Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
the critical crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The
Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
Welcome everyone without objection.
The Chair may declare a recess at any time.
Also for today's hearing, Chairman Comer and Ranking
Member Connelly will each be recognized for one minute.
After me and the Ranking Member provide our opening statements.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement. Good morning.
Today we begin the first hearing on the Oversight Subcommittee on
Dodge. This committee will be laser
focused on bringing full transparency to waste, fraud and
abuse within the federal government and presenting the
plans to fix the tremendous problems we expose.
We as a country are $36 trillion in debt.
That is such a stunning amount of money.
It's absolutely staggering to even comprehend how we as a
people, we as a country found ourselves here.
This is not a Democrat problem. This is not a Republican
problem. This is an American problem.
To make it clear for everyone, not only are we $36 trillion in
debt, but the the compounding interest on our debt is also
growing out of control. Even if we decided to defund the
entire federal government, we cannot escape our debt and the
compounding interest owed on our debt, which grows bigger and
bigger every year. In 2025, interest payments are
projected to be $952 billion, which is more than our entire
military budget. In 2026, it will be $1 trillion
and by 2035, $1.8 trillion. Over the next decade, total
interest payments are projected to be $13.8 trillion.
These interest payments don't serve a single American.
They don't build a bridge, a road, provide disaster relief,
or fund a single part of the behemoth that is the federal
government. These interest payments pay our
masters who own our debt, and the American people are in debt
slavery to everyone who owns our debt.
Our crippling national debt and massively growing interest on
our debt will destroy us, not destroy one political party or
the other. It will destroy all of us
together. It drives inflation, making life
unaffordable for Americans struggling to financially
survive. It is crippling small businesses
struggling to be successful. Our massively growing debt and
interest are the chains and shackles harnessed to every
American and their children and every generation to come.
But first, let us be brutally honest about how this massive
debt came to be in the first place.
It came from Congress and from elected presidential
administrations. And I believe enslaving our
nation and debt is one of the biggest betrayals against the
American people by its own elected government.
This American, the American people's anger over this
betrayal is what gave birth to the concept of Doge, the
Department of Government Efficiency.
In fact, Doge became a major part of President Trump's
campaign and LED to his overwhelming victory in
November. Everyday Americans go to work.
They run businesses. They have to earn their
paycheck. No one guarantees it and if they
don't do a good job, they get fired.
They also have to pay their bills, credit card debts,
balance their checkbooks, and scrap and save every penny they
can in order to plan for that rainy day and hopefully
retirement one day. Private businesses only survive
on hard earned income by serving their customers so well that
their customers pay them for the services and products they
consume. If that business fails, its
employees lose their jobs and paychecks and the owners lose
their business and everything they risked along with it.
Many go bankrupt in this process and lose everything.
No one bails them out. They only survive by excellent
customer service and smart financial management.
This is the real world that most Americans live, work, and
survive in every day. This is the pursuit of happiness
and this is how you pursue the American Dream.
However, the federal government, government employees, and
unelected bureaucrats do not live by the same rules as the
Great American people and private businesses.
The federal government's income is the American people's hard
earned tax dollars. Their literal blood, sweat, and
tears and taxes are collected by law at gunpoint.
Don't pay your taxes and you go to jail.
The federal government does not have to provide excellent
customer service to earn its income.
It takes your money whether you like it or not, and federal
employees receive their paycheck no matter what, whether veterans
receive their benefits or not, whether your mail shows up or
not, and whether your tax dollars are used to help
Americans in need or sent to foreign countries for foreign
people for foreign causes. No matter how bad the federal
government fails the American people, it still takes your
money, it still pays its own federal employees, and it never
ever goes out of business. There are no consequences for
bad customer service, total failure, and for enslaving the
American people against their will and the ever growing and
future all consuming national debt.
Congress has a dismal approval rating that ranges between 12
and 20%. I don't blame the American
people one bit for their sentiment and disgust.
The American people will be watching this committee and how
we tackle one of the biggest problems of our time.
While we are a committee made-up of the opposite, far reaching
corners of Congress, we were each elected to serve and
represent the American people and how their hard earned tax
dollars are spent. We as Republicans and Democrats
can still hold tightly to our beliefs, but we are going to
have to let go of funding them in order to save our sinking
ship. This is not a time for political
theater and partisan attacks. The American people are
watching. The legislative branch can't sit
on the sidelines. In this subcommittee, we will
fight the war on waste shoulder to shoulder with President
Trump, Elon Musk and the Doge team.
This week, we turn our attention to improper payments by the
federal government, including in Medicaid and Medicare.
I'm looking forward to what we find out and how to solve this
crisis. I now you yield to the Ranking
Member, Miss Stansbury for her opening statement.
All right. Well, good morning, everyone.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome to the very first
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency.
As was said, this committee is tasked under the Oversight
Committee with ensuring that the government and the vital
services that it provides, from healthcare to national security,
actually work for the American people.
And this is certainly a topic that we have worked on for many,
many years here in the Oversight Committee, and which I
personally have worked on as a former servant who worked at the
Office of Management and Budget. And in fact, for anyone who has
ever worked on these issues, you know that there is ample ground
for bipartisan work to make the government work better for the
American people and to ensure that it operates in a more
efficient manner. And in fact, all of us here on
the Democratic side are ready to roll up our sleeves and to get
to work. And just last week, I had the
opportunity to sit down with the chairwoman and to discuss these
very issues and opportunities to work across the aisle.
And like the chairwoman who shared some of her background
with me, I grew up in a working family.
I grew up working for small mom and pop family businesses and
understand the necessity of balancing the books, making sure
we can deliver and fiscal responsibility.
And that's why today's hearing is focused on making sure that
the federal government is doing what it's supposed to and
digging into the more than 230, $6 billion in improper payments
that we see going out the door every single year.
And we need to get to the bottom of that.
And we need to make sure that we're putting into place
rigorous oversight and controls to prevent fraud and abuse and,
of course, to go after bad actors.
And that is why myself and the oversight Ranking Member
Connelly and other Democratic members of the committee sent a
set of bipartisan ideas that we'd like to work on together
that would root out waste, fraud and abuse and modernize and
streamline how our agencies deliver vital programs for the
American people. These are programs that are
important for our seniors and our families and healthcare in
the education system. And we need bipartisan solutions
to get across the finish line. And we've been trying over the
last several years to get these ideas out of this committee.
But unfortunately, the committee's priorities have been
elsewhere under the current majority.
So I hope we can fix that this Congress, but we can't just sit
here today and pretend like everything is normal and that
this is just another hearing on government efficiency.
I mean, all you have to do is look across this room and see
that it is not a normal hearing. Because while we're sitting
here, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are recklessly and illegally
dismantling the federal government, stuttering federal
agencies, firing federal workers, withholding funds vital
to the safety and well-being of our communities, and hacking our
sensitive data systems. In fact, while we were here
discussing government waste on the House floor yesterday, Elon
Musk was standing behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office
with the president. And the administration was
making emergency court appeals to try to unlock his team's
access to the Treasury payment system, which they claim they
are using to study improper payments, which is the topic of
this hearing. But here's the thing.
The Treasury payment system, which includes Social Security
information and bank accounts for millions of Americans and
data that's critical to national security in the operation of the
US government and payments that go out the door annually equal
to almost a fifth of the US economy, is not where the
payment decisions are made. Because that happens inside the
agencies that are currently being dismantled.
And the people who actually investigate waste, fraud and
abuse at these agencies are the inspector generals who Donald
Trump fired his first week in office in a midnight massacre.
So we have to ask ourselves, what is really going on here?
Why did Republicans block Elon Musk from appearing before this
very committee last week? Why is the administration so
eager to allow Elon Musk and his hackers to have access to
proprietary and private information in the Treasury
payment systems? Why are colleagues across the
aisle shielding them as they are clearly breaking the law?
And why is the Vice president trying to rewrite the US
Constitution by tweet and undermine the judiciary?
So obviously, we're in the Oversight committee and we have
a lot of questions. And so do the American people,
especially while while our colleagues across the aisle are
trying to scoop up the savings from the dismantling of these
agencies to pay for the largest permanent tax break in American
history for billionaires and the folks that they're helping on
their side of the aisle. So let me close by saying this
directly to Mr. Elon Musk. We are well aware that you are
eager to engage with members of Congress on social media, but
we're not here to play. If you have serious desire to
engage in democracy and transparency, we welcome you to
the Oversight Committee. Come and testify in front of the
American people, Underoath, because we want to know what
you're up to. So if you're interested in
talking to us, then please join us here in the People's House in
the House of Representatives. And with that I yield back.
The gentlelady yields. President Trump signed an
executive order on his first day in office called Establishing
and Implementing the President's Department of Government
Efficiency. The EO simply renamed an office
in the White House that was actually established by
President Obama in 2014 called the US Digital Service.
President Trump can have Elon Musk into his Oval Office
anytime he likes. I now recognize the Chairman of
the Oversight Committee, Chairman James Comer.
Well, thank you, Chairwoman Green, for holding today's
hearing to launch a war on waste.
President Trump won an electoral landslide with a clear mandate
from the American people to eliminate Washington waste and
stop the theft of American tax dollars.
And he is. Delivering on his promise,
President Trump is empowered, Elon Musk indulged to conduct a
government wide audit to identify solutions to curb waste
and protect tax dollars. That's exactly what the mission
of this committee is supposed to be.
And I'm glad that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
are have found a new found interest in waste, fraud and
abuse. With a staggering $37 trillion
in national debt, we have no time to lose.
A key place to start is improper payments.
Since 2003, the government has lost $2.7 trillion because of
improper payments. Fraudsters, organized criminals,
hostile foreign actors, and even government employees have
siphoned money away from those who truly qualify for
assistance. For years, Republicans and
Democrats and Oversight Committee have condemned this
waste, but now that Doge is taking real action, Democrats
are choosing to defend the bureaucracy and status quo
instead of standing up for the American people.
I want to thank Chairwoman Green for holding this very important
hearing, not only to expose the problems, but to find solutions.
We stand with President Trump and Doge in the fight to end
waste, fraud and abuse in Washington.
With that, I yield back to Subcommittee Chairwoman Green.
And congratulations again, Chairwoman, on holding this
first hearing of the DOGE subcommittee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the Ranking Member on oversight, Mr.
Connolly. Excuse me.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for having this first
hearing on DOGE. You know, improper payments is
not a new subject. I remember joining Steve Lynch
and then Todd Platts, Republican member from Pennsylvania, in my
freshman year talking about improper payments.
At that time, improper payments were in the range of 35 billion
a year. They're now in the range of $280
billion a year and times 10. We could cut almost $3 trillion
from the debt if we addressed improper payments in a
deliberative way, which GAO is called for in the high risk
category for years. We can also secondly, enforce
the tax code. It's estimated that at least a
half a trillion dollars a year is left on the table
uncollected, but owed because of lack of resources in the IRS.
Again, times 10 is $5 trillion over a decade.
And finally, we can modernize federal IT systems, which we've
championed for years on this committee.
We know that legacies legacy systems alone could save
hundreds of millions of dollars a year in operating a
maintenance cost. So if we want to be serious
about it, let's be serious about it.
But the way not to do it is to fire the people charged with the
remit of waste, fraud and abuse, namely inspectors general.
President Trump is already now fired, 19, including most
recently the USAID Inspector General who dared to warn that
we could lose a half a billion dollars of food aid because it's
in warehouses not being moved because of the funding freeze
that was imposed in AID. That's a cost we need to avoid.
And for doing his job, that ID was fired.
If we want to be serious, we've got to have objective neutral
inspectors general who are monitoring government waste,
fraud and abuse and expenditures.
And I think you would find Democrats more than willing
partners in that kind of enterprise if we're going to be
serious. But a wrecking crew, a wrecking
crane, a Wrecking Ball is not going to do it.
And we're not going to support that approach to waste, fraud
and abuse in the federal government.
I yield back. Thank you.
The gentleman yields, the President of the United States
has the prerogative to fire anyone that has overseen $36
trillion in debt, enslaving the American people, and rightfully
so. I'm pleased to welcome today's
expert panel of witnesses who each bring unique experience and
expertise that will be valuable to today.
To today's discussion, I'd first like to welcome Mr. Haywood
Talco, the Chief Executive Officer for Government at
LexisNexis Risk Solutions Inc. His commitment to customers
needs allows LexisNexis to develop market leading solutions
that have enabled customers to stop fraud, waste and abuse.
Next we have Mr. Stewart Whitson, the Senior Director of
Federal Affairs at the Foundation of Government
Accountability. Stewart was previously a Special
Agent in the FBIAUS Army veteran and now spends his time at FGA
advocating to improve welfare, the workforce and other policy.
Next we have Miss Dawn Royal, a certified welfare fraud
investigator in the State of Wyoming and Director for the
United Council of Welfare Fraud. She advocates for investigating
and preventing fraud of government benefits and has done
so over the past 16 years. Finally, we have Mr. Dylan
Hetler. Got it.
The Director of Government Affairs at the Project on
Government Oversight, Dylan leads advocacy efforts and
policy reforms to a wide range of good governance.
I thank each of our witnesses for being here today, and I look
forward to your testimony. Pursuant to Committee Rule 9.
G The witnesses will please stand and raise their right
hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm
that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the
affirmative. Thank you.
You may take a seat. We appreciate you being here
today and look forward to your testimony.
Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written
statement and it will appear in full in the hearing record.
Please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes.
As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in
front of you so that it is on and the members can hear you.
When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn
green after 4 minutes. The light will turn yellow when
the red light comes on. Your 5 minutes have expired and
we would ask that you please wrap up.
I now recognize Mr. Talco for his opening statement.
Chairwoman Green, Ranking Member Stansbury, and distinguished
members of the committee. For over a decade, a silent war
has been waged against American taxpayers, not with bombs or
guns, but with data and technology.
Outdated government systems permit criminals to access
unlimited sums of money. During the pandemic, they stole
one trillion dollars. 70% of those dollars went overseas.
Shockingly, it's just not criminals exploiting the system,
it's the flawed system itself acting as the accomplice.
If left unchecked, U.S. government will continue to lead
the world in funding cyber criminals.
This is a data and technology problem and it demands a
data-driven response. Criminal syndicates have turned
benefit programs into their personal ATM machines,
exploiting those in need who wait months for benefits that
may never come. These ruthless crooks use our
money to fund child trafficking, disperse drugs in our
communities and terrorism. For years, criminal networks
have stolen personal information from the public and private
sector. They exploit real identities to
manipulate antiquated government systems, siphoning off billions
and taxpayers hard earned money. We continue to pay benefits to
deceased and incarcerated individuals.
Direct money to bad actors flagged in the Do Not Pay list
and overlook duplicate Social Security numbers by not
following best practices during the pandemic.
A simple cross check of PPP loan recipients against IRS records
would have exposed massive fraud and prevented payments to
transnational criminals who sold their quote UN quote sauce on
the dark web. To stop this, we must reclaim
control of our systems, not just from the criminal syndicates,
but the flawed systems enabling them.
Smarter technology, data and identity verification are not
optional. They are necessities to protect
taxpayers and ensure aid reaches those who truly need it now.
The use of AI is fundamentally changing society, but in the
hands of criminals, it has become a weapon.
Lawbreakers are now using it to supercharge the award on
taxpayers. They use AI to create fake
identity documents that pass biometric verifications.
Bots flood portals with thousands of fraudulent claims
per second, and deep fakes that mimic real applicants bypass the
outdated NIST 863 standard from 2017.
Honest and deserving people seeking access to government
benefits suffer through endless application forms that are
nearly impossible to navigate for.
Criminals from Russia, China and Romania gain access with ease.
The private sector has fraud rates below 3%.
Meanwhile the public sector operates at a 20% fraud rate.
The solution is clear. It's already used everyday to
protect consumers. You seamlessly interact with
your bank through an app that verifies your identity in
milliseconds. There's no excuse for the
government to lag if we do the following #1 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. Pay and chase does not work.
Of the $250 billion stolen and pandemic unemployment fraud,
less than 5 billion has been recovered.
The idea in government that you cannot have speed and security
is fiction. I urge Congress to consider
making the following legislative changes #1 update the 1974
Privacy Act to allow for data sharing and matching #2 fund a
budget for fraud prevention. In each appropriation bill, the
USDA spends 120th of 1% on fraud prevention.
Mandate that individuals caught stealing from entitlement
programs pay hefty fines and are removed from the program
permanently. And finally, eliminate broad
based categorical eligibility. This committee has a choice,
continue losing this war against criminal cartels and nation
states, or fight back and save $1 trillion annually.
Fraud Present prevention is not benefit prevention.
It's the key to ensuring that every dollar reaches those who
truly need it. Hard working Americans rely on
these programs not just to survive, but to build better
lives for their families. When Kronos exploit the system,
they just don't steal money, they steal opportunities.
Stopping fraud isn't about denying benefits, it's about
protecting them. This crime has two victims.
The first are the taxpayers and the second are those seeking
benefits. The fraudsters, cartels and
criminal syndicates are watching this hearing, I'm sure of it.
It's time to show them that America will not fund its own
destruction. Thank you and I look forward to
your questions. Thank you, Mr. Talco.
I now recognize Miss Royal for her opening statement.
Good morning Chairwoman Green, Ranking Member Stansbury and
committee members. My name is Don Royal.
I'm a certified welfare fraud investigator, two term past
president, and a current Director of the United Council
on Welfare Fraud. the United Council on Welfare Fraud is a
national professional organization dedicated to
protecting integrity in our nation's public assistance
programs. We are the only national
organization singularly focused on the detection, prevention and
prosecution of welfare. Fraud.
For too long, agency bureaucrats have pitted citizens access to
welfare programs against the integrity of those programs.
Access versus integrity should never be an either or dichotomy.
We can all agree that access to public assistance is crucial.
America's citizens should not be hungry or deprived of medical
care because of their inability to pay.
However, making sure vulnerable citizens have access to these
welfare programs should not mean that we simply turn a blind eye
to integrity. We do not pursue the prevention,
detection and prosecution of If we do not pursue the prevention,
detection and prosecution of fraud, taxpayers become the
victims as the welfare programs become slush funds for anyone
wanting to supplement their income with SNAP benefits,
absolve themselves from the financial responsibility of
medical bills and using Medicaid to further tax pure exploitation
by taking advantage of cash assistance, energy assistance,
child care and other social welfare programs.
One example of a welfare fraud is a case that I investigated
that was criminally prosecuted last year.
The applicant mother failed to disclose her children's father
as well as his employment and income on multiple applications
she submitted for Medicaid, SNAP and low income energy
assistance. The Co defendant father worked a
steady job earning A6 figure salary and provided an enviable
lifestyle for his family including vacations, luxury
vehicles, snowmobiles, motorhomes, lavish gifts
including one from the wife to the husband which was a $1200
bottle of bourbon. Evidence we presented at trial
included a candidate registration forms filed by the
defendant father when he ran for town council and later mayor of
the town where he declared he lived at the same address
provided by his wife on her public assistance programs.
This was a case of greed, but it emphasizes how easy it was for
these criminals to make false statements on applications in
order to receive benefits from multiple programs that they were
never eligible. For.
I could spend the rest of my day providing countless examples of
how taxpayer funded programs are exploited and the message would
be the same. Investigators continue to be
hamstrung by antiquated regulations, conflicting
directives from federal agencies, and the lack of access
to technology. Sadly, 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 and SNAP is less than 1%.
The disregard for the value of integrity is evidenced by the
less than 120th of 1% of the SNAP budget spent on the
prevention, detection and prosecution of fraud as part of
Medicaid unwinding debacle. The bureaucrats specifically
directed states that they, and I quote, cannot recover or recoup
the cost of services from a beneficiary even if they have
been found after an administrative hearing or
criminal proceeding to have committed Medicaid beneficiary
fraud or abuse. End Quote.
Sadly, it is already apparent the career bureaucrats are not
being totally transparent as they attempt to protect spending
and broken programs. We fail to understand how
mitigating the rampant fraud in Medicaid, SNAP and other welfare
programs stands up or strengthens the welfare
programs. Fact is, the opposite is true.
Ignoring fraud and gaslighting fraud statistics erodes the very
foundations of the programs that are essential to their future
viability. There are these.
There are things this committee can do to help the investigators
fighting the war on fraud #1 Eliminate self attestation in
the application process for all programs #2 funding for
technology that includes identity verification tools that
will help prevent fraud. The current pay and chase model
is not sustainable #3 Immediately implement the
National Accuracy Clearinghouse, the NAC that 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. In closing, we're at a
crossroads. Those of us who have first hand
knowledge of the degree in which public welfare programs are
being attacked know that reform is absolutely necessary.
Reform to the recipient application process, the billing
process, and Medicaid and how SNAP benefits are processed and
how. Providers and retailers are
authorized. We thank you for the opportunity
for you COUGH to participate in this hearing.
We feel that the investigators who are on the front lines
fighting the daily battle against the war on fraud need to
be at the table and participating in the development
of action plans that will make a difference in protecting the
programs and defending the taxpayers.
Thank you, Miss Royal. I now recognize Mr. Whitson for
his opening statement. Chairwoman Green, Ranking Member
Stansbury, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today. On the campaign trail, President
Trump promised to take on the bloated bureaucracy in DC,
rebuild trust in the DOJ and the FBI, crack down on waste, fraud
and abuse, and restore common sense.
And on day one, he started delivering on those promises
with a wave of executive orders in the official launch of DOGE,
which he, of course tasked Elon Musk to lead.
Already, DOGE efforts have brought to the public's
attention countless examples of wasteful spending, including $59
million paid to luxury hotels in New York to house illegal
immigrants, 1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia's
workplaces, $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru,
the list goes on. But rather than applauding the
work of doge, the left has launched a coordinated campaign
to try to demonize Mr. Musk with the hope of shifting focus away
from the disastrous waste, fraud and abuse that occurred on
Biden's watch. But guess what?
It's not working. Because no matter what political
party people hail from, the vast majority of Americans agree that
$10 million worth of food funneled to Al Qaeda was
probably not the best use of taxpayer money.
But there's another source, the key source of wasteful spending
that those in the subcommittee should set their sights on next,
and that's Medicaid waste and fraud.
While initially meant as a program for the truly needy,
Medicaid is bloated into a massive welfare program for
millions of able bodied adults lured into the trap of
government dependency. And as Medicaid has grown, so
too has mismanagement. Today, more than one in $5 spent
on Medicaid is improper. In Medicaid alone, fraud and
mismanagement is on track to cost US taxpayers.
Get this more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years.
When it comes to the problem of improper payments, the Medicaid
program is the biggest culprit and encompassing nearly one
third of all federal improper payments.
And more than 80% of Medicaid improper payments are due to one
thing, eligibility errors. If Congress wants to help
President Trump address wasteful spending, then targeting
eligibility errors in Medicaid should be one of your top
priorities. Bottom line To address this
challenge, Congress can take 3 decisive actions so 1st 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 enrollees.
You can and should do this through reconciliation and it
will produce $164 billion in savings if you do.
You can also strengthen verification requirements to
ensure only eligible individuals receive benefits and ensure a
nationwide knack is implemented without delay.
Second thing Congress can do is help to help President Trump's
Doge effort by ensuring that entrenched partisan bureaucrats
don't stand in the way of reform.
So Musk and his Doge team have already 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.
But guess what? All of these insane projects
have one thing in common. They were all approved and
funded by unelected bureaucrats, and these and other entrenched
bureaucrats are already pledging to fight against President
Trump's efforts to improve Government Accountability and
efficiency. Personnel is policy, and without
competent staff to faithfully execute the President's agenda,
the DOGE project will fail. And this is where Congress can
help. Congress can support the
President and carrying out his DOGE effort by making all
executive branch employees at will, codifying the President's
authority to fire unproductive or insubordinate agency
employees as needed. At the same time, Congress can
grant the President authority to permanently eliminate vacant
positions and consolidate non essential positions across
agencies and departments to help promote efficiency and put the
right people in the right seat. The third thing Congress can
make President Trump's DOGE cost cutting and deregulatory reforms
permanent by passing the REINS Act.
And so there's only one big problem with the DOGE effort.
Most of its work can be undone by a future president with a
stroke of a pen. To make President Trump's dose
reforms permanent, Congress must act, and the best way to do this
is to pass the REINS Act. This would return Article 1
budgetary power of the purse to Congress while promoting
deregulation. It would also help lock in the
dose reforms and cement President Trump's legacy as the
most consequential deregulatory and cost cutting president in
U.S. history. The American people are
watching. It's time for Congress to act.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
Thank you, Mr. Whitson. I now recognize Mr. Hettler got
it for his opening statement. Thank you, Chairwoman Green,
Ranking Member Stansbury, and members of the subcommittee.
My name is Dylan Hettler Gaudet, and I'm the Director of
Government Affairs at the Project on Government Oversight
or Pogo. I appreciate the opportunity to
be with you here today to talk about the critical issue of
bringing more accountability and transparency to federal
spending, including rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.
Since our founding in 1981, Pogo has been focused on promoting
more accountability and rooting out wasteful spending and
promoting efficiency, especially at the Department of Defense.
We have a long and well established track record on
these issues and we take aback when it comes to promoting a
better and more effective government, which necessarily
includes a federal government that is a good and responsible
steward of taxpayer dollars. Let's take a moment to pause
here to talk a little bit about terms that we're going to hear a
lot today and the difference between them.
Waste is different from fraud, fraud is different from abuse,
and abuse is different from both.
When we talk about improper payments, they are a subset of
those other three categories, but that doesn't tell us the
whole picture either. Sometimes improper payments are
a function of bad record keeping.
Sometimes there are a function of outdated information
technology systems. Sometimes they come about
through human error, and sometimes they come about
through negligence. There are a variety of reasons
why improper payments happen. It just simply is not the case
that improper payments are only a function of bad people doing
bad things with bad intent. That doesn't mean we shouldn't
focus on trying to mitigate improper payments, and that
certainly doesn't mean that the American people should not be
concerned with how their tax dollars are used.
The good news is that there are some time tested solutions and
tools to help mitigate these problems.
For example, when we think about the independence of inspectors
General, we're talking about a resource that is extraordinarily
valuable to the American people. In fiscal year 2023 alone,
inspectors General identified over $93 billion worth of
potential savings to taxpayers. Whistleblowers are also an
incredible resource to the American taxpayer.
Through the IR s s whistleblower program alone, billions of
dollars have been recouped from tax cheats since the inception
of that program in 2007. Whistleblowers have also played
an instrumental role in helping the Department of Justice pursue
False Claims Act cases that have resulted in billions of dollars
in reclaims settlement costs. It seems to me that if an
administration were serious about wanting to root out waste,
fraud and abuse, they would support.
And resource whistleblowers and inspectors general.
They would not demonize them and they would certainly not fire
them on Moss in a unlawful midnight purge.
There are other reforms we can think about too, reforms that
are more technical but just as important.
Key statutes such as the Federal Funding Accountability and
Transparency Act, the DATA Act, and critical platforms like
usaspending.gov were really were really important improvements
and innovations when they came about, but they are in need of
overhaul and reform. Currently, the status quo is
that we have an extraordinarily hard time tracking federal
dollars from end to end. This is due in large part to a
broken chain of data collection, of reporting information and the
ability to monitor and track in real time what is happening with
federal dollars. This informational black hole is
where a lot of impropriety happens.
It's where waste, fraud and abuse live.
And yes, this is where improper payments often happen.
But more importantly, we also don't have a good, clear and
consistent way of understanding what is happening with tax
dollars at the end point. What is the impact that we're
having? What is the return on investment
that we're having? We now have an annual budget of
close to $7 trillion a year. We can't say with any degree,
degree of clarity and consistency what we're getting
for all of that money. We have some more good news
though. There are bipartisan efforts and
there have been for years to try and clean up this situation.
We at Pogo have had the privilege and pleasure of
working on some of those initiatives.
We were a part of of the federal Taxpayers Right to No Act being
passed into law just a couple of years ago, which created for the
very first time a program inventory all the programs in
the federal government and that would be available to the
public. We have worked with a member of
this very committee, the House Oversight and Accountability
Committee to introduce a piece of legislation that would bring
more transparency to federal sub award reporting.
We have supported and endorsed multiple pieces of legislation
that take direct aim at the improper payment issue.
We also have additional ideas that don't yet have
congressional champions. One proposal is to clean up and
modernize and standardize the award descriptions that are
available in USA spending to make them more useful and
relevant. We have another proposal to
harmonize the amount of data and information we collect between
contract spending and non contract spending.
We stand ready, willing and able to work with anybody who wants
to work with us on these common sense solutions.
Lastly, I want to put in a quick word for Congress, and
specifically I want. To the gentleman's time has
expired. Apologies.
Yes. I can't see the flashing.
Wind, that's OK. Thank you, Mr. Hatler.
Got it. We, we appreciate your
testimony. I now recognize myself for 5
minutes of questions. I'd like to thank our witnesses
today for your testimonies and the suggestions that if you have
brought before this committee. I'd also like to thank Chairman
Comer for this opportunity to chair the Historic Oversight
Subcommittee on Dodge. Americans are shocked to learn
that $2.7 trillion of their hard earned tax dollars have been
stolen or wasted and improper payments since 2003.
You see, in the private sector, companies can't continue, they
can't continue to run if they keep employees that allow waste
and abuse with their resources. But that has continued for
decades here in the federal government.
Mr. Talco, do private sector companies have a lower rate of
improper payments in the federal government?
Yes, the fraud rate the that the criminals are taking advantage
of in 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 real
individuals. It's individuals whose
identities have been stolen on the dark web.
They use that information pretending to be somebody else,
and because of the antiquated systems, processes and
technologies in place and government programs, they're
able to steal at scale. Right.
So, Mr. Talcov, we would say that private companies that
pretty much have to exist on a 20% profit rate, they are not
allowed, they can't continue to to be successful if they were to
allow their customers data to be stolen like that and used by
criminals. However, the federal government
who can continue printing checks and continue in operation never
fixes its problems because it can't be forced to go out of
business. Would you agree with that?
Yes or no? Yes, one of the things I noticed
during COVID was the criminals learned that government was the
mark because it never runs out of money and they focus on it at
scale and then the likelihood of getting caught is virtually 0.
I think it's outrageous for Americans to know that their
identity can be stolen and then used for child trafficking, drug
trafficking and terrorism. Like you stated in your opening
statement. Miss Royal, your testimony
states that many programs operate under essentially an
honor system in which applicants need not verify their identity,
income, residency, or other other key eligibility factors.
You call this a trust everyone instead of a trust by verify
approach. Does this mean the federal
government in some states are giving out billions of dollars
to individuals without verifying who they are or whether they
meet program eligibility requirements?
Yes, ma'am, that's correct. Out.
That's outrageous. Do do states have enough
incentive to prevent fraud and to recover improper payments?
No, and in fact, states are hesitant to spend their state
dollars to protect federal dollars.
Would greater investment in program integrity efforts yield
a positive return for taxpayers? Yes, it could easily be self
funding. Amazing.
Mr. Whitson, your testimony states that both the Biden and
Obama administrations issued rules and guidance that made it
harder for states to verify eligibility for Medicaid.
You say that repealing Biden's Medicaid streamlining rule would
save 164 billion / 10 years because the rule restricts
eligibility verification that states can perform.
Can you explain why this rule is so costly?
Yeah, so the rule does a number of things, but for instance, it
prohibits states from verifying eligibility more than once a
year. So for non disabled folks to
just go in and look and say, hey, are you still eligible for
the program? It says you are forbidden from
doing that any more often than once a year.
And so obviously people's lives change and so they may become
ineligible. And so it's designed to keep
them on the program. Another thing, it prohibits in
person or phone interviews to verify their identity.
So people apply for it and then the person on the other end
says, I just want to call and make sure this is a real person,
not someone in another country, whatever the the rule prohibits
that. And so there's a number of other
provisions. It it also opens a lengthy
reconsideration periods. And this is where illegal
immigrants are able to obtain the benefits.
And so basically it says once you get, you know, these
benefits, you can't interfere with it for a 90 day period or
longer. And so there's a number of
horrible things. Thank you.
Thanks. So we can't verify if someone is
illegal or legal receiving, but just to correct that yes or.
No, you have to wait. At least a state has to wait at
least 90 days. And actually what we're seeing
is it's LED some states to wait as long as 13 years and so on.
The unbelievable My time has expired.
Thank you very much. I now recognize Mr. Lynch from
Massachusetts for 5 minutes. Thank.
Thank you very much. Madam Chair, first of all, let
me congratulate you and, and also Miss Stansbury on your new
positions. And I want to thank the
witnesses for, for your testimony.
We've already heard some, some good ideas about how to work
together. And Mr. Hatberg Gaudette, I for
one, would be most open to, to working with Pogo and, and, and
trying to work on some of the legislative ideas that you have
to actually get at some of this waste, fraud and abuse.
Since this is my first opportunity to speak in this new
subcommittee as the representative for the 8th
Congressional District in Massachusetts, I want to first
of all make clear that my my primary purpose in seeking
appointment to this subcommittee is for the singular and sacred
purpose to defend our democracy, which I believe is under attack
in this country, and to uphold my oath to support and defend
the Constitution against those who might secretly or openly
seek its destruction. Make no mistake, this is a
moment for representative democracy.
This is a test of our resolve. In the coming days and weeks, we
will all get to decide whether we stand with a couple of
billionaires who, despite their own financial successes, still
harbor such grievances in their hearts that after all that
democracy has provided to them, they remain.
They remain animated by the desire to dismantle this
democratic government and to punch down that's some of the
weakest and most vulnerable in our society.
Two men who clearly understand that the easiest way to incite
large numbers of people is to use social media to exploit the
dynamic forces of hatred and fear.
Madam Chair, if we're going after waste, fraud and abuse,
let's start with abuse, abuse of power.
As of yesterday, there were 55 lawsuits under consideration by
the federal courts across our nation.
I As a result of Elon Musk's and President Trump's unlawful acts,
many of those lawsuits have already been sustained by the
federal district courts and have been rent and orders have been
rendered to undo those unlawful acts.
But this is just the beginning and Congress has an important
role to play and I for one, look forward to that opportunity.
This is a moment of great consequence for our country and
for our democracy. And I remain grateful to the
good people of the 8th Congressional District of
Massachusetts who sent me here. Mr. Hatler Gaudet, again, happy
to join you on some of your efforts.
Pogo has worked very closely with our IG community.
Is that right? The inspector General's?
Yeah, that's correct, Congressman.
I know your work is, is, is very much similar to what we ask our
inspectors generals to to undertake.
I want to ask you what, what do you think?
So, so in the most recent report from the inspector general's,
and this is the Council of the Inspector General's, a
nonpartisan group on integrity and efficiency in government,
they identified more than $93 billion in potential savings.
So the first thing that President Trump did coming into
office was to fire, fire 17 agency inspectors general.
What, what can you tell us from Pogo's standpoint?
What, what does that do to our ability to identify and and root
out waste, fraud and abuse? Thank you, Congressman.
I would say to put it simply, it completely undermines our
ability to root out waste, fraud and abuse.
Inspector General exists for essentially one purpose and they
were originally created in the the immediate aftermath of
Watergate. And I think you all probably do
not need me to give you a history lesson at all.
And what happened in the Watergate era.
There's a reason they were created at that time, because
there was a lot of waste, fraud and abuse happening.
And there were not cops on the beat that were internal, that
were independent, that were situated in agencies to be able
to find these things and expose them and do something about
them. That's what Inspector General
exists to do. So it's completely anathema to,
I say anathema to any stated mission to find cost saving and
to root out waste, fraud and abuse to fire Inspector General
and to undermine them. It it makes no sense.
Those two things do not add up. Thank you very much.
The the firings that occurred on the when President Trump came to
the office included the special inject Inspector General for
Afghan reconstruction, Mr. Sopko.
I actually did over 20 trips to Afghanistan working with him.
He actually uncovered $4 billion in in savings in rooting out
American taxpayer waste being conducted in Afghanistan.
The IG at the Department of Defense the agency.
The gentleman's time has expired, OK?
Thank. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I yield back. Thank you.
OK. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentleman
from Texas, Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Madam Chair.
For far too long, DC politicians have gotten away with measuring
their personal value and worth by how much of other people's
money they give away. And for far too long they self
righteously have opined that the spending was for altruistic
purposes, given out of care and compassion.
For far too long, they've been more concerned with looking like
they cared than having enough care and concern to actually do
the due diligence to ensure that the tax dollars were being used
wisely and effectively. And for far too long, those of
us who've worked to uncover waste, fraud and abuse have had
to deal with what amounts to an unconstitutional 4th branch of
permanent bureaucracy that has too often worked to ignore,
obfuscate, delay, and frustrate our efforts to bring
transparency and oversight. Over the last few weeks, the
Doge effort has begun to uncover not only how massive the waste,
fraud and abuse is, but also the extent at which DC politicians
and too many obstinate bureaucrats have coordinated
create what is essentially the largest money laundering scheme
in history. And while Americans have been
working to make ends meet, they have been using taxpayer dollars
to fund unnecessary, egregious, and even evil things here at
home and around the world. Thankfully, Indoge, 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 this
government even over decades, certainly accelerated over 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 Ave. and bringing together this
committee. This effort is so important as
we work to relieve the Americans people of this burden of waste,
fraud and abuse. Mr. Taco, you mentioned in your
written statement and talked about it in your your statement
at the beginning that this waste, fraud and abuse is a
national security threat. And certainly one of the
challenges facing us. It is a national security,
security threat is our fiscal situation.
And so we have got to find ways to find savings to the American
people in order to strengthen the bring confidence to the bond
markets to to put our country on a fiscal footing and and to
reverse the curse, so to speak, that we are placing on our our
children and our grandchildren. You mentioned a couple threats,
though you mentioned internal threats.
You said that these cases involve government employees,
individuals entrusted with administering benefits who
instead of using their positions to approve fraudulent claims,
override security controls or even sell sensitive claim
claimant information for profit. Now, this is not every federal
employee for sure, but within the context of people who are
trying to give their best effort, we have an internal
threat. But you also mentioned
transnational fraud rings, terrorist organizationals,
nations, nation states, North Korea, nuclear weapons program
funded by our tax dollars, China, Nigeria, Iran, Romania,
Russia, not our friends necessarily that are being
funded by taxpayer dollars. Could you give us some examples
of how this is happening? Yeah.
So when you think about what happened during the pandemic, $1
trillion was stolen, 70% of that money went overseas.
And I can give you some examples And a Western state, they had
more people applying for unemployment insurance benefits
and they had individuals over 18.
The people that were stealing the money from Romania were
using it to facilitate other fraud schemes that include
fentanyl, that include doing things to impact our democracy
on the insider thread, right? The first thing you have to say,
and my dad was a public servant, is 99% of people that work in
the public sector are honest, hard working individuals.
But there are some, and what you need is data and technology to
root that out. There were examples during the
pandemic. There were some examples even of
last week where people got into the Medicaid system in a
southern in a western state and stole $50 million in less than
four months. So you have to have these
controls in place, right? These aren't individuals
stealing Mr. Cloud. These are organized criminal
groups, both domestic and transnational that as you
mentioned, taxpayers are being forced to fund the demise of our
own country. Mr. Winston, I wanted to ask you
because there's a lot of talk about reconciliation right now.
You mentioned Medicaid and what could be done to to bring a
pretty substantial amount of savings.
And this is without affecting those who truly need Medicaid
and and for what the the purpose of the program was extended for
now. The The gentleman's time has
expired. Does the witness want to answer
the question? No, only to say that yes,
there's a a tremendous amount of savings that can be found from
the streamlining rule, but also work requirements in the program
is another big area that can be done in reconciliation and
that's could save a significant amount as well, 241 billion in
federal spending for 10 years. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You're welcome.
I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Garcia.
Well, thank you. Thank you to all of our
witnesses for being here. And I want to just start off by
making something clear. I think we're all here to fight
against the lives of corruptions and the attacks on our social
safety net. Now, we should in no way be
cooperating with House Republicans who want to shut
down the Department of Education and destroy Medicare and
Medicaid. And we should not stand by as
the richest man on the planet gives himself and his companies
huge tax cuts while the American people get absolutely nothing.
Now I find it ironic, of course, that our chairwoman,
Congresswoman Green, is in charge of running this
committee. Now, in the last Congress,
Chairwoman Green literally showed a Dick pic in our
oversight congressional hearing, so I thought I'd bring one as
well. Now, this, of course, we know is
President Elon Musk. He's also the world's richest
man. He was the biggest political
donor in the last election. He has billions of dollars in
conflicts of interest. And we know that he is leading a
power grab also abided by and encouraged by Donald Trump and
of course, the cherry woman, Congresswoman Green.
But I also want to run through what which judge actually is
going to do. It's a demolition plan that's
going to run through our government.
Judge is trying to abolish the Department of Education.
That means opportunities denied to kids.
It means you're ripping away opportunities for children with
disabilities who are dependent on this money.
You're also halting medical research, which is also
critical, which we have to also stop.
The idea that we are going to eliminate or destroy the
Department of National Institutes of Health and NIH is
crazy. Let's talk about the Department
of Labor. We're talking about protections
for working people across this country where people can
actually complain about abuses their companies are making
against them and their Co workers.
Workers are now going to be in danger.
Let's also talk about the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, another huge issue for us.
Think about the scammers and fraudsters that will be
empowered across this country because Elon Musk wants
essentially these companies have more power over consumers and
over people across this country. Look at the Centers for Disease
and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
That is actually what's being discussed partly today.
Healthcare, we're talking about being denied to millions of poor
people, working class people across this country.
And now, of course, they're on to their largest target, the US
Social Security Administration. We're talking about this, the
destruction of the actual social safety net in this country.
We know that one in five Americans collect Social
Security, seniors, disabled people.
This entire plan is about hurting the American social
safety net and destroying our institutions.
And it's important that we actually call out what is
happening at this subcommittee. This is not about working with
the richest man on the planet. This is actually about
empowering. This committee wants to empower
the richest person in the world to hurt people so they can take
all of this money that they so-called want to save and then
give it to themselves, their companies and their billionaire
friends. That is the attack that is
happening in this committee and across this country, and it's
important that we call it out. We also know, of course, that
Elon Musk is sending his unqualified DOGE staff to carry
out this agenda across all of these agencies and in some
cases, actually teenage staffers.
No accountability, no experience and problematic records.
They're trying to rob you and they're probably a minor.
Thank you and I yield back. The gentleman yields, and I now
recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Timmons, for
5 minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I find it sad that my colleagues across the aisle can't take this
seriously. We have $36 trillion in debt.
We run an annual almost $2 trillion deficit.
When I got elected six years ago, we had $21 trillion in
debt. So in six years we've added over
$15 trillion to the debt. And guess what?
President Trump ran on fixing this problem.
President Trump told the American people he would right
the ship financially. And he said during the campaign
that Elon Musk was going to be the person to lead this charge,
the man that has turned business after business around.
He's the richest man on the planet because he succeeds at
his endeavors. And that's why President Trump
has appointed him the head of this effort.
This is a very serious problem. And it's incredibly hypocritical
that my colleagues across the aisle are complaining about this
because Joe Biden, Joe Biden signed his name and wanted the
American people to believe that he had the ability to forgive
$250 billion with a signature. Guess what?
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 a
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. Now to the task at hand,
Medicaid fraud. Mr. Talco, if we implement
enhanced identity verification and enhanced income
verification, what will happen? How much money will we save?
You'll save hundreds of billions of dollars.
Identity verification, elimination of self
certification and monitoring beneficiaries will prevent these
transnational criminal groups from accessing those systems at
scales to legitimate people who need the benefits can get them
in a timely fashion. So we're going to get actual
benefits to people, to American citizens that are in need faster
because if you do it electronically through web-based
like they did in Missouri where the pilot program saved almost
20% of Medicaid dollars. So all we have to do is adopt
what has already been proven in Missouri and we'll save 20%.
To the people out there listening, we spend almost $900
billion every year on Medicaid, and if 20% of that is saved,
that's almost $200 billion. We got a $1.8 trillion annual
deficit. We just knocked off 200 billion.
Let's keep this train going. The fact that the Democrats are
filing lawsuit after lawsuit to impede the efforts of President
Trump to right our fiscal ship is unforgivable.
It's unforgivable. Mr. Talcov, you talked about
pandemic fraud. I have a bill that would 'cause
the IRS to share data with the Small Business Administration
and the FBI and the Department of Justice that would show that
you were ineligible for PPP loans and you got them.
So I think that would save probably 100 billion.
Do do you think that we should go back and take money away from
people that fraudulently got COVID money during the pandemic?
The PPP program was a virtual buffet for fraudsters.
And it was because of that 1974 Privacy Act where data sharing
and matching is virtually impossible.
Congress needs to change that. But we can do it retroactively.
We can do it retroactively. We can find the people that
stole this money, hold them accountable, probably get some
of the money back. So I already have that bill
filed. That bill I think would probably
get $100 billion. So now we got enhanced identity
verification, enhanced income verification.
That has been proven in Missouri.
It does work. So I'm working on that bill.
We're going to drop it soon. That's $200 billion.
There's a competition in Congress.
I think we should have a competition on this committee.
I got $300 billion in savings proposed.
We got to all pull our weight because we have such a massive
problem right now. But I would just ask my
colleagues across the House to get out of the way if you don't
want to help, if you don't want to help, right the fiscal ship
in this country, get out of the way.
Stop filing lawsuit after lawsuit.
We do not have the financial ability to continue down this
path. And we're going to save this
country with or without you. You can kick and scream all the
way or you can get out of the way.
I prefer the former. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The gentleman yields. I now recognize the gentleman
from Texas, Mr. Kassar. This subcommittee is supposedly
about looking into waste, fraud and abuse, so I'd like to start
talking about independent inspector generals who are
supposed to be looking into waste, fraud, and abuse.
Mr. Telco, do you know how many inspector generals at agencies
that were investigating Elon Musk's companies have been fired
by the Trump Musk administration?
No, it is five. Miss Royal, the Inspector
General at the Department of Labor, had 17 open
investigations into Tesla and SpaceX.
Do you know what the Trump Musk administration did to that
Inspector General? No.
They they fired him. And I think you'll know, Mr.
Whitson, the Inspector General, Department of Transportation was
investigating Tesla. Do you know what the Trump Musk
administration did that Inspector General?
No, they were fired. The Department of Defense's
Inspector General was looking into SpaceX.
Mr. Headler, you know what the Trump Musk administration did to
that Inspector General? I believe he was fired.
Thank you. I think everybody on the panel
knows what the answer to these questions were. the US
Department of Agriculture Inspector General was
investigating Musk's Neuralink, Mr. Talcove.
Now, I'll ask you again, Underoath, you know what Mr.
Trump did to that Inspector General that was looking into
one of Musk's companies? No, he was fired.
The Inspector General at the EPA was repeatedly taking on Tesla.
Mr. Headler, since it seems that you're answering the questions
that every knows the answer to, do you know what the Trump Musk
administration did to that Inspector General?
I believe he was also fired. Also fired.
At least five inspector generals that we're looking into.
Elon Musk's companies were fired by the Trump Musk
administration. These inspector generals who are
independent, protected by law, they are the people that find
the waste, fraud and abuse and found many of the cases of
waste, fraud and abuse that have been brought up today, fired
because they were looking into Elon Musk at the NLRB, the
National Labor Relations Board, which is supposed to protect
workers from getting their unions busted by folks like Elon
Musk, made functionally broken by the so-called Department of
Government efficiency. That really is the Department of
Government efficiency for Elon Musk, not for you.
They are trying to shut down the Department of Education, the
Department of Labor. You know what?
Elon Musk doesn't seem to be looking into his own contracts
again. I'll ask you, Mr. Talco, do you
know how much money a day Mr. Musk will receive from the
federal government for his contracts?
No, the answer is $8 million a day.
Just last year, Elon Musk was promised $3 billion from close
to 100 contracts with the federal government.
Miss Royal, do you know how much the average person in this
country who survives on Social Security?
One of our seniors who's worked their entire life about how much
they have to survive on a day. I do not. $65 a day.
We're not looking into Elon Musk's $8 million a day.
This subcommittee chaired by Marjorie Taylor Green and the
House Republicans is looking into your grandmother's $65 a
day. Let me be clear, I think we
would all support taxpayer savings.
Look into money we might needlessly send to billionaires
and big corporations. Find taxpayer savings and send
it back to your hard working family.
But instead, what House Republicans and the Trump Musk
administration want to do is they want to look into your kids
lunch money, your kids teachers salary into your grandparents
Social Security. They want to take that money and
give it out in billionaire tax cuts.
And they are talking about that in committee tomorrow, in budget
committee tomorrow. They just released their plan.
So let me be clear, when Republicans talk about
government efficiency in this Congress, they're not looking
into billionaires who don't pay their taxes.
They're not looking into billionaires who get rich off of
government contracts. They're not looking into Elon
Musk firing watchdogs who are supposed to keep him
accountable. They're looking at cutting your
public schools. They're going straight for your
Social Security. They're coming straight for
Cancer Research. They're coming straight for the
Department of Education. They're not looking at big Tech.
They're not looking at Big Pharma because those people fund
their campaigns. If this committee we're serious
about rooting out waste from our federal government, then today's
whole hearing would be about how Musk and Donald Trump are firing
the independent watchdogs who've done this work for decades.
Instead, my Republican colleagues actual goal on this
committee is to distract from Trump and from Musk's corrupt
war on accountability. This will not be a subcommittee
dedicated to making government efficient for everyday people.
It's about helping Elon Musk and Donald Trump be as efficient as
possible in robbing our government and handing out our
government service services to A to the rich.
So this seems that this subcommittee is just.
The gentleman's time has expired.
A total sham. The American people are $36
trillion in debt. It certainly seems reasonable
that someone has been fired. I now recognize the gentleman
from Tennessee. You're not recognized, Mr.
Burchett. You're recognized for 5 minutes.
Thank you chair lady. The gravy train for a lot of
these folks, it's been on biscuit wheels and it's about to
run off the dead gum tracks and it's about time.
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. Talcove, that's correct how you say your name, brother.
Yes, Sir. All right, how can the federal
government improve identity verification for these
entitlement programs? Yeah, it's doing what the
private sector does every single day.
Whether you use your bank, you go to Amazon.
Using those tools and moving away from some of the dated
compliance standards at the federal government uses NIST IAL
863 2017 before there was anything called deepfakes and
generative AI tools. I also I was informed that
PayPal has never been they've never been able to crack into
that and steal people's vital information.
Are they using those systems that you would be favorable
towards that government seems to be shying away from yes Sir and
describe that how that works. They're they're systems that are
based on encryption. They use technology and they use
data to validate you are who you say you are.
The people that are stealing right now, I believe a lot of
them are actually ghosts from China, Russia, Nigeria and
Romania. I read a report today that North
Korea was involved in this and some of that as well.
And those people are enemies again.
They'll hate us for free. We don't have to give them
taxpayer money. And are there loopholes that can
be closed to avoid these improper payments?
And I wish you'd describe those to me.
The the, the biggest, most important thing, particularly in
the benefit program space is the use of self certification.
As Mr. Timmons noted, the state of Missouri is using a solution
called Steady IQ to validate wages and wealth.
You have, you cannot allow individuals to provide the
information based upon what they think.
It has to be based on what you know.
And that will stop the ghosts from using people's identities
to steal money from US taxpayers.
How much money do you calculate is wasted due to waste, fraud
and abuse and the entitlement programs each year?
My number right now between federal, state and local
government is you can save $1 trillion a year by simply
putting in front end identity verification, eliminating self
certification, and monitoring the back end of the programs
that are providing the benefits. Those three things, you said you
could eliminate that, but there are others.
You feel like some more low hanging fruit.
I would start with those three things because they're simple.
That'll take that 20% fraud rate that you're seeing in the public
sector down below 5%. Chairlady, I would suggest that
we adopt Mr. Timmons legislation and get that out of the
committee as fast as possible. What actions also could Congress
take to fix these problems quickly?
I think the the first thing is updating and redoing the 1974
Privacy Act. That is virtually impossible to
do data matching. It's very difficult to have data
shared and when you look back at the pandemic, data sharing and
data matching would have stopped probably 50% of the trillion
dollars that was stolen from taxpayers.
Danielle, like to add anything to that, Congressman, I would
just add that rather than accepting self attestation, that
state should have to be required to actually verify people's
identities. And that here's the key part,
before they get enrolled. They shouldn't get enrolled and
then eventually come down there later on down the road.
It's amazing to me 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. What type of computer systems
for these agencies using and do they need updating?
They're using very dated technology, but they're also
burdened. I look at the USDA 6.2 million
words in a 10,000 page document that shows how to implement the
rules of the program. Nobody can figure that out.
So one of the things that I think has to happen is the
simplification of these processes and systems and then
just use the technology that we use every day in the private
sector. OK.
Thank you all so much for. Being here, gentleman's time has
expired. Thank you, Chair Lady.
I now recognize the gentlewoman from Texas, Miss Crockett, for 5
minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And Mr. Talcove. I'm just going to go ahead and
pick up where you left off really quickly.
Just to be clear, the upgrades that you're talking about as it
relates to our data processes, these aren't things that would
be free, are they? They would costs some kind of
money. Not looking for a number but
they will cost correct. Some are free and some would
cost money. OK.
All right. So I just want to leave it there
because we've had a number of these hearings.
So I do want to be clear, before the Trump administration came
in, this committee did exist in the form of the oversight
committee. And our task is to root out.
Waste, fraud and abuse. In that vein, we had a number of
hearings at least last term. I can't speak for any other term
as I'm only in my sophomore term and we dealt with improper
payments and interestingly enough, our chairwoman, who was
so passionate about this today, she missed every single one of
those improper payment hearings. But just to be clear, I was
there. So I don't want anyone to
believe that Democrats just come to work and don't plan to do
work. In fact, I'm trying to figure
out exactly what it is that the Republicans believe our job is,
because right now they have relinquished their
constitutional duties over to an unelected bureaucrats.
Someone who no one went out to vote for and absolutely he is
occupying the Oval Office as we saw yesterday.
And that is a first for me to see someone occupying the Oval
Office who's never actually been elected to the Oval Office in
and actually answering more questions than the person that
allegedly got elected. But for whatever reason, this is
the first time we're having a Dodge subcommittee hearing and
that guys not here. Instead we have y'all.
So I do want to thank you for coming.
But I will say this, it's also interesting to me then in the
first few days of DOGE existing, we know that they are trying to
get rid of the Department of Education, USA Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau. They're laying off FAA workers.
They are going after the FDA, the CDC, the HHS, the FBI
agents, and they're talking about getting rid of FEMA.
And they brought y'all in. And I am going to say that I
actually was shocked that there was only one person that seemed
like he was an overt Trumper as you laid out your opening
remarks. Because because I anticipated
that at least one of y'all would say, yes, what Elon is doing is
exactly what we would prescribe. But instead, I will applaud you
because you actually were focused.
You talked about what the American people are looking for
us to do. We've actually consistently on
this side of the aisle, promoted this idea of making investments
into technology so that we can do things such as say, look at
the Department of Defense, the Department of Defense that takes
up approximately, oh, 50% of our discretionary income or our
discretionary spending, approximately 50% goes to
Department of Defense. Department of Defense has not
been able to pass an audit in the last 6 audits.
And we're not talking about pennies.
I understand that we want everything to be perfect.
And if we could get all waste, fraud and abuse out, that would
be fantastic. But let me talk about the big
numbers. The big numbers are on that
side. When we look at, say, our entire
workforce, our federal workforce, as we're trying to
somehow fire all of them, they don't even even make up a total
of 5%. It's even less than that when we
look at our budget. But let's talk about defense.
That just happens to be the same side of the Ledger that Mister
Musk gets the vast majority of his money from.
In fact, at the same time that they were unlawfully.
And we will stay in court because on this side, we believe
in law and order. We believe in, I mean, a number
of us are actually lawyers. But nevertheless, we understand
the Constitution. We believe in that as well.
And so there's things such as, you know, empowerment, right?
Because as Mr. Whitson said, he said we need to return the power
of the purse to Congress. It never left according to the
Constitution. That's where it's at now.
I know that people are confused right now because for whatever
reason, we had a guy that went in and you talked about people
invading our data. Listen, people said that they
were upset about TikTok, but I'm upset about the guy that runs
Twitter, who for sure it's doing nefarious things because I don't
understand. If you are trying to conduct
audits and figure out where the waste, fraud and abuse is, I
don't know why you would go to some tech guy.
In fact, it was only techies that were sitting there at
inauguration. We didn't have auditors.
I, I would welcome auditors to come in and do forensic audits.
In fact, he sat there in the Oval Office yesterday and he
admitted that he was lying and he was using his propaganda
machine to do it. When he said that we sent
millions of dollars to Gaza for condoms, that was a lie.
So let me tell you something. The general lady time has
expired. Time for the gentle lady's time
has expired. Reign in this rogue actor, no.
Gentle lady's time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman
from Missouri, Mr. Burleson. Thank you, Madam Chair, I just
want to speak frankly at first to the American people.
We are nearing $37 trillion in national debt.
What does that mean? That means that each and every
US taxpayer owes over $323,000. OK, what does that mean?
That means when when the EPIC, which is the Economic Policy
Innovation Center, says we have 18 trillion left.
That's it. 18 trillion left to take out, and we're spending $2
trillion in debt every year. Folks, we are at the precipice
of a debt like a, like a debt cycle.
We are literally at a, at a point in which the dollar will
be worth nothing. What does that mean?
And I mean it. I mean we know Social Security
goes bankrupt in eight years, right?
Medicare goes bankrupt in 10 years and then 15 years from now
the the dollar is completely devalued and worth nothing.
So what does that mean? That means your pension, the
money in your banks, you know, your savings.
Me is me is nothing. It's worthless.
So what are we doing? We're trying to save this
country. We're trying to save your
pensions. We're trying to save your bank
accounts. We're trying to save this
country for the next generation. And it would be nice if we had
help, but instead we have people that are fighting us on this.
And, you know, they, I think that it's, I would hate to be in
the Democratic Party right now because you're in a really bad
bind. You're having to defend all of
this crazy spending, all of this crazy waste.
So how do you do it? You do ad hominem attacks.
You attack the messenger. Oh, Elon Musk, right?
He's rich. He must be evil, right?
That's the, that's the attacks, really.
You can't do any better than that, right?
But let's talk on the policy. On the policy, Help us.
We're trying to save this country.
This is what an Elon Musk, who's making no money doing this, is
trying to save this country. Why?
Because he is invested in the United States of America more
than anybody, right? So I think that we should
embrace, in fact, not a single company governor of any state
would ever turn down Elon Musk and his team of DOGE from coming
in and providing free services to write the course and
financially in any state or organization.
It's ridiculous that we would demonize someone that loves this
country so much. Mr. Whitman, the formation of
agencies via the executive action is not new, right?
The the formation of DOGE is not new.
Can you, you know, are, are you familiar with any other previous
presidencies where they've formed organizations like DOGE
via executive action? Yeah.
So I so actually the agency that DOGE is occupying is one that
was created in a previous administration.
So it is something that happens routinely, but I don't know if
that answers your question. Yeah, there's been the Office of
Budget Management was created. Environmental Protection Agency
was created the US Digital Service, which is now DOGE was
created all by executive order, right And actually one other I'd
add is USAID was originally created through an executive
order by President Kennedy and then later formalized.
And then, Madam Chair, I have a video I would like to end with
that. Just let's review if we could
cue that remind. And I want to remind my
Democratic friends, at a point in which you once had the
majority of the American people on your side, this is this is
what your party believed in. This report tells us how to cut
waste, cut red tape, streamline the bureaucracy, change
procurement rules, change the personnel rules, and create a
government that works better and costs less.
I've read it and where it says the president should the
president will among the 800 recommendations, eliminating 12%
of the federal workforce, merging some government agencies
like the FBI, the DEA, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, closing hundreds of government offices outside
Washington. From the day I took off, one of
the commitments that I made the American people was that we
would do a better job here in Washington in rooting out
wasteful spending. We thought that it was entirely
appropriate for our governments and our agencies to try to root
out waste large and small in a systematic way.
It means cutting some programs that I think are worthy but we
may not be able to afford. Right now.
A lot of the action is in Congress and legislative, but in
the meantime, we don't need to wait for Congress in order to do
something about wasteful spending that's out there.
We haven't seen as much action out of Congress as we'd like,
and that's why we launched on our own initiative, the campaign
Cut Waste, and we're going to keep on finding every possible
way that we can do that, even if Congress is not active.
There you go. I think it speaks for itself.
My time is expired. That the gentleman's time is
expired. Thank you.
I now yield to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia,
Miss Norton, for 5 minutes. Thank you.
Our Republican colleagues and the Trump administration
continue to demonize of friends and neighbors who work for the
federal government and swear an oath to protect the Constitution
and serve the public. Thousands of civilian federal
employees have given their lives in the line of duty for their
country. The administration seems intent
on dismantling much of the federal government in violation
of the Constitution, statutes and regulations.
And our Republican colleagues are letting them do it.
They want to gut the nonpartisan civil service and to convert a
significant portion of the remaining civil service into
political appointees depriving. The federal government of
employees, expertise and experience will harm the
services that the government provides to all Americans.
Mr. Headler Garlet, the administration is attempting to
cause a mass exodus from our federal workforce.
Will this increase or decrease waste, fraud and abuse?
Thank you, Delegate Norton. I think it's pretty clear that
chaos is not the friend of efficiency.
If you undermine the very functionality of the government,
you're not going to make it more efficient, you're going to make
it worse, and it's going to cost even more money to recoup or to
fix things that go wrong in the interim.
So I, you know, again, I mentioned earlier that if you
care about wastewater and abuse, firing Inspector General doesn't
add up. I think if you care about
government being more efficient, intentionally creating chaos is
the opposite of that. Well, Mr. Headler Gauntlet, do
federal employees operate without oversight or rules and
regulations? No, absolutely not.
They are governed by a plenty of rules and regulations, and when
there are independent Inspector General at the agency they're
supposed to be at, they also have a cop on the beat making
sure that they do. So I want to highlight some
stories demonstrating exactly the kinds of federal workers the
administration is trying to force out.
How about Chris Mark at the Department of Labor, whose
pioneering work on mine safety has reduced mine safety minor
safety deaths from. Roof collapses to almost 0
today. Or Jared Koopman at the Internal
Revenue Service, who pioneered new methods for tracking
criminal cybersecurity currency transactions that led to the
rescue of 23 children from rape and assault, as well as a
seizure of hundreds of millions of trial abuse videos and 370
pedophile arrests. This were also prevented funding
from going to terrorist groups. Or Ron Lee Walters, who manages
the 155 national cemeteries around the country and tends to
the resting places of almost 4 million veterans.
These are just a few of the federal workers who serve
Americans every day. The workers are The workers are
wildland firefighters, border guards, doctors, nurses.
Food inspectors, air traffic controllers and law enforcement
that do their civic duty, often despite the fact.
That they could make such more in the private sector.
Thank you and I yield back. The gentlelady yields.
I now yield to the gentleman from Georgia, Mister Jack.
Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Madam
Chair, and I want to also thank you for convening this hearing.
I think it's incredibly important, and I want to thank
our witnesses for appearing before us today.
Like another member of this committee, I too was once an
employee of the Executive Office of the President.
I worked in President Trump's White House from the very first
to very last day of his first term, and I saw first hand how
entrenched and resistant the federal bureaucracy was to his
agenda. So it's no surprise that today a
few of my Democrat colleagues have continued that trend by
using their time to bash Elon Musk instead of discussing ways
to work together to advance a bipartisan cornerstone of
President Trump's agenda, the mission to eliminate.
Finally, eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.
And I just took a, a rudimentary count of the, the Dems testimony
or rather comments today. And I've got 27 mentions of Elon
Musk and three mentions of waste.
And I don't know if that's in fact the right count, encourage
anybody to Fact Check me. But I think it illuminates and
illustrates one of the problems that we're facing, which is a
lack of bipartisan effort to address these these critical
things that, you know, waste, fraud and abuse is something
that should be bipartisan. The chair noted that in her
opening remarks. Now, Madam Chair, you know how
much I enjoy studying public opinion.
So with your approval, I'd like to enter into the record the CBS
News poll from this past weekend conducted February 5th to 7th,
2025. And I'd also like to illuminate
2 findings. 1st 70% of Americans, Democrats and
Republicans included, believe President Trump is already doing
the job that he was elected to, which is interesting because I
have an article here from CNN from September 2024 that notes
Trump says Elon Musk has agreed to lead proposed government
efficiency Commission as ex president unveils new economic
plans. So he is doing exactly what he
said he would do by empowering his administration to root out
waste, fraud and abuse. And that's exactly what we're
trying to do here today. I'd also like to know one
interesting statistic from that 62% of Americans wants Democrats
in Congress to work with us to advance the priorities the
President Trump was elected to to govern on.
So I think those are two stats that I hope everyone pays
attention to. But to ask questions of our
witnesses, I'd first like to start with Mr. Talco.
You know, one of the things that I found very interesting from
your opening testimony is you, you talked and, 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 1/3 of all prior authorizations are still done
manually by phone, fax or direct post mail.
First off, would love your comments on that.
And I'd also like for you to expound upon some of the
solutions that we can deliver this Congress and modernizing
that 1974 Privacy Act. Yeah, 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 have very quickly realized that a large
portion of the PPP loan funds were going to the wrong person.
You would have been quickly able to match and I think the number
was 20% were on the do not pay list.
You can't expect people to do what a machine and especially AI
can do today. Fair enough.
Thank you very much for that. And I, if I can also ask Mr.
Whitson, we, I think we share a common interest, which is to to
move departments and agencies outside of Washington, DC.
It's something that I campaigned on, something that I helped
President Trump effectuate in his first administration.
And I have to imagine that if we have departments and agencies
outside of DC, if we've got, you know, a workforce is more
reflective of the balance that America is, we at the same time,
too, could potentially root out some of this waste, fraud and
abuse by enabling other Americans, other citizens of our
country to help advance some of these issues.
Would love your your commentary on that before my time expires.
No, I think you're exactly right, Congressman Jack.
And so I think a, you'd save a lot of taxpayer money.
So building the headquarters in downtown DC versus Huntsville,
AL, you're going to be able to save a lot of money #2 you're
actually to make life better for the employees as well.
So that's a point that's also missed a lot.
But commuting in the DC versus being able to go somewhere else
where it's a better cost of living and things like that
might be better for the folks. And then lastly, these areas
where you set up a headquarters are going to be populated by
people that live in the area to fill the rank and file of staff
positions. And so if you plant these
federal agency headquarters in the heart of any area that's
overwhelmingly one party or the other, then you're going to
naturally get that sway versus something that's more
representative of the people as a whole.
Well, thank you very much for witnesses.
Mindful of my time, I want to finish before my time expires.
I yield back to our Chairwoman, Marja Taylor Green.
Thank you. And Chairwoman, I, I would like
to enter, ask for unanimous consent to enter something into
the record. So what is it?
It is a report from the Congressional Research Service,
nonpartisan CRS, that lays out the rules and the law for firing
inspectors general, which of course look into waste, fraud
and abuse. Without objection.
Thank you. And that rule requires for the
law to be followed for Congress to be notified with 30 days and
a reason for firing inspectors general to give Congress a
chance to overrule that. And that's the the law.
So thank you for entering that into the record.
Madam. Chair, without objection, the
materials Mister Jack cited are also submitted For the record.
I now Yeah. And while we're on it, I'd also
like to ask for unanimous consent to submit for the
record, 2 items. 1 is a statement from the AFLCIO
department of people who work for a living with views on
working people to make the government work.
And the second is a statement for those from the Center for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on ways to combat
waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.
Without objection, so ordered, I now recognize the gentlelady
from New Mexico and Ranking Member Miss Stansbury for 5
minutes. All right.
Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you once
again to all of our witnesses for being here to testify.
Thank you to my colleagues. We are going to have so much fun
in this committee, this Congress.
I actually appreciate the video that was shown just a few
moments ago, because when I worked at the Office of
Management and Budget, I actually worked on the waste EO
that was referenced that President Obama signed.
But there is one fundamental difference between the
presidents and vice presidents that were.
Shown on that video and what's happening today and that is that
they followed the law so my colleagues across the aisle who
are asking us to get out of the way and stop trying to block
things in the courts. Let me tell you we do not work
for an unelected billionaire like apparently this guy does.
We work for the American people. And so if an unelected, unvetted
individual private citizen is hacking our government systems,
breaking the law, firing federal employees, dismantling
statutorily created agencies, withholding funds, we are going
to fight you in the courts. And I'm actually really sad that
my dear friend Mr. Burchett left because I want to talk about
that gravy train on biscuit Wheels that he just talked
about. Because that gravy train is not
the federal workforce. It's the billionaires that are
trying to hack that system right now.
And which unfortunately, my colleagues right now are working
on a reconciliation deal to cut Medicaid, to cut Medicare, and
use that money to give to tax breaks to their billionaire
buddies. That is the gravy train that is
actually going on here. But because this is the
Oversight Committee, let's do a little bit of oversight.
For the last several weeks, I've been talking to Treasury and OMB
officials to try to get to the bottom of why Elon Musk and his
team are trying to hack the Treasury payment system.
Because this is a completely non partisan system that literally
just pays the bills of the federal government.
So why are they so eager to hack this system?
And I have to say that over the last several weeks, we have
literally received thousands of calls in every single
congressional office. In fact, we know that our
friends across the aisle are also receiving these calls
because this system pays the bills of the US government.
It pays our soldiers. It pays for the work that we do
overseas. It pays your Social Security
benefits. It pays your tax refunds.
So why is Elon Musk and his hackers trying to access that
system? And why did a senior civil
servant who had overseen the system for over 30 years get
asked to stand down after a 25 year old intern working for Elon
Musk tried to get access to the code for that system?
Now, thankfully, they were shut down in the court system.
But Musk has installed with the president's blessing, one of his
silicone buddies. Silicone Valley buddies who I
want to point out in which the media has not paid a lot of
attention to, is the CEO of a private IT company, including
Citrix that has millions of dollars in IT contracts with the
federal government. And not only is he still
operating as the installed doge person at Treasury, he is
actively still the CEO of this private company.
How is that even legal? Is it legal?
I don't think it's legal because the federal court is trying to
shut this down. We also know that that 25 year
old software engineer in violation of the court order was
actually given access to modify the code.
So what is going on here and why is this such a threat to the
American people? Why are thousands of people
calling us? It's because of the size and the
significance of these payments. Because it is an invasion of the
privacy and security of the American people.
Because it could threaten our ability as a country and if
there was a default in the debt ceiling and because it contains
highly classified information that our foreign adversaries are
trying to cyber attack us regularly for.
So why is a private citizen being given access to this
system? We know they're trying to shut
down payments. They're trying to shut down
agencies. What's next?
Are they going to shut down your Social Security payments?
We don't know because they have no oversight.
And Elon Musk will not come in front of this committee.
And in fact, the Treasury folks are saying this is the biggest
insider threat they've ever seen in the history of the agency.
So we are sounding the alarm. And no matter how many executive
orders that Donald Trump signs or how many tweets the VP sends,
you cannot rewrite the Constitution, and we are going
to hold you to account. I yield back.
The general lady yields and I now recognize.
Oh yes. I have 3 documents I want to
submit for the record. The first, the first document is
the Constitution Article 2. I would like to submit that for
the record. That's clearly spells out the
President's authority. I would also like to submit for
the record US five US Code 3161 Employment Compensation of
employees, which clearly spells out his authority to create
DOGE. And then I want to submit for
the record the executive order that Trump issued on January
20th of 2025 establishing DOGE officially.
Without objection sorted, I now recognize the gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Gill for 5 minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair, and
thank you for hosting this committee.
If we've learned anything so far, it's that Republicans want
to cut waste, fraud and abuse from our federal government and
save taxpayer dollars, and Democrats want to grandstand and
play politics. We can see right now even of the
six Democrats on this committee, only one can even be bothered to
stay for the duration of this hearing.
All we've heard about for most of this hearing from the other
side of the aisle is Elon Musk. Elon Musk, Elon Musk, unelected
bureaucrat. I'd like to ask if if Democrats
really care about unelected bureaucrats making decisions
over our lives. Where were they whenever their
God Anthony Fauci was forcing vaccine and mask mandates on the
American people for four years during the Excuse me for during
the COVID crisis? Where were they whenever
unelected Alejandro Mayorkas was facilitating the invasion of our
country by illegal aliens who were murdering and raping and
pillaging our people? Where were they whenever the
Secretary of Education, unelected Cardona, targeted
States and schools and people who were disagreed with his view
of the radical left's transgender ideology?
Where were they whenever Gary Gensler, former chairman of the
SEC, also unelected, was lawlessly thwarting the
development of financial markets, particularly in the
crypto space, by lawlessly pursuing regulation via
enforcement? They were nowhere to be seen.
Because they don't care. Because all of those things
benefited their side of the aisle at the expensive hours.
And perhaps that's also why they don't seem to be very interested
in rooting out improper payments from our federal government.
If you wonder why so many people are cynical about American
politics, this is it. This is exactly why.
The reality is that Elon Musk serves as an employee of the
president, and we were given a massive mandate to carry out
what he's been doing. His job is to carry out the will
of the American people as expressed through the executive.
That's exactly how the Constitution is supposed to
work. The Constitution did not create
an unelected, unaccountable 4th branch of government in the
administrative state. The American people know this.
My colleague Brian Jack discussed some of the opinion
polls recently. We are doing and President Trump
is doing exactly what he is elect, he was elected to do.
And that's why he's pulling at a 53% approval rating, higher than
he was at any point during his first administration.
Even Elon Musk and his Doge efforts now are pulling at a 49%
approval rating, which just to point out is 16 points higher
than President Biden was pulling out whenever he finished his his
term in office. 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 that went to what
governments, to what people or groups, Nothing.
All they're all they want to talk about is Elon Musk
incessantly. So it does make me wonder if
they don't care about where it's going.
Do they have an 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, the NNPRPBS, the BBC, Politico.
It's going to find left wing Ng OS that are facilitating the
invasion of our country. It's 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 A. I'm very excited to be on this
committee. I'm excited to expose what's
been going on. Thank you, Madam Chair, and with
that I yield. The gentleman yields.
In closing, I want to thank our witnesses again for their
testimonies today. I now yield to the Ranking
Member for closing remarks. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Well, I never thought so many conspiracy theories and wild
accusations could be wound into one five minute speech.
But I appreciate my friends across the aisle.
First of all, let's talk about this massive mandate that
supposedly brought Donald Trump into office.
Donald Trump did not run on putting an unelected billionaire
in charge of dismantling the federal government.
He ran on lowering prices for Americans.
And I think it's interesting that while we're sitting here
this morning, the top of The New York Times is reporting that
inflation has risen unexpectedly as food and energy prices have
soared. What's going on, guys?
I thought you were going to tackle inflation and food and
energy prices. Isn't that what the executive
orders were supposed to do? Oh, wait.
Or is dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion and our
federal agencies and putting an ideological agenda and trying to
fire the federal workforce your actual agenda?
Have you been too busy trying to actually address the fiscal
health of this country? Because the numbers are telling
us that you have. So let's be real about what's
going on here. I also want to point out that
literally while we've been sitting here for the last almost
two hours getting lectured on fiscal responsibility, literally
the Republicans just released their plan to raise the debt
limit while we were sitting here, and they want to raise it
by $4 trillion. OK, guys, Like, literally, I'm
just like, without words. Inflation is going up.
You want to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion?
You want to gut Medicare? You want to gut Medicaid?
You're talking about going after Social Security after promising
that you wouldn't. I mean really, what the heck is
going on here? We're not trying to take down
Elon Musk as a businessman. This dude is literally breaking
the law inside of the federal government.
And for a party that is supposed to be the party of law and order
in quotes, I really do not see you holding him accountable and
doing your most basic constitutional responsibility in
the separation of powers. So I want to end and where I
started, we are the Oversight Committee.
We are the People's House for the United States of America.
We represent the American people.
And so, Mr. Elon Musk, if you would like to appear in front of
the Oversight Committee, you have been duly invited.
Please come tell us what you're doing.
Come testify in front of the American people, and please come
hold yourself to account. With that I yield back.
The gentlelady yields. I now recognize myself for
closing remarks. President Trump was elected with
a mandate to rein in unaccountable bureaucracy in
Washington and to wage war on waste.
I know that because I campaigned alongside him, and so did my
colleagues. This hearing was the first
battle of that war. And in the coming days, the
subcommittee will release a report with legislative
solutions to the problems we have identified here today.
We aren't going to wait all the way until the end of this
Congress. We're going to get to work
immediately. The bureaucrats who have run
Washington for decades are beyond the point of forgiveness.
Their sheer incompetence and pure spite for the hard working
American people have resulted in total failure.
The federal government has made over $2.7 trillion in improper
payments since 2003, including 236 billion in 2023 alone.
Those are trillions of dollars that honest Americans have paid
in taxes at gunpoint over the years.
As we approach April 15th, Americans are once again
preparing to do their taxes and fork over their unfair share of
money it takes to run this country.
And I have to tell you, the American people have not been
getting their money's worth for a long time.
Most improper payments in recent years were issued through five
programs. Medicare medic paid the Earned
Income Tax Credit, Pandemic Unemployment Insurance and the
Paycheck Protection Program. But a total of 16 federal
programs had improper payment rates of 10% or more in 2023.
That includes SNAP, the federal food stamp program, which paid
out 10 billion taxpayer dollars improperly.
To get their arms around this problem, Elon Musk and the DOGE
team went straight to the source.
They went to the Treasury Department's Fiscal Service,
which makes about 90% of the trillions in federal payments
issued annually. The audit of these payment
systems was long overdue. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant
gave DOGE employees working for the government read only access
to these systems so they could conduct that initial audit.
That audit is already paying dividends.
Must learn that the databases federal agencies are supposed to
check to prevent payments to fraudsters, crime rings and dead
people are not being kept up to date.
Going forward, we are going to get more mileage out of these do
not pay databases. That means fewer improper
payments and less fraud and waste of taxpayer dollars.
Despite this fraud that's already been revealed, a federal
judge in New York issued a ruling last Friday that ran
totally contrary to the will of the people.
The judge blocked not only Doge, but the Treasury Secretary
himself from accessing his own agency's payment systems.
That's absurd. Only career Treasury Department
unelected bureaucrats can access the system, the judge ruled.
This turns the Constitution on its head.
We will hold this judge and others who try to stop the will
of the people and their elected leaders accountable.
As is written in The Federalist Papers, the judiciary has no
influence over either the sword or the purse, no direction
either of the strength or the wealth of the society.
It may truly be said to have neither force nor will, but
merely judgment, and must ultimately depend upon the aid
of the executive arm for the efficacy of its judgments.
But the whole DC swamp is freaking out that the unelected
officials from Doge were allowed access to these systems.
That makes no sense. Federal judges were not elected.
The Treasury bureaucrats were not elected, and they have
failed to fix the problem that is enabling American taxpayers
to be robbed. So why not bring in skilled
outside experts like private companies and private citizens
who are excess, who are successful in the real world to
do everyday work that we need to get done here like audits?
Of course, federal payment systems are only one link in the
improper payment chain. We need to look at other links
in the chain. We need better front end
identify verification to screen out fraudsters.
And we need to close eligibility loopholes.
That means not letting applicants self attest to their
own eligibility. And it means ending categorical
eligibility, which lets someone who fraudulently qualifies for
one federal benefit automatically get other federal.
Finally, we need to do better court.
We need to better coordinate fraud prevention efforts between
federal governments and the states.
These are all issues that we will be taking a hard look at in
this committee and coming up with solutions to, including
legislation and referrals to committees of jurisdiction that
will deliver for the American people.
With that and without objection, all Members have 5 legislative
days within which to submit materials and additional written
questions for the witnesses, which will be forwarded to the
witnesses if there is no further business.
Without objection, the subcommittee stands adjourned.
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