Jul 23, 2026

That Claim Of Saving $100 Million

      From a Treasury Department press release:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service announced the successful implementation of a new government-wide payment verification process that helps stop federal payments from being sent to deceased individuals …

Since President Trump issued Executive Order 14249Protecting America's Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse, on March 25, 2025, Treasury has significantly expanded government-wide efforts to detect and prevent fraud and improper payments through the Do Not Pay program and new payment verification tools.

To date, Treasury has screened over 885 million payments totaling approximately $2.77 trillion as part of the new payment verification process. The screening has identified more than 4,900 payments worth approximately $99 million that were associated with deceased payees.  …

     Remember that claim from the Commissioner of Social Security that $100 million had been saved by identifying deceased payees, a claim that mystified us? I think we now know what he was talking about. That $99 million in alleged savings was throughout the federal government. Probably little of it was at Social Security. It’s not clear where it could have been saved since Social Security’s Death Master File has been used for many years throughout government to prevent improper payments. Perhaps the $99 million was nothing more than the sort of thing that was already being detected and prevented. It was certainly nothing that Bisignano should have been claiming credit for. Note that he only claimed credit for this on the Bannon podcast. Not much fact checking there.

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