I & I Editorial BoardIn the brief time when Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team had access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, they discovered that the government’s bookkeeping is so sloppy they can’t say where checks are going or why. That the government sends money to people on “do not pay” lists. And that some $100 billion worth of entitlement money goes to people with no Social Security number or temporary ID.
“This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately,” Musk posted on X after a federal judge blocked his access to the system.
Musk is right about this being insane. But just how insane isn’t obvious – until you realize that each year the federal government writes almost $5 trillion worth of checks for individuals. (It’s expected to be $4.8 trillion this fiscal year, and is on track to top $5.7 trillion by 2029.)
Today, more than two-thirds of all the money spent by the federal government are for what the government labels as “direct payments for individuals,” which it defines as “spending programs designed to transfer income (in cash or in kind) to individuals or families.”
This isn’t money to buy weapons, or build roads and bridges, or maintain national parks. It doesn’t pay salaries for government workers or soldiers, or fund Congress. It doesn’t fund NASA, or get shipped abroad as international aid. It doesn’t go toward securing the border. This is cash, taken out of Peter’s pocket and handed over to Paul.
Yes, it includes things such as food stamps and housing subsidies, but the vast bulk of it is made up of middle-class entitlements paid for by middle-class taxpayers (minus the federal government’s cut).
Up until 1945, these “direct payments” accounted for a small fraction of federal spending. But they then steadily rose as FDR’s New Deal programs started kicking in. They got another huge boost from Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and by 1972 ate up 40% of all federal spending, which was roughly where they stayed until Bill Clinton pushed it up to the 60% range. By the end of Barack Obama’s second term, as Obamacare was taking hold, payments for individuals topped 70% of all federal spending. They reached an all-time high of 72.2% of all federal spending in 2022 under Joe Biden.
So, how many of these checks are fraudulent, sent to the wrong people, those who shouldn’t be in this country? Who knows.
What Musk says his team uncovered during his brief window of opportunity is little short of criminal. At a White House press event this week, Musk pointed out that Treasury doesn’t employ “basic controls that should be in place, that are in place in any company” to track and control spending.
- Checks often don’t have a payment categorization code describing what the check is for, which is needed to pass financial audits.
- The comment field, where there’s supposed to be a rationale for the payment, is typically blank.
It gets worse. Musk went on to say that:
And then we have a do-not-pay list, which can take up to a year for an organization to get on the do-not-pay list. And we’re talking about terrorist organizations, we’re talking about known fraudsters, known things that do not match any congressional appropriation … And even once on the list, the list is not used. It’s mind-blowing.
Now, consider that each year $5 trillion worth of what are essentially blank checks – $13.7 billion each and every day – are flying out of the Treasury Department. If just a small fraction of those are in error, that’s hundreds of billions worth of taxpayer money wasted.
So why are Democrats and the judges they’ve appointed trying to keep DOGE from learning more? They claim it’s to protect privacy. Musk says it’s just about What we’re talking here, we’re really just talking about “adding common sense controls that should be present that haven’t been present.”
Most likely the reason Democrats want to keep Musk locked out is because they know what he will eventually uncover: that they’ve been wasting massive amounts of taxpayer money, ignoring fraud and abuse, and getting fat off of the current system.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
I’ll never understand why Congress (both Republicans and Democrats) do not monitor the agencies created in the past by Congress. Isn’t that one of their main jobs.
Also, why aren’t the Treasury jobs managed so that the people who do issue checks to those who don’t deserve checks held accountable. In private business if they did that they’d be fired.
So what is done to these bureaucrats? They’re certainly not fired; apparently they are promoted?
And, of course, Federal judges are now political-many of those judges who rule against Musk and Trump audits were appointed by Obama or Biden and many take their marching orders from the liberal enclaves where they reside and render opinions, like in Southern NY or Washington, DC.
The Democratic Senators who inveigh against Musk, fulminate so heartily because they know that Musk is doing the job they should be doing-and they are afraid of being held responsible by the voting public for all the fraud, abuse and corruption that will be found.
It would be nice if the public who elects Congresspeople would pay less attention to their blarney and con-man tactics and more attention to their work ethic-and their ethics in general.