Building 40 aircraft carriers. Constructing 80,000 miles of border wall. Rebuilding a devastated North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene—nine times over.
Regardless of party, most Americans agree that our government can and should use taxpayer dollars more efficiently. But they still might be shocked at the sheer scale of what we simply lose to fraud, let alone at how much worse the problem could get without decisive action from the incoming administration.
Federal agencies lost between $233 billion and $521 billion to fraud each year from 2018 to 2022. This staggering sum represents 3% to 7% of annual federal spending over that period, enough to fund one of the programs listed above every year.
Shockingly, that fraud estimate doesn’t include federal funds lost at the state level.
Behind much of these losses are identity thieves, who use their…
