The federal government reported hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in improper payments last fiscal year and trillions over the last two decades.
According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, the federal government reported $236 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2023. The true number, though, is actually much higher, but federal reporting is often lacking.
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House Republicans are urging the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog, to investigate what safeguards the National Institutes of Health has in place to ensure China does not use research funds to bolster its military or unethically use humans in research studies.
“Recent reports have raised concerns about the NIH’s ability to screen for national security issues,” the Republicans, led by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Wa., wrote in a letter Tuesday to Government Accountability Office Comptroller Gene Dodaro.
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Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he expects the House to move forward with an aid package that would provide support for Ukraine with “some important innovations,” which may include loans for the war-torn Eastern European nation and using seized assets from Russian oligarchs.
On Fox News’ “Sunday Night In America” Johnson appeared receptive to a plan that would offer Ukraine a loan rather than aid, as Congress has already approved $113 billion in response to Russia’s invasion since February 2022, per the Government Accountability Office.
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A Congressional watchdog said Friday that it was again unable to determine if the federal government’s consolidated financial statements were reliable.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which is Congress’s research arm, said it was hampered by “serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense,” problems in accounting for transactions between federal agencies, weaknesses in the process for preparing the statements and inadequate support for the cost of loan programs from the Small Business Administration and Department of Education.
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Legislation offered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the “Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2024,” would conduct an audit of the U.S. Federal Reserve by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for the first time since the Dodd-Frank legislation of 2010 required an audit of the central bank’s purchases of mortgage-backed securities.
This time around, the GAO would look at the Fed’s entire balance sheet, including the recently enacted Bank Term Funding Program — now $141 billion according to the central bank’s latest H.4.1. release — that has been lending banks money in exchange for U.S. Treasuries after the spike in interest rates caused there to be a reported $620 billion of unreported losses including regional banks that experienced failures in the interest rate crunch.
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There were $236 billion worth of “improper payments” made under the Biden administration in fiscal year 2023 alone, more than double the amount in fiscal year 2013, Just the News has learned.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the potential for waste, fraud, and abuse from erroneous payments runs across the spectrum of federal agencies.
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To borrow from an old saying, nothing can be certain except for death and taxpayer funding for the abortion industry. At the request of pro-life members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office released the latest round of data detailing how much taxpayer funding goes to Planned Parenthood and other international abortion organizations. From 2019 through 2021, Planned Parenthood in the U.S. received $1.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies.
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Abortion advocacy groups received close to $2 billion in federal taxpayer funding from 2019 to 2021, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released on Tuesday.
The GAO report was first requested in early 2022 by 142 congressional members led by Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, who underscored their concerns that taxpayer dollars are being used to fund abortion services. The report revealed that Planned Parenthood received approximately $1.78 billion in taxpayer funding from 2019 to 2021 and is receiving increased federal support under the current Biden administration.
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U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) has joined legislation that aims to prevent the end of AM radios in new vehicles.
The Bipartisan and Bicameral AM for Every Vehicle Act sponsored in the Senate by U.S Senators Edward Markey (D-MA) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), along with U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and Vance would order the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to issue a rule requiring automakers to keep AM broadcast radio in their automobiles without a separate or extra payment, tax, or penalty.
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Nationwide, electronic benefits transfer fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers up to $4.7 billion annually, according to the Government Accountability Office.
In 2022, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program distributed over $113.7 billion to nearly 22 million households.
The federal government entrusts states to reduce fraud in safety net programs. In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told all 50 states to plan to fight EBT skimmer fraud, which happens when bad actors install a card reader on top of a legitimate point of sale at a retail store.
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The Department of Defense (DOD) has neglected to address its inability to keep track of at least $220 billion in equipment provided to government contractors, according to a Tuesday report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Auditors first reported the Pentagon’s failure to account for government-owned equipment or material offered up for use to contracting agencies, also called government furnished property, in 2001, according to the report. DOD has made little improvement since then, increasing the risk that the Pentagon could accidentally overlook errors in the books.
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A coalition of 130 lawmakers sent a letter to a top federal watchdog raising the alarm about a spike in foreign ownership of U.S. farmland.
The letter calls for the Government Accountability Office to conduct a full review of that foreign ownership, its potential impact on trade, national security, food security and what the federal government is doing about it, if anything.
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The Biden administration has rebooted the Energy Department’s green loan program that lent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the Obama-era to the now-defunct green energy company, Solyndra, according to an announcement.
The Advanced Clean Energy Storage project in Utah will receive the loan, leaving $2.5 billion for other clean energy projects, the Department of Energy (DOE) stated Wednesday.
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The Supreme Court denied a petition from 10 Republican-led states Thursday requesting it to block a key Biden administration climate policy.
The decision ensures that President Joe Biden’s so-called “social cost” of carbon policy — which assigns an estimated dollar value or cost to every ton of carbon emissions, according to the Government Accountability Office — can remain in place and be used for future federal permitting processes. The high court rejected states’ April 27 petition without giving a reason or listing which justices opposed it, according to a one-page filing published on the Supreme Court docket.
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The Department of the Treasury has awarded a small fraction of the tens of billions of dollars Congress appropriated for pandemic rental assistance since January.
The federal government has expended less than $3 billion of the $46.6 billion in funds given to the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program, the Treasury Department announced on Wednesday. The U.S. doled out $1.49 billion from January through May and $1.5 billion in June to low-income renters nationwide, according to a spreadsheet published by the Treasury.
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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has opened an investigation into President Joe Biden’s decision to freeze congressional funds allocated for construction of the southern border wall, Politico reported.
Senate Republicans requested the GAO investigate the Biden administration for potentially violating the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), which prohibits the president from altering funding appropriated by Congress without approval, Politico reported. Republicans are referring to the $1.4 billion allocated for border wall construction in the $900 billion COVID bill passed by Congress in December.
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The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee is asking the Government Accountability Office to review whether members of the Chinese Communist Party have exploited a program that allows foreigners to obtain green cards by investing in businesses in the United States.
Reps. Jim Jordan and Guy Reschenthaler sent a letter Monday to Gene Dodaro, the comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, inquiring whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its members have used the EB-5 program to gain a foothold in the United States.
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Infection prevention and control deficiencies were widespread across most of the country’s nursing homes before the coronavirus outbreak, a watchdog group reported Thursday.
More than 82% of the United States’ 15,500 nursing homes were cited for infection prevention and control deficiencies between 2013 and 2017, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) wrote in a blog post Thursday.
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The national debt could be nearly twice the size of the economy by 2048 if steps are not taken to reduce it, a new report released by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) states.
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By Natalia Castro When federal bureaucrats are unaccountable to even their own managers, it can be hard to identify and correct abuse within the system. In his most recent undercover expose, James O’Keefe sought to uncover the stories of the federal government’s worst employees directly from the source. This week,…
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