in the nearly four decades between Reagan’s junkyard dogs and the period covered by the 2024 GAO report, Washington officials really didn’t know how many federal tax dollars were actually lost every year. Even with the new estimate, officials conceded that gaps in available data across the government produced “challenges in producing fraud estimates, such as limited available fraud-related data and use of varying terms and definitions of fraud for recording data. These data gaps and variability result in information that cannot be readily compared or consolidated to determine the extent of fraud across the federal government.”
It’s now 2026, and they still don’t know for sure, but one thing has become all but certain: Far more of the federal government’s $7 trillion in annual spending than previously estimated is lost every year to professional criminal fraudsters, undeserving and even dead benefit recipients, over-priced procurement contracts, unjustified reimbursements, and numerous other ways.
That realization is driven by the results of the unprecedented efforts starting in January 2025 of President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, House Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, and others on Capitol Hill to go after waste, fraud, and abuse on a scale never before attempted and with weapons too long ignored.
Veteran federal spending analyst Cato Institute Director of Budget and Entitlement Policy Romina Boccia summarizes the state of play.
A system that enables the theft of billions would never be used for the theft of elections.
More: Stephen Miller says he believes that the fraud and waste being uncovered by the Anti-Fraud Taskforce is so widespread, that dealing with it could balance the budget
Update: Russ Vought at OMB has just overhauled $1 TRILLION in federal grants by adding: Strict E-Verify requirements, English-language rules, and political appointee oversight to ensure taxpayer dollars go to American citizens first.
None of this fraud would be possible if the federal government weren’t engaging in massive welfare programs they have no Constitutional authority for in the first place.
Every child in CA … regardless of means testing … receives FREE food in our schools. Even the children of wealthy parents. K-12.
https://www.californiafoodforcaliforniakids.org/school-meals-for-all
Welcome to the Communist State of CA … where soon … they will run out of other people’s money. And now … someone should investigate the FRAUD involved in that system. And ask yourself when experiencing the massively inflated food prices at the grocery store … why I have to be in competition as a consumer … with the deep pockets of the State … driving up food demand (and prices).
Never thought I’d live to see THAT kind of runaway ‘welfare for EVERYONE’ in the USA
“ Washington officials really didn’t know how many federal tax dollars were actually lost every year”. They “didn’t know” BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T CARE TO KNOW!
They (the government) never had any fraud detection measures in place (perhaps some measures “in name only”), because they actually didn’t want to uncover any fraud – BECAUSE THEY’RE ALL IN ON THE GRIFT. Mainly democrats of course, probably tens of thousands of bureaucrats, but also probably lots of RINOs too (Hello John Thune!). DC is a lost cause. We need to tear down the whole federal government. You can’t fix what isn’t fixable.
Now do intentional fraud by earmarking…
Republicans will do everything in their power to make huge fraud connected to taxpayer dollars an election issue that they can pin on Democrats, who effectively condoned massive fraud.
The problem is that crooked Republicans also exist (although a somewhat more rare species!).
The A system that enables the theft of billions would never be used for the theft of elections.
Interesting, isn’t it … that I have been told … my entire life … these two things …
1. Sure, we know there is fraud in our government spending, but it’s too small to affect our budgets in any significant way.
2. Sure, we know there is election fraud, but it’s too small to affect election outcomes in any significant way.
Now, ask yourself … who? … has been pushing those FALSE narratives?
All the western countries are going tits up because fraud, grants, subsidies and vote-buying are systemic.
Western voters are retarded and democracy is a joke.
And the Republican Party will NEVER push the ‘SAVE Act’ across the finish line … nor will the SCOTUS step in to ensure election integrity.
Where’s a Jimmy Carter when you need him to certify election integrity … right? When are we going to adopt the purple thumb voting security? SMH
Riffing off Kenji’s point.
Progress is being made, but slowly.
The Charlottesville ‘good people on both sides’ statement has now been generally accepted as a hoax although it was knowingly perpetrated by the press and Democrats for over seven years. It is also seeping into the public’s conscience that the Steele dossier and the Mueller inqiry were initiated by a Clinton campaign dirty tricks project.
How long will it be before the public figures out that the people who knowingly promoted these lies are the very same people who are saying that there was no election fraud?!