During his political campaign, President Donald Trump famously said that he wanted to “drain the swamp” and root out waste and corruption in Washington, D.C. Now he is no doubt finding that the swamp is even deeper and muckier than he imagined.
There certainly is no shortage of targets for eliminating the now-cliché “waste, fraud and abuse,” which has, unfortunately, become more of a political slogan than a legitimate call to action. If the administration is serious about addressing this substantial issue, however, improper payments would be a good place to start.
During the last fiscal year, the federal government made more than $144 billion in improper payments — a whopping 243 percent increase just since 2007. The bulk of this comes from the Medicare Fee-for-Service ($41.1 billion), Medicaid ($36.3 billion), Medicare Advantage (Part C) ($16.2 billion) and Earned Income Tax Credit ($16.8 billion) programs.
Congress attempted to get somewhat of a handle on the problem when it passed the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010, which requires affected agencies to identify improper payments, devise and implement a corrective action plan, meet reduction targets and report on progress in reducing error rates. But in May, a U.S. Government Accountability Office analysis of reports from agencies’ inspector generals found that 15 of the 24 agencies reviewed — which together accounted for 96 percent of all improper payments in FY 2015 — were not in compliance with these requirements. Even this may be an optimistic analysis, since some IGs considered an agency to be in compliance if it merely filed the proper paperwork, without attempting to determine whether the information was actually accurate.
Among other head-scratching examples of government agencies’ derelict management of taxpayers’ money, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction revealed in June that the Pentagon had wasted $28 million purchasing the wrong kind of camouflage for the Afghan National Army over the previous eight-plus years. Not only was the green, woodland camouflage pattern unsuitable for the predominantly tan Afghan landscape — defeating the purpose of the uniforms by making the soldiers actually stand out — but the Defense Department also overpaid for a proprietary pattern that had a “significantly higher” cost than similar nonproprietary alternatives.
“My concern is what if the [Afghan] minister of defense liked purple, or liked pink?” John Sopko, the special inspector general, told USA Today. “Are we going to buy pink uniforms for soldiers and not ask questions? That’s insane.”
Perhaps those uniforms would be better suited for the government’s surplus military equipment program, also known as the 1033 program, that has serve to militarize local police departments. Speaking of which, another GAO report issued two weeks ago explained how the agency was able to obtain more than 100 items of military gear, valued at approximately $1.2 million, by setting up a fictitious federal law enforcement agency with a fake website and address. The equipment included “night-vision goggles, simulated rifles and simulated pipe bombs, which could be potentially lethal items if modified with commercially available items.”
And while we’re on the subject of nonexistent entities receiving government benefits, an audit released about a month ago found that the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued more than $800,000 in fraudulent Section 8 housing subsidies to a single apartment complex in Texas, including approximately $575,000 to nonexistent tenants.
But, despite the numerous frustrating and odious examples with which the administration must contend, it is not without success stories. The Trump administration announced in June that it was eliminating seven paperwork requirements related to preparations for the Y2K bug — 17 years after the event came and went (largely without incident).
“Many agencies have forgotten how to deregulate,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters. “It’s been so long since somebody asked them to look backward.”
It’s a minor victory, to be sure, but if the Trump administration can apply some common-sense deregulation on a larger scale, it will have performed a valuable — and long overdue — service for taxpayers.
Adam B. Summers is a columnist with the Southern California News Group.