U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) called out the amount of fraud discovered during President Donald Trump’s first term as the current administration continues to slash government spending.
Moskowitz questioned why Trump’s administration is blaming former President Joe Biden for the fraud found in government payment systems during a hearing of the subcommittee on Government Operations on Tuesday. He explained that there were billions of dollars of improper payments made during Trump’s first term.
“In 2017, 140 billion in improper payments. In 2018, $150 billion of improper payments. In 2019, 174 billion of improper payments. And in 2020, 206 billion in improper payments. Those are GAO numbers. So let me just do some math. In the first Trump administration, there were $670 billion of improper payments,” Moskowitz said during the hearing.
“I’m not blaming him, but he is blaming Joe Biden, and so is Elon Musk, blaming for the improper payments, for what happened in the four years of Joe Biden. My point is, Mr. Chairman, if we do want to solve this on a bipartisan basis, then we gotta separate fact from fiction. We gotta depoliticize it,” he added.
The hearing—titled “Shifting Gears: Moving from Recovery to Prevention of Improper Payments and Fraud”—heard testimonies from three witnesses who worked at U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The three witnesses agreed that Moskowitz’s numbers on “improper payments” during Trump’s first term were likely accurate.
The hearing is part of an effort to “expose flaws in federal government payment systems and evaluate solutions to improve data collection, close eligibility loopholes, and thwart any further loss of taxpayer dollars,” according to a press release.
His line of questioning came as the Trump administration remains under fire for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to cut government spending.
During an interview on the Fox Business Network on Monday, tech billionaire Elon Musk claimed there was $500 billion to $700 billion in waste from entitlement programs.
The comments on the popular program and other benefits provided to Americans could rattle politicians on both sides of the aisle as Musk works to downsize the federal government, especially as he already faces blowback for his chainsaw-wielding approach to laying off workers and slashing programs.
Musk’s estimate for the level of fraud in entitlements far outpaces figures from watchdogs like Social Security’s inspector general, who previously said there was $71.8 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 through 2022. That’s less than 1% of benefits paid out during that time period.
Musk also said there were “20 million people who are definitely dead marked as alive in the Social Security database.” However, the leader of the agency has rejected claims about widespread payments to dead people.
