Improper payments are cheating the taxpayer

Throughout this week, the Washington Examiner’s Restoring America project will feature its latest series, “ Reforming the Deep State: Reining in the Federal Bureaucracy.” We invited some of the best policy minds in the conservative movement to speak to the issues of what waste, fraud, abuse, and unaccountability exist throughout the federal government and what still needs to be done. To learn more about the series, click here .

Every year, the federal government sends hundreds of billions of dollars to the wrong people —criminals, ineligible recipients, and beneficiaries of bureaucratic errors. In 2024 alone, the federal government admitted to at least $162 billion in improper payments. That’s $1,200 for every household in America.

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