How much money is actually lost for fraud and goal in the United States? | Politics News

Billionaire Elon Musk, the driving force behind the management of government efficiency in the United States, Donald Trump (DOGE), encouraged the sensitive issue of social security cost savings on Fox TV channels.

Moussk, host Larry Kudlo, a former economic advisor to Trump, told the government accounting office in 2024 that federal government fraud was “half a trillion dollars”.

While referring to waste, Musk said: “Most federal spending is a merit.

The use of the word “judiciary” at the same time that the “entitlements” led to the warning of the democratic areas in Trump and Musk. White House press secretary Caroline Levitte told a press conference that Musk was referring to waste, scam Mismanage in these programs, Trump “will protect social security”, medical care and medical care.

At the March 11 event to promote Timing Cars in the White House, MUSK correspondent asked whether he could ensure that there is no interruption of social security benefits.

“We will be very careful with any benefits,” Mousse said. “In fact, only by treating waste or fraud, we can already keep these programs for the future.”

“Fraud” and “waste” means different things. Waste indicates the use of neglect, and fraud includes criminal violations.

Musk referred to a report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a non -partisan Congress checking arm that examines federal spending. In 2024, the office estimated that there were $ 233 billion to $ 521 billion of fraudulent payments throughout the government per year.

The report went further than social security, medical care and medicaid, which forms about half of Compulsory government spending. The entire government, including the epidemic relief programs that led to standard fraud.

Musk said that fraud and waste would help its efforts reduce $ 1 trillion of the federal budget. However, his estimates of fraud are at the upper end of the estimate of the fighter accounting office in or bypassing. For social security, the Inspector General in 2021 found about $ 300 million of payments after the death of beneficiaries over two decades-about a third of them was recovered. Although federal officials have long recognized inappropriate spending as a problem, it is not the main reason for the terrible financial program expectations.

What does the government know about comprehensive fraud?

In April, the government accountability office, under President Joe Biden, produced “the first estimate of its kind, at the government level of the federal dollar lost to fraud.”

The office of the office of 233 billion dollars covered $ 521 billion in fraud annually data 2018-2022 in reports from the public agency inspectors and the fraud reports submitted to the administration and budget office.

Musk was martyred to the end of the range when he said “half a trillion.” The White House did not answer our question about its source of $ 600 billion to $ 700 billion.

Al -Jao’s higher numbers included not only the results of the official fraud of legal procedures, but also estimates from the results of fraud in individual agencies. The agency also concluded the numbers that it believed to represent unveiled fraud.

The estimated losses represent about 3 percent to 7 percent of the average federal expenses.

The Management and Budget Office, the agency that helps the president in achieving the goals of its budget, has found a lesser number of fraud in the federal government, from $ 4.41 billion to 7.31 billion dollars annually, based on the amounts confirmed through a judicial or judicial process.

Experts in the federal budget said it is important to pay attention to the full analysis of government reports.

The taxpayers should look at these numbers with a “huge grain of salt.” The report is filled with warnings and it is likely that it does not represent other years due to an increase in spending on the epidemic.

He said: “It is a good report to try to put numbers for an unexplained issue, but you cannot take high -end numbers as a final statement on the amount of fraud in the dollar in federal spending.”

Bob Westprox, Executive Director of the Committee’s responsibility to respond to the epidemic, a government conference he established five years ago, said about 5 percent of the annual federal budget was lost due to fraud, and some programs have inappropriate payment rates exceeding 10 percent. But the phrase “improper payments” does not necessarily mean fraud; It includes scenarios with insufficient documents.

“Whatever the number is, it is huge in terms of absolute,” Westprox said, referring to all fraud.

Westprox said that Mosk was confusing fraud and waste and ignored that fraud in the Kofid era was most likely to raise the estimated scope of the government, as the same report indicated.

The government accountability office said that the scope is “a reflection of all of the uncertainty assessed by the estimation of fraud and diversity in risk environments that were present in the financial years 2018 to 2022.”

What do we know about social security fraud?

In surrounding the White House on March 11, Levitte cited a general report from the Social Security Administration, which found more than $ 70 billion of fraud in this program alone.

The 2024 report did not conclude that there were more than $ 70 billion in “fraud” in social security. She said that the program sent nearly $ 71.8 billion in “improper payments” from 2015 to 2022, a period that includes the first period of Trump. This is less than 1 percent of the total payments in this time frame.

On Fox Business, Musk said, “There is a great deal of fraud” with people who offer fake social security numbers to receive a set of government advantages, including social security, health care and unemployment assistance.

Most of the inaccurate payments revealed by the Inspector General were excessive payments with some payments. The general report of the year 2024 said that this happens, for example, when the beneficiaries fail to report the necessary information or the administration’s failure to update the records. It is not necessarily the criminal intention.

The Social Security Administration has long struggled to reduce improper payments.

The report said: “Without better access to data, increased automation, updating systems, and political or legislative changes, improper payments will remain a problem in the future,” the report said.

In 2021, the Inspector of General Social Security found $ 298 million of payments after death to about 24,000 beneficiaries from 1998 to 2019. These beneficiaries were in the case of suspended implementation, but the payments were not sent because the technicians did not follow the policy or search for the available death records. The report said that he “did not specify the specified fraud” and provided death information to the Bureau of Investigation.

The report said that the government recovered about 84 million dollars.

Only this year, the defendants were convicted or judged for the disbursement of checks that were sent to the deceased beneficiaries, to steal the identity used to obtain the advantages of social security and steal social security payments for children.

How did the Social Security Administration try to address fraud and waste?

In an interview with Fox Business said that the federal government has “many good audits”, but the agencies have not continuously carried out the auditors ’directives.

On March 3, the Inspector General of Social Security issued a case report on his recent recommendations.

In general, the Inspector General found 280 prior recommendations that were not implemented with a possible saving of $ 18.4 billion. In some cases, the Social Security Administration did not agree with the proposals. Some uncompromising recommendations included a closer audit of specific groups of beneficiaries who are aware of the agency for potential contradictions. Others suggested changes in computer system alerts.

The recommendations of the government accountability office to Congress have also been implemented. In 2022, the government accounting office urged Congress to amend the Social Security Law to make the participation of full death data with the Ministry of Treasury, but this has not yet happened.

Social Security Mali is in a problem in a decade

Social security faces a difficult way forward. Existential financing problems are greater than the counterparts of the dead who receive benefits tests.

The most important threats in the long -term feasibility of social security are the lack of workers who feed their tax dollars in the system and an increasing number of Americans of retirement age are qualified to obtain advantages.

American Average life expectancy It has increased since the establishment of social security in 1935 as well as the number of qualified beneficiaries. But as the children’s boom generation (born from 1946 to 1964) entered retirement, fewer workers are pushing to the system.

The 2024 Social Security Trustees report said that social trust funds will not be able to pay 100 percent of the benefits by 2035. The trustees issued similar warnings for more than a decade.

Historically, most politicians of both parties hated proposing changes in social security. Political critics often refer to it as the “third railway” in American policy – you touch, die, at least in the ballot box, where older voters usually enjoy the highest turnout for voters.