Here’s Vance’s Plan To Attack $250 Billion In Annual Fraud Losses: The Task Force has a Wide Range of Activity That It Considers Fraud; Vance Holds First Meeting of a New Anti-Fraud Task Force Targeting Benefit Programs

Breccan F. Thies / The Federalist

Here’s Vance’s Plan To Attack $250 Billion In Annual Fraud Losses:

The task force has a wide range of activity that it considers fraud.

The Trump administration’s efforts to attack government fraud is beginning in earnest, with a memo directing the first steps for the President’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which the government says accounts for $250 billion in losses every year.

“Every year, hardworking Americans pay taxes to fund a vast benefits system for citizens in need. These benefits programs are laudable and are a testament to the generosity of the American people,” the memo to task force members from Vice President J.D. Vance and Federal Trade Commission Chairman (FTC) Andrew N. Ferguson, who serves as the task force’s vice chair, states. “Unfortunately, these programs have been plagued by decades of waste, fraud, and abuse. By one estimate, fraud in federal benefits programs results in losses of about $250 billion per year, and the true number may be higher. These funds are stolen both from the taxpayers and from vulnerable Americans most in need of help.”

Fraudsters like the Somalis in Minnesota and many others across the country (many of whom are foreigners) are “bleeding the federal government dry, robbing taxpayers, and denying honest Americans the services for which they have paid,” the memo states.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently identified and suspended 70 hospice and home health providers flagged for fraud. That comes after Vance and CMS administrator Mehmet Oz suspended nearly $260 million in Medicaid funds going to Minnesota in February due to fraud concerns.

“The American people deserve better than being ripped off by people who hate this country,” a Vance spokesman told The Federalist.

The task force aims to essentially audit government programs, starting with the most costly programs that also have the fewest verification safeguards. The memo states they will attempt to recover the money that has been stolen, but acknowledges that doing so is extremely difficult.

It states that of the roughly $250 billion per year lost to fraud, the government only recovers about $10 billion.

“Plain and simple, ‘pay-and-chase’ does not stop fraud. We cannot litigate ourselves out of the fraud problem,” the memo states. “The federal government simply does not have the resources necessary to recover all of the money lost to fraud once it has been paid out. Many fraudsters are judgment proof and therefore could not pay back the money they stole even after a successful prosecution. Moreover, the federal government has confronted hostile, partisan, and lawless federal judges in nearly every State, which pose yet another obstacle to litigating our way out of the fraud crisis.”

While there certainly will be litigation against anyone committing fraud, which is the first of four steps outlined in the memo, and will be led by the Department of Justice’s new Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for Fraud, Colin McDonald, the memo also states that the task force must also be aimed at preventing fraud before payments are made. --->READ MORE HERE

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Vance holds first meeting of a new anti-fraud task force targeting benefit programs

Vice President JD Vance on Friday held the inaugural meeting of a new anti-fraud task force he’s leading as the Trump administration seeks to show it’s cracking down on potential misuse of social programs.

Vance, speaking Friday before the task force held a closed-door meeting, said that the federal government, for decades, had not taken the issue of fraud seriously and that it needed to be tackled with “a whole-government approach.”

“This is not just the theft of the American people’s money,” Vance said. “It is also the theft of critical services that the American people rely on.”

President Donald Trump, a Republican, has made a crackdown on fraud a central part of his domestic agenda as voters have expressed concern about affordability ahead of November’s midterm elections. That effort comes after allegations of fraud involving day care centers run by Somali residents in Minneapolis prompted a massive immigration crackdown in the Midwestern city, resulting in widespread protests.

Vance cited some of the Minnesota allegations on Friday. Last month, he held a news conference to announce a temporary halt of some Medicaid funding until the state took actions that federal officials said would address their concerns.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat who faced Vance as a vice presidential candidate in 2024, has called it a “campaign of retribution” and said the Trump administration was “weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota.”

The task force is also the most visible assignment to date that Trump has given to Vance, who is seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

Vance and the task force, which includes about half the president’s Cabinet, the leader of a new Justice Department division focused on prosecuting fraud and Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson, are set to meet regularly to look at rooting out potential fraud and waste in federal benefit programs.

Ferguson, who is vice chair of the task force, cast the issue of fraud as a dire crisis facing the country and said it “shreds the social trust on which these programs and our entire nation depend.” --->READ MORE HERE

If you like what you see, please "Like" and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK here, GETTR here, and TWITTER here.