SALT LAKE CITY — The head of the Government Accountability Office described the fraud he saw in COVID-19 systems as “epic. “
Comments via Comptroller General Eugene L. Dodaro, who is head of the GAO, spoke Tuesday at a Senate committee hearing led by Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.
The topic of the hearing, organized through the Committee on Oversight of Spending and Emerging Threats of Homeland Security, cut government spending, fraud and abuse. Romney, a Republican, is the committee’s ranking member.
Dodaro’s firm recently published an annual report with one hundred recommendations on the power and effectiveness of government.
COVID-19 support systems have led to fraud
Asked by Dodaro, Romney said he believes “compared to the industry, the fraud perpetrated against the government is much greater. “
“And I don’t know why it is precisely, but I hope it gets worse with (artificial intelligence). That the ability of bad actors to hack our system, our systems will be greater. . . Do we particularly want our game to save you from fraud? Asked.
Dodaro described the fraud he saw in dispersing COVID-19 systems into cash as “epic. “
“I’ve been with GAO for 50 years. I have never noticed it so badly. Now we are spending a lot on this problem,” he said.
He explained that allowing self-certification for the paycheck coverage program, the economic crisis loan program and the unemployment insurance bureaucracy, while well-intentioned, fraud gets out of control.
“In this case, you had organized a fraud. It’s not just national. It’s international,” Dodaro said. We estimate at least $60 billion unemployment insurance fraud. “
He proposed that Congress pass the Fraud Reduction and Data Analytics Act, which will equip federal agencies with practices to prevent fraud.
Dodaro admitted that there is a tension “between sharing data to ensnare fraudsters and protecting privacy,” which is why government agencies would likely be reluctant to share knowledge with other agencies.
The Internal Revenue Service used a suggestion made by Dodaro’s firm: They addressed identity theft fraud by requiring employers to submit W-2 data by January in April so the company would have all the information to compare with documents filed by taxpayers.
“It helped a lot,” Dodaro said. But there are gaps in this area. “
Eliminate duplication in federal programs
Dodaro also testified about the factor of overlapping government systems. For example, in the United States, there are more than 130 systems managed through 15 other agencies that focus on broadband expansion across the country.
Romney said he was impressed with the statistic.
“I think I had a mind-boggling statistic when I noticed a few years ago that there were 49 other federal vocational education systems and I think the duplication is outrageous,” Romney said.
Romney said he seeks to find out why such duplication occurs. Part of that may be due to lawmakers crafting and passing on spending on issues vital to voters, he said.
“We don’t spend a lot of time wondering if there’s already something dealing with this. We understand that and the executive branch is properly setting up a company or branch or whatever to take care of that,” Romney said. “And there’s never any cleaning. “
He asked Dodaro how such systems can be consolidated or eliminated “without having tons of other people and departments and wheels spinning and money wasted. “
In the case of broadband programs, Dodaro said his department’s suggestion is for Biden’s management to create a national strategy.
“You have several of those systems to build infrastructure, some of them to supply devices to people. Another is for assistance systems to purchase broadband authority. None of them are really coordinated over a period of time,” he said.
He added that 13% of Americans, or about 42 million people, don’t have access to broadband, “everyone is still trying to get it out. “Then there’s web speed, which continues to evolve as it did when 5G took over from 4G. .
“We are committing $65 billion to the Infrastructure Investment (and Jobs) Act in the most sensitive of the roughly $40 billion already spent,” he said. “And if you go back to the days of the Recovery Act in 2009, then they were spending cash on the broadband authority. “
Congress requires the Biden administration to expand a national strategy for “endless federal investment” and a way to determine it, he added.
But Romney said he’s sometimes “a little frustrated” because Congress is asking the executive branch “to do so many things that just don’t happen. “