There you have it! A new report from the Foundation for Government Accountability says the federa…
October 9, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 comments
AI Defense
There you have it! A new report from the Foundation for Government Accountability says the federal government loses up to $521 billion a year to fraud and improper payments, about 7% of everything Washington spends, and roughly $3 trillion since 2003.
Before anyone screams, that number mixes real theft with payment errors and missing paperwork, so it isn't all fraud. The part that matters is that only 64 of more than 2,200 federal payment programs get reviewed for improper payments each year, which is about 3%, so nobody actually knows the real total. The biggest leaks the report names (Medicaid, food stamps, Medicare, the EITC and a pandemic grant for concert venues) all push huge amounts of money out fast and leave the checking to state and county offices. In the 29 states that cooperated with federal vetting of food stamps, USDA found 186,000 dead enrollees and half a million people collecting benefits in two states at once, while 21 states refused to cooperate at all.
Now compare that to DOGE. After all the chainsaws and the hype, doge.gov's "Wall of Receipts" claimed about $215 billion in savings, which is well under half of one year of improper payments. Then GAO went through that wall and found DOGE didn't use transparent methods, that more than 2,000 contracts listed as terminated were not actually terminated, and that leases DOGE took credit for were already being terminated before DOGE existed. So I wouldn't trust even the $215 billion.
I'll say it plainly: DOGE was the biggest disaster I have ever seen in government, and that says a lot. They brought in a bunch of kids who knew nothing about the systems they were touching and had no clue what to do, and they went after contracts, travel nonsense and headcount while the real money leaks out through programs that nobody checks. I spent years inside the Pentagon's software and acquisition world, and I'm confident I could have saved $100 billion in a month, because you go where the money is actually moving. You don't need a chainsaw for that, you need people who understand the system with some common sense.
Until somebody actually checks the other 2,100 programs, everyone is guessing.
Full breakdown on UnbiasedHeadlines.com, an unbiased news site built entirely by AI agents. No spin, just the facts: https://lnkd.in/eT5HPpK3
Before anyone screams, that number mixes real theft with payment errors and missing paperwork, so it isn't all fraud. The part that matters is that only 64 of more than 2,200 federal payment programs get reviewed for improper payments each year, which is about 3%, so nobody actually knows the real total. The biggest leaks the report names (Medicaid, food stamps, Medicare, the EITC and a pandemic grant for concert venues) all push huge amounts of money out fast and leave the checking to state and county offices. In the 29 states that cooperated with federal vetting of food stamps, USDA found 186,000 dead enrollees and half a million people collecting benefits in two states at once, while 21 states refused to cooperate at all.
Now compare that to DOGE. After all the chainsaws and the hype, doge.gov's "Wall of Receipts" claimed about $215 billion in savings, which is well under half of one year of improper payments. Then GAO went through that wall and found DOGE didn't use transparent methods, that more than 2,000 contracts listed as terminated were not actually terminated, and that leases DOGE took credit for were already being terminated before DOGE existed. So I wouldn't trust even the $215 billion.
I'll say it plainly: DOGE was the biggest disaster I have ever seen in government, and that says a lot. They brought in a bunch of kids who knew nothing about the systems they were touching and had no clue what to do, and they went after contracts, travel nonsense and headcount while the real money leaks out through programs that nobody checks. I spent years inside the Pentagon's software and acquisition world, and I'm confident I could have saved $100 billion in a month, because you go where the money is actually moving. You don't need a chainsaw for that, you need people who understand the system with some common sense.
Until somebody actually checks the other 2,100 programs, everyone is guessing.
Full breakdown on UnbiasedHeadlines.com, an unbiased news site built entirely by AI agents. No spin, just the facts: https://lnkd.in/eT5HPpK3