Washington: Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration has identified $230 billion in fraudulent government payments and already prevented $56 billion from being disbursed, describing the effort as one of the administration’s top domestic priorities.
Speaking during President Donald Trump’s Cabinet meeting at Camp David, Vance said the anti-fraud initiative had uncovered widespread abuse across federal programmes while protecting taxpayer money and safeguarding benefits for vulnerable Americans.
“Just since the beginning of the Fraud Task Force that I started under the President’s leadership and direction, we have identified $230 billion of fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American people, and we have halted already $56 billion of that,” Vance said.
He said preventing improper payments before money leaves the Treasury had become a central objective.
“It’s sometimes hard, once the money has already gone out the door, it’s hard to get it back, but stopping it from going out the door is how we saved the American people $56 billion,” he said.
Vance also announced additional enforcement measures.
“Just today, Mr. President, we will announce 17 new anti-fraud actions that will total about a third of a billion dollars and that’s added to the $230 billion that we’ve already uncovered,” he said.
The Vice President argued that government fraud affects both taxpayers and the intended beneficiaries of federal programmes.
Using a Medicaid-funded neonatal care programme as an example, Vance said fraudulent claims by companies had diverted resources away from low-income mothers and newborn children.
“So who loses in that equation?” he asked. “Number one, of course, is the American taxpayer that is $230 billion poorer because of the fraud that this country has let go on, but I actually think most importantly is that we’ve seen that programme run out of money.”
“So we’ve seen moms and babies unable to access the health care that they need because the fraudsters have gotten rich. That is a disgrace.”
He credited President Trump with directing the administration-wide effort.
“Until the president ordered us to stop it, no one was doing anything about it,” Vance said. “We’ve made a lot of progress, Mr. President, in just under a year but we’re going to keep on working at it, because we believe the American people deserve to have their money spent as you and the Congress have directed it.”
Trump praised the task force’s work, saying the amounts recovered were unprecedented.
“Billions, think of that, not millions, billions of dollars is being recovered, billions, and you haven’t seen anything yet,” the President said.
“We have things happening that people aren’t going to believe. The level of corruption and fraud that took place under the Biden administration was unprecedented.”
The President also claimed investigators had uncovered significant fraud in several states, including Minnesota, California and Maine, though he did not provide additional details during the meeting.
The fraud initiative was one of several domestic policy issues highlighted during the Cabinet meeting, alongside the administration’s economic agenda, tax policy, defence spending, healthcare reforms and foreign policy priorities.
The meeting, held at Camp David, was the first Cabinet meeting from the presidential retreat to be broadcast live on television, according to Trump.
(IANS)
