Waste of the Day: Biden Set to Break Improper Payments Record

This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire

By Jeremy Portnoy
Real Clear Wire

Topline: The Biden-Harris administration is eclipsing the $1 trillion mark in improper payments, a new record for wasted money in a four-year term, according to a recent report from OpenTheBooks.com.

Key facts: Improper payments — money sent by the federal government to the wrong person, for the wrong reason or in the wrong amount — totaled over $800 billion from 2021 to 2023, adjusted for inflation.

That’s $450,000 every minute. In the roughly five seconds it takes to read this very sentence, the government will have wasted $37,500 on mistaken payments.

Medicaid and Medicare accounted for 43% of improper payments last year, but problems were found across the board. Dead people received $295 million, mostly from pension benefits the Office of Personnel Management sent to former federal workers who had passed away. Prisoners were paid $171 million.

The Internal Revenue Service spent $25 billion doling out fraudulent and mistaken tax credits, with some IRS programs reporting mistake rates above 30%.

The issue is not new, but it is getting progressively worse. Barack Obama wasted roughly 4% of his spending on improper payments in his second term. Donald Trump wasted roughly 5%, and Biden is approaching 6%.

Background: Even California Democrats have realized that the mistake rate is out of control. The bipartisan “Improper Payments Transparency Act” advanced out of committee with four sponsors including Reps. Jimmy Panetta and Scott Peters. It would require the president’s budget to identify ways to reduce improper payments.

Dissent has come from within Biden’s own administration as well. When the Environmental Protection Agency received bonus funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, Inspector General Sean O’Donnell told Congress it would be difficult to spend the required $27 billion in one year without making payment errors. Regardless, none of the money was spent on oversight.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.

Critical quote: Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) had a short response when the Washington Times shared OpenTheBooks.com’s improper payment research with her: “Goodness, that was more than I thought.”

Supporting quote: Some lawmakers take issue with the government’s efforts to claw back overpayments after they’ve been mailed out.

“Our residents after they made the mistake and they get the letter in a year, that’s not fair,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) told the Washington Times. “They’ve already spent the money. They’re living check by check. They don’t deserve to be punished.”

Summary: The Congressional budget is growing larger and more bloated every year as it is. There’s no room for $1 trillion to be thrown out due to careless errors.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

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