Tackling Fraud AND Waste: A Dual Imperative for American Taxpayers
When bad actors exploit government programs designed to help Americans, they don't just steal money, they undermine public trust, drive up costs for honest citizens, and make it harder for those who genuinely need assistance to access it. As the President rightly noted in this week’s State of the Union Address, and Democrats and Republicans agree, Americans pay the price through higher medical bills, insurance rates, rent, and taxes.
But here's the reality we must also confront: fraud is only a small part of the problem.
While rooting out intentional theft is critical, waste, the inefficient, duplicative, or outdated use of taxpayer dollars, is an even larger drain on our national resources. According to the Government Accountability Office, federal agencies have identified hundreds of billions of dollars in improper payments over the past decade, much of it due not to criminal intent, but to administrative errors, outdated eligibility systems, and poor program design.
State Leaders Need Strategic, Flexible Partners
State governments are on the front lines of this fight, administering some of the federal programs where fraud and waste occur. But many lack the specialized expertise, technology infrastructure, and analytical capabilities needed to identify and eliminate these problems.
This is where experienced contractors, working within tightly guard-railed programs, can make a critical difference. The right partners bring data analytics tools that can flag suspicious patterns in real-time, conduct comprehensive program audits to identify inefficiencies, and help states modernize legacy systems that are hemorrhaging dollars.
When agencies can rapidly deploy fraud investigators, data analysts, and program auditors where they're needed most, they can respond to threats faster and more effectively. This flexibility is particularly crucial as fraud schemes become more sophisticated and cross state lines. The administration's focus on workforce modernization complements the “war on fraud” by ensuring state agencies can have the right people in the right places at the right time.
State leaders shouldn't have to choose between fighting fraud and eliminating waste; the same modern approaches and expert resources can address both simultaneously. Strategic partnerships allow states to act quickly and effectively without building entirely new internal capabilities from scratch.
The Path Forward: Eliminating Out-of-Date Laws
States are currently ham strung by out-of-date laws affecting the SNAP and Medicaid programs. Laws from the 1970s and earlier allow only full-time public employees to determine and redetermine eligibility and conduct fair hearings. This barrier slows accurate processing of applications, leads to unreasonable processing times for valid applications and increases error rates as states cannot access modern technology at reasonable cost resulting in overall systemic inefficiency. With bipartisan frustration over government spending at an all-time high, there's never been a better time to tackle all sides of this problem.
There is legislation pending in Congress that would repeal these archaic laws and replace them with common sense state flexibility coupled with clear guardrails and prohibitions against conflicts of interest.
We urge the Congress to act to expand this mission beyond fraud alone. Bring the same energy, resources, and accountability to eliminating inefficiency that you're bringing to prosecuting theft, and support state leaders with the private sector expertise and the technology they need to succeed.