Cracking Down on Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
By Sen. John Thune
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that as much as $500 billion is stolen from federal programs each year due to fraud. That’s not an inconsequential sum, and every dollar of waste, fraud, and abuse is a dollar that isn’t going to an American in need.
Recent reports suggest that widespread fraud has taken root in Minnesota with as much as $9 billion or more stolen from federal programs since 2018, and prosecutors have indicted numerous individuals for a number of schemes. I hope that these individuals are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and that we soon get to the bottom of what happened in Minnesota.
Over the past year, Republicans have been working hard to prevent the type of waste, fraud, and abuse that is now coming to light in Minnesota. Our landmark legislation, the Working Families Tax Cuts, contained a number of reforms to guard against abuse, focus federal dollars on those most in need, and hold states accountable for the federal funding they receive.
New measures in the law prevent noncitizens from receiving federal health care and nutrition benefits and refocus those programs to serving American citizens. It includes stronger work requirements for able-bodied, working-age adults without young children. It increases accountability, requiring states to check enrollees’ eligibility for Medicaid twice per year and taking aim at duplicative enrollment in federal health care programs, which is estimated to cost taxpayers $14 billion per year.
These are just a few of the commonsense reforms that Republicans enacted last year to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse. Unfortunately, while one would hope this would be a bipartisan issue, it’s not. Democrats panned the commonsense measures in the Working Families Tax Cuts as “cruel.” They have said little about the fraud scandal in Minnesota, and they have shown they are perfectly willing to allow waste, fraud, and abuse to continue in the Obamacare exchanges.
Although there is evidence of fraud in the exchanges and in the Biden COVID subsidies, which were especially susceptible to fraud, Democrats want to extend those subsidies without any reforms. A recent GAO report revealed that the ACA exchanges continue to enroll fake individuals, improperly pay out taxpayer-subsidized health insurance, and fail to ensure payment accuracy. The agency tested 24 accounts, and 23 of them were enrolled with false or no documentation to verify Social Security numbers, citizenship, or reported income. Then there are the 40 percent of enrollees in fully subsidized health insurance who never filed a claim. But despite these and other issues, Democrats voted numerous times to extend enhanced subsidies without a single reform.
We have a responsibility to taxpayers to be good stewards of their tax dollars and ensure that money goes toward its intended purpose. We need to have guardrails on federal programs to protect against nefarious schemes and bad actors and restore integrity to these programs. Republicans have made progress on that this past year, and our work continues.
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Why don’t you Republicans crack down on the fraud in the White House. What a bunch of gutless wonders you all are. Trump is talking about going after Greenland, causing havoc and terror in U.S. cities and you stooges put out your messages and ignore the real problem our Country is facing and that’s the felon in the White House.
I see you got the updated version of the demtard talking points. You can read!
And what a smart fellow you are with time to make pithy posts. ICE reject your app again?
How about pointing that self righteous finger of yours back at yourself with your pithy post?
But to be honest, I am too old to apply for a job like that or I would. However, I do make a daily trips around the city to the various places illegal aliens like to hang at and photograph and video them. Then I load up what I have on a USB drive and deliver it to the FBI agent a few house down from me and he forwards it on to his ICE friends. So in a way I am doing my part to help get society back in order. Thanks for asking though.
I do believe you are that vicious and rotten.
He isnt. Its just a story to act “cool” on the internet to the rest of his SS friends.
Considering the source, I’ll take that as a compliment.
Look at this guy. The personality type that would’ve turned in Anne Frank and been smug about it.
Not hardly. Anne Frank and others of her ethnicity were targeted strictly for their ethnicity. Not because she entered another country in violation of law and were committing violent crime.
Look at yourself. Your of the personality type that would sit by and let your city go to hell with crime and willingly sacrifice your own family’s safety for the sake of virtue signaling. Illegal aliens are being targeted because they are here ILLEGALLY. I know it’s a stretch but do try to have a hint of rational thought.
Thune has adopted the negativity of the Trump administration…that fraud by our citizens is the biggest problem. It is not. Is there some, yes. But Republicans are willing to push this because it is a great sound bite. Why aren’t we looking at Trump’s family, the deal he’s made with big oil and the list goes on. Instead we’re going to investigate “welfare mothers” for the piddly amount of funding they might get to help them. Ridiculous…
Do you have proof or is this all speculation?
And this has what to do with democrat supported fraud and the accusation that the above poster stated?
Ms. Good “sprang a few leaks” as a result of her foolish behavior.
Trump’s wealth went up 4 billion this year. The entire family is using this presidency to profit.
Using his presidency to profit. Care to offer up some proof showing the money trail? Or is this just another dem talking point ?
Got a 747 I can show you. Trumps new resort just broke ground in the kingdom. Pardons are filling his pac which he uses for personal expenses. Good enough?
The 747 doesn’t belong to Trump. It was given to the US. The plans for the resort were initiated well before he won re-election for the third time. Show the pac donations then, who and how much.
Nope, not good enough. But you get the participation trophy for trying, and failing.
President Donald Trump purchased up to $51 million worth of company and municipal debts at the end of 2025.
That is according to a financial disclosure form that was submitted by the White House, which showed 191 financial transactions.
The investments included four purchases of Netflix and Discovery Communications bonds worth up to $2 million
So what? How is this fraud? He disclosed the purchases and didn’t hide any of them according to what you posted. Can the same be said of Ilhan Omar and AOC? How do you explain going from a net worth of $60K to over $30M in 6 years? Let’s hear you explain that one away.
This whole administration is a waste and fraudulent and EXTREMELY abusive!!!
Lighten up Francis.
I want to know something, perhaps Anonymous at 7:49 can explain:
where were all the liberal white women when ICE raided the Morrell plant while I was working there in 1998-2001? I forget which year it was, but it coincided with St Patrick’s Day, so we called it the St Patrick’s Massacre. Some of the hardest working , most productive employees were scooped up and others ran off. Supervisors called us asking if their second shift workers had called in sick, because they were missing. One said “it’s like a ghost town up here.” Families were calling us because first shift workers, their fathers and mothers, had not come home from work. They were understandably frantic.
I don’t think Angela Kennecke even bothered to cover it.
ICE has been raiding businesses and neighborhoods for decades, causing terror and havoc, but liberals didn’t care until Trump took office.
If you all had really cared about immigrant families and immigration enforcement, you would have been protesting and working to change immigration law long before now.
Obviously you don’t really care about immigrants, you just hate Trump. You are motivated by hatred, not compassion, and there is nothing virtuous about that.
You nailed it Anne. TDS is the motivation.
The common factor is easy to see: Limbaugh / Fox – created media bogey-men that keep white conservatives angry and reactive, dangerously reactive. It was powering the raids in 98-2000, just as it powers ICE now. The bipartisan plan that would have fixed everything in McCain’s 2013 bill was KOLLED by chicken hawk Rush/FOX media; the early 2024 plan that would have fixed law implementation problems was killed by MAGA Congress members on orders by Trump. We’re having urban violence intentionally created BY TRUMP right now – and our nation’s future hinges on whether people are going to let Trump create his own fake violence to take away our election rights, or whether we are going to keep calling bull**** on it all.
Thanks AB, we all need the “oh poor Trump” card played at this time.
Federal immigration laws and their enforcement have been around since 1807, when the United States banned the Importation of slaves, followed in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion Act. The INS was established in 1933. In 2008, Amy Winehouse was denied a visa and was unable to accept her Grammy in person.
You just sound ignorant when you say immigration enforcement is new. It’s not. Deal with it
Nobody said that. LMAO build and burn strawmen much?? Bring me a shrubbery already.
in 1948, the year Woody Guthrie wrote the lyrics to “Deportee,” (AKA Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon, about the deaths of 28 Mexican deportees) one of my best friends was born to migrant Mexican farm workers who were presumably deported when she was a young child. She did not know why she and her siblings were placed in foster homes because all she recalled was a social worker asking her what she wanted to do and she answered she wanted to go to school. (It is very sad that many children are placed in foster care and nobody ever tells them why.)
Anyway, the belief was that the parents were deported and the children with birthright citizenship were left in the USA.
Immigration enforcement is nothing new, and you didn’t give a shit until Trump took office.
The GOP has used the issue over and over as a white nationalist rally cry – many people have tried to fix the system, let our economy provide jobs, welcome immigrants, provide smooth legal daily border access. Every stinkin time it gets blown up it is BLOWN UP BY GEEKSHOW REPUBLICAN OPPORTUNISTS IGNITING HATE THEY CAN USE POLITICALLY. That is a fact. Over and over and over.
It’s no surprise in 2016 Trump most viciously destroyed John McCain on the campaign trail – McCain was the last Republican brave enough to try and create a working system – and the Conservative Media ended that bill. Trump destroyed McCain to stop any Republican from daring to fix the issue – Trump needs the open festering issue hot and bleeding to keep his followers engaged.
Actually, and this was proven during 2025, all we needed was a new President that was actually going to enforce the law. But you libturds just can’t handle the truth.
BUT BUT BUT TRUMP!