Iowa Senator Joni Ernst has led development of a package of cost-cutting ideas for the federal government that’s eligible for debate in the U.S. Senate this month.
“Every single day fraudsters are taking advantage of the federal government,” Ernst said.
The anti-fraud package would save the federal government at least $240 billion according to Ernst. The legislation calls for everything from paying bonuses to federal employees who uncover fraud to requiring the return of an estimated $65 billion in unspent COVID relief funds. “The original intent of those grants, pushing the money out the door was to help those entities overcome COVID, so we’re beyond that,” Ernst said. “We need to pull that money back in.” The legislation would extend the statute of limitations, giving federal prosecutors another decade to file charges against performing arts organizations and restaurants for alleged misuse of emergency federal assistance during the pandemic.
An Ernst proposal to require the U.S. Treasury Department to describe every payment it makes is included in the package. “This transcends every administration,” Ernst said. “There could be a department that requests a payment for something, but they do not describe what that payment is for…You could have payment that goes out to a contractor and have no invoice associated with it, no description of what that payment is for, so you really don’t have any way of tracking that money.”
Ernst said several of the provisions in the package are aimed at reducing fraud in social welfare programs, including Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. For instance, it would require services to be performed before federal child care grants would be released. “Many of these types of businesses are already established. You already have the necessary documentation to show the federal government…from the month prior, the year prior, showing what those expenses are,” Ernst said. “…Unfortunately what we’ve seen time and time again. Now, we’re asking instead: ‘You show us you’ve done these good things, then we’ll reimburse.’”
Ernst began working with other senators in the DOGE Caucus she leads in January and now there are bills co-sponsored by 21 other Republican senators in the package, including Senator Grassley’s proposal to expand legal protections for whistleblowers who are federal contractors, grant recipients or state employees.
