America's Talking - Watchdog: Feds Wasted $683 Million per Day in Improper Payments in 2022

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

The federal government wasted over a half a trillion dollars in improper payments during the first two years of the Biden administration, a new analysis from a spending watchdog group found. The analysis comes from Open The Books, which reports that 82 programs across 17 agencies made improper payments in fiscal year 2022 alone, averaging $20.5 billion per month, or $683 million per day. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Square Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, Casey Harper. Our thanks, Casey. Doing good, Dan. Before we get started, I got to give a shout out to the Denver Nuggets who just became NBA champions. They beat the Miami Heat in five games. So I don't know if you're a basketball guy, Dan.

Not much of one. Congratulations to the Nuggets. their first NBA championship. I always like it or like to see new teams that have never been there or won that succeed. So congratulations to them. But what about the Las Vegas Golden Knights? Didn't they win the NHL championship this week as well? Dan, you're the big hockey fan in this podcast, not me.

So I will defer to your knowledge. I did hear something about this. The Southwest, I guess is holding it down right now. The Southwest. Isn't Denver, you know, Nevada? That's all Southwest. I'd say Las Vegas maybe Southwest. Denver is not really.

Rocky Mountain State. Once again, Casey's showing his lack of geography. Whatever. Let's actually get into some news, Casey. A government watchdog this week released a report on its investigation into government spending, particularly government wasteful spending. Openthebooks.com is the watchdog that I just mentioned. Tell us about what you reported on this story.

Tell us what's in their investigative story. All right. I'll take a break from furiously Googling if Denver is considered in the Southwest. But I'm about to come with their seats here pretty soon. But you're right. We are in the wrong business, Dan. Some people, while we were just typing away while the rest of America was doing their jobs, dealing with COVID, going to work, getting their paycheck, they were fraudsters in this country and outside making hundreds of billions of dollars by stealing from the federal government. And it seems almost certain that they're never going to have to give that money back, the majority of them. and they're never going to get caught. I mean, the return rate on this right now is like 9%. You know, you went through some of these numbers. So $683 million per day, which is kind of a mind-boggling,

stunning number. This came from an analysis from Open the Books. They looked at, they found that 82 programs across 17 federal agencies made improper payments. Now, improper payments is when, you know, Congress passes a bill. They set aside, you know, however many billions of dollars as they are inclined to do. And then it goes, it's all funneled down into these different agencies. And then that's broken can down again and again, and they have these lists of people who are entitled to that money, and they just send them checks. Now, there's some programs where people can apply for the money, and that's where a lot of the fraud came in. But many of the people, for example, who received millions and millions of dollars in checks were actually dead. So we have dead people receiving a lot

of checks. The numbers here are just crazy. 20.5 billion per month, just in 2022 alone. And that's a total of $247 billion in improper payments. So it's kind of incredible that you talk about over half a trillion dollars, just lost, not spent on an infrastructure product, not wasted in the sense that we built a bridge that was probably too expensive or that we, you know, built a park somewhere. They didn't really need to park. We're talking about money that we got no benefit from, which is actually stolen from the government. Of course, this is occurring when we're having a national conversation about federal government spending, driving inflation, which has a direct impact on every American. We've seen some of the highest elevated costs due to

inflation over the course of the past couple of years. The national debt is approaching $32 trillion. The interest alone on that debt is also eating into the tax money that's available for programs that are run by the federal government. It's just like everything seems to be out of control. What is it going to take to put an end to this kind of wasteful, fraudulent spending? Yeah. Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, we're, you know, we did our last podcast about the border and the just insane number of people coming over. It's kind of hard to fathom and how there's no answers. And I think this is a similar problem. I mean, there are ways to crack down. I think the biggest, the biggest source of all this is that this money was passed very quickly.

It was rushed. It was put into new programs. And it was tried, they tried to get out the door really quickly. And so the more of these huge bills we pass with these huge sums, just the more, I guess, you think about it like, more you're filling up the cup more quickly, it's more sloshes over the sides. And you're not able to get it where it needs. go. I mean, these numbers. So for every person who filed individual tax return, it's $1,673. So family of four, Dan, here you are, $3,384. So your family personally donated over $3,000 to the fraudsters. I'd like to do my part for the fraud. They've got to feed their families and buy their yachts. Right. Exactly. Obviously, we have a, we have serious problems within the federal government,

spending problems, tracking problems when it comes to accountability, holding folks accountable for how we spend tax dollars. Congress and the federal government is so messed up. I don't see, unfortunately, I don't see this being fixed anytime. Right. And I think you're right about that. But I do want to say that, so there is a temptation here to say, oh, government's always wasteful. This is just how it is. And there is some truth to that. But this is somewhat of a new problem in the sense that government spending has exploded so much in the last two decades, that this problem has become much worse. So this isn't like it's always been this way for the last 50 years. I mean, the level of waste that we had in 2021, for example,

is triple what we had in 2008. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. And that's even with, you know, a lot of the things. There's a lot going on in 2008. We'll just say that. But 2008 is really when you start to see that increase with that stimulus bill, stimulus package. And then it just set a new trajectory. You're talking about the stimulus bill after, you know, the financial crisis and the, the housing bubble burst and all that stuff. That's when it really started to get out of control. Well, appreciate your reporting on this topic, Casey, but we're out of time. Listeners can keep up with our reporting on government waste and fraud at thecenter

square.com or Casey Harper. I'm Dan McKalep. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.