> American history and the other side of the aisle could care less.
> They have no concern about where this money went to, what entities
> it went to, what government, and what people or groups. Nothing…So
> it does make me wonder if they don’t care about where it’s going, do
> they have no idea?
> 
> “Because what we’ve uncovered so far is that so much of the waste,
> fraud, and abuse of our federal government is actually funding their
> side of the aisle. It’s funding media outlets that are running cover
> for Democrats routinely, NPR, PBS, BBC, Politico. It’s going to fund
> left wing NGOs that are facilitating the invasion of our country. It
> is going to fund left wing transgender activism and sex changes all
> over the globe. This is money that’s being used, taken from the
> American people and used against their interests. If you care about
> rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, we should be serious about
> this.”
> 
> ###
>