[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                       WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
                      EXAMINING A PATH FORWARD TO
                      ASSESS AGENCIES' EFFORTS TO
                  PREVENT IMPROPER PAYMENTS AND FRAUD

=======================================================================


                                HEARING

                               before the

                 SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
                       AND THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE

                                 of the

                         COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                           AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 10, 2024
                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-128
                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
             
             
             
             [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]



                       Available on: govinfo.gov
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                                 ______

                  U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 

56-884 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2024
























                             
               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                      Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina          Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Shontel Brown, Ohio
Byron Donalds, Florida               Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Robert Garcia, California
William Timmons, South Carolina      Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Greg Casar, Texas
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Dan Goldman, New York
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Nick Langworthy, New York            Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida

                                 ------                                
                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
       Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
                      Bill Womack, Senior Advisor
                 Alex Rankin, Professional Staff Member
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051
                      
                                 ------                                

    Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce

                     Pete Sessions, Texas, Chairman
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Ranking 
Clay Higgins, Louisiana                Minority Member
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Byron Donalds, Florida                 Columbia
William Timmons, South Carolina      Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Greg Casar, Texas
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Robert Garcia, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri              Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Vacancy                              Jasmine Crockett, Texas
                                     Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     
                                     















                                     
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                               ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on September 10, 2024...............................     1



                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

The Honorable Michael E. Horowitz, Chair, Pandemic Response 
  Accountability Committee
Oral Statement...................................................     4

Orice Williams Brown, Chief Operating Officer, U.S. Government 
  Accountability Office
Oral Statement...................................................     6

Linda Miller, Co-Founder and Chair, Program Integrity Alliance
Oral Statement...................................................     7

Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are 
  available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document 
  Repository at: docs.house.gov.







                           Index of Documents

                               ----------                              

  * Report, CBPP, Gov Pandemic Response Turned Poverty Surge into 
  Decline; submitted by Rep. Norton.

  * Report, CBPP, Unemployment Programs Provided Support; 
  submitted by Rep. Norton.

  * Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. Connolly.

Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                       WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
                      EXAMINING A PATH FORWARD TO
                      ASSESS AGENCIES' EFFORTS TO
                  PREVENT IMPROPER PAYMENTS AND FRAUD

                              ----------                              

                      Tuesday, September 10, 2024

                     U.S. House of Representatives
               Committee on Oversight and Accountability
         Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal
                              Workforce

                                           Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Pete Sessions 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Sessions, Palmer, Higgins, Biggs, 
Timmons, Burchett, Burlison, Raskin, Mfume, Norton, Frost, 
Connolly, Lee, Crockett, and Tlaib.
    Mr. Sessions. The hearing of the Subcommittee on Government 
Operations and the Federal Workforce will come to order.
    And I would like to welcome everybody.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    And I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    This morning, we are awaiting some of our other colleagues. 
I must admit, I do not live anywhere close to here, and so I 
wake up on the Hill. And yet I know that it is not as easy for 
others who live around here. And so, with great respect, we are 
going to--we have been delayed for a few minutes. We are going 
to probably talk slowly for a few minutes, and we will all 
recognize that.
    I want to thank the panel that is here. We have tried to 
make sure that we had a conversation with you before today.
    Thank you very much. I hope you are good today. Mr. Mfume 
will be here in just a few minutes.
    The importance of today's hearing will become very apparent 
to the American people as we go through the conversation that 
we are going to have with each and every one of you.
    The idea is about tracking agency process on identifying 
and preventing fraud and improper payments. The estimated 
amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse in COVID-related programs 
are simply mind-boggling--half a trillion dollars. And while 
each of our witnesses today are aware of this figure, many in 
the American public and many Members of Congress may not be.
    So, that is why we are having this hearing. We have been 
working on this in the Subcommittee on a bipartisan basis for a 
long time. We are today looking for and searching for answers.
    We find that much of it was lost to criminal actors and our 
enemies, often comical, simple tactics, taking advantage of the 
American taxpayer. If this is not a call to action, I do not 
know where there is one.
    And so, today we will politely work through that process. 
We will talk to logical people who have questions and answers. 
We will be asking them for their professional comments.
    The full Committee and this Subcommittee will hold hearings 
at the beginning of the next Congress on this subject, I am 
sure. And during those hearings, it will be clearly asked about 
how could this happen and could it happen again? So, these are 
questions we are going to ask today.
    It is easy for us to say, but I think it should be a demand 
on agencies and upon all of us to make sure that we can answer 
that before we walk out of here. Are we on the pathway? Do we 
know what happened? Because things have to change.
    That includes the way the oversight community--and that is 
this Subcommittee--will look at and track progress not only on 
Federal agencies but also at the state level to make our anti-
fraud measures amount to more than just a screen door on a 
submarine, meaning it is just open for fraud.
    This Committee and government reform and oversight will 
today release a staff report regarding fraud in COVID-related 
unemployment insurance programs. That number is stunning also.
    One of the report's findings was that, in many instances, 
states were unprepared to implement the emergency provisions 
passed by Congress, to include the attending spike in 
unemployment claims.
    And while it is true COVID was an unprecedented situation, 
it nonetheless exposed weaknesses in the unemployment and 
insurance framework; namely, an ability to scale itself at a 
time when many people sought that help.
    There were also too many instances of basic oversight 
measures, like verification of identity, not even sought or 
being taken.
    These are but a few examples in one program, but they 
illustrate the problem and they illustrate the need to 
effectively track efforts to plug these holes now.
    This hearing was originally intended to serve as a rollout 
for a scorecard to track anti-fraud and improper payment steps 
in major programs, but it quickly changed. So, ultimately, it 
has become apparent that we must--that we simply lack the data 
to determine whether programs and agencies are getting better. 
It is unacceptable to think that we would simply excuse this 
behavior rather than fixing what has been placed before us.
    So, in this hearing, as I have told our witnesses, I want 
to ask the basics: What are the questions that we need to ask? 
What information is needed? And how are we going to work 
together to see not just the problem but the answers?
    And I will tell you that each of these lie before us today. 
We are not going to blame someone. We are going to find the 
problems, and we need to fix them.
    The Ranking Member, Mr. Mfume, and I have tried to work 
together and have done, I think, what is a remarkable job. We 
have seen the tasks that lie before us, and we understand that 
this is a problem for the American people.
    So, with that said, sir, welcome. I know you had to drive 
in. How is that traffic going today?
    The gentleman is recognized for any opening statement the 
gentleman chooses to make.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a 
little rough getting down from Baltimore today. So, I 
apologize.
    But I would like, if it is OK with you, to allow these 
witnesses who have made time to be here to proceed. And then I 
will--like to do my opening remarks after that.
    Mr. Sessions. That will be great.
    Mr. Mfume. Great.
    Mr. Sessions. We wanted to make sure we did not go too far.
    So, as the gentleman has consented, we will move forward. 
And then he will come back with any opening statement that the 
gentleman chooses.
    I am pleased to introduce our witnesses today.
    Michael E. Horowitz is the Inspector General of the 
Department of Justice and Chairman of the Pandemic Response 
Accountability Committee. As Chairman of the PRAC, Mr. Horowitz 
leads a committee of Federal inspector generals responsible for 
overseeing the over $5 trillion in Federal pandemic-related 
emergency spending.
    Spending time with him yesterday, I learned much about not 
just this role but the power behind the legislation that has 
given him this ability across the government.
    We also welcome Orice Williams Brown is the Chief Operating 
Officer of the GAO. In her role, she is responsible for the 
day-to-day agency management and overseeing the development of 
hundreds of reports and testimoneys to Congress. It is a big 
role. It has a wide view.
    And we are delighted that you are with us today, Ms. Brown. 
Thank you very much.
    We also add Linda Miller. She is the cofounder and Chair of 
the Program Integrity Alliance. Over 16 years' experience in 
both the public and private sector, she is considered a 
national authority on fraud prevention and detection. I think 
she is also a national asset. And I hope that by the end of 
today's hearing you will agree with that.
    So, I look forward to us joining and hearing from you.
    I would like to ask that you stand now to take the oath for 
each of our witnesses.
    Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please 
stand, as they have done, and raise their right hand. And I 
will let you answer.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth, so help you God?
    [Chorus of ayes].
    Mr. Sessions. Let the record reflect that the witnesses 
have answered in the affirmative. Thank you very much.
    OK. Now that we have gotten this done, let me please remind 
you that, as we spoke about yesterday, that we have a copy of 
your written statement, and it will appear in full in the 
hearing record.
    I also told you yesterday that while we have a 5-minute 
rule, I would like for you to make sure that you get your work 
done. If it goes a little bit over that, does not bother me. 
Mr. Mfume is here for the same reason. We need to make sure 
that you are given the time to speak clearly with us, that we 
understand what we are talking about.
    I would also remind you that the button in front of you is 
for the microphone so that Members can hear you. And, of 
course, you will recognize the signals that come.
    I would now like to recognize the distinguished gentleman, 
Mr. Horowitz, for 5 minutes. The gentleman is recognized.

             STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL E. HOROWITZ
                                 CHAIR
               PANDEMIC RESPONSE ACCOUNTABILITY COMMITTEE

    Mr. Horowitz. Thank you.
    Chairman Sessions, Ranking Member Mfume, Members of the 
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify at today's 
important hearing.
    Improper payments and fraud, as we will discuss, remain a 
very significant challenge for the Federal Government. The 
Subcommittee's bipartisan development of a scorecard and its 
efforts to do so to assess agency efforts to address improper 
payments and fraud is an important step forward.
    At the PRAC, we and our member IGs are working hard to 
implement--to help prevent improper payments and fraud, 
including by using advanced data analytics.
    Today's hearing comes at a particularly critical time 
because, unless Congress takes action, one of the most 
significant tools to improve program integrity and prevent 
fraud will be lost.
    In early 2021, Congress provided $40 million to the PRAC to 
create and operate what we have referred to as the Pandemic 
Analytics Center of Excellence, or PACE, through 2025. It has 
proven to be extraordinarily successful. It has already 
resulted in recoveries that far exceed its operating costs, and 
it is assisting over 40 law enforcement agencies as they pursue 
hundreds of fraud cases involving over $2 billion.
    Unfortunately, this fraud-fighting tool, which should be 
expanded to prevent improper payments in non-pandemic programs, 
is instead scheduled to disappear entirely on September 30, 
2025.
    The GAO has strongly recommended that Congress permanently 
establish this analytic center, and recently estimated that it 
could, quote, ``result in a billion or more annually in 
financial benefits.''
    The PACE can also help prevent fraud and improper payments 
going forward, ensuring that money goes to its intended 
beneficiaries, not fraudsters. And it is important to keep that 
in mind as we talk today because every dollar that goes to a 
fraudster does not go to the small business, to the unemployed, 
to others that Congress were intending to help.
    Working with IGs and their agencies, PRAC staff can have 
the PACE assess applications for fraud indicators before funds 
are disbursed. And it is not a theoretical possibility. It is 
what we outlined in our Fraud Alert last year.
    We could have conducted identity verification back in March 
2020, had our analytics platform been available, likely saving 
taxpayers millions, if not billions, of dollars.
    Unfortunately, other systems that exist, such as Treasury's 
Do Not Pay, are not able to prevent the kind of multiprogram 
and identity-related fraud that occurred during the pandemic, 
which the PACE can identify because of its dynamic nature, 
proactive nature, and how it can identify risk indicators 
through machine learning and other tools and, therefore, can be 
used for prevention.
    What is unique about the PACE is that it can identify 
fraudsters attempting to use different stylings of an 
individual's name, birth date, and other information to obtain 
benefits from programs across the Federal Government. It can 
also identify other anomalies, as well as the use of known 
compromised IP addresses and foreign IP addresses.
    Additionally, the PRAC has law enforcement authority, 
unlike Do Not Pay. And, therefore, we have access to law 
enforcement-sensitive data to help us identify bad actors.
    Further, the PACE, unlike Do Not Pay, can find hidden 
connections between multiprogram schemes, such as the use of 
shared bank account information, email address, and phone 
numbers, thereby helping multiple agencies prevent fraud that 
they and Do Not Pay would not otherwise be able to identify.
    In developing the PACE, we have been highly mindful of 
privacy interests, and we have been transparent with Congress 
about what data we hold and what we do with it. We have also 
made data security paramount for the PRAC.
    If we want to continue to advance the fight against 
improper payments and fraud, we should not allow this important 
and valuable fraud-fighting tool to expire, as occurred in 2015 
when the highly successful data analytics platform of the 
Recovery Board was allowed to sunset.
    Because that analytics platform was no longer available 
when the pandemic started, the PRAC was unable to use data 
analytics to help prevent billions of dollars in fraud that we 
now know transpired.
    Moreover, simply folding the PACE into the Treasury 
Department would repeat the same unfortunate choice made back 
in 2015. That approach did not work then, and it would again 
diminish the Federal Government's ability to prevent improper 
payments and fraud.
    We should instead continue the investment that Congress has 
made in this highly successful data-driven tool that has a 
proven track record and a demonstrated return on investment.
    I look forward to working with you, the Committee, on how 
we can address improper payments, improve program integrity 
going forward, and reduce fraud.
    I look forward to answering your questions today.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Horowitz, thank you very much.
    Ms. Brown, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF ORICE WILLIAMS BROWN
                        CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
                 U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Ms. Brown. Good morning. Chairman Sessions, Ranking Member 
Mfume, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the 
opportunity to be part of today's hearing and to help shed 
light on what can be done about the longstanding and pervasive 
issue of improper payments and fraud in the Federal Government.
    Whether it involves an established program, or one created 
to respond to an emergency, improper payments and fraud erode 
the public trust and results in hundreds of billions of dollars 
lost.
    Since 2003, agencies have estimated $2.7 trillion of 
payments were improper. In April, GAO also developed the first 
governmentwide estimate of fraud. We estimate based on 2018 
through 2022 data that the Federal Government has lost between 
$233 and $531 billion annually.
    While my written statement covers GAO's wide body of work 
related to improper payments and fraud, I will focus on ways 
agencies can better prevent improper payments and fraud.
    First, consistent with GAO's 2015 Fraud Management 
Framework, which has been codified by the Payment Integrity and 
Information Act and OMB guidance, agencies must commit to 
establishing an organizational culture dedicated and conducive 
to fraud risk management. To do this, agencies must first 
recognize and acknowledge their fraud risk. And I cannot stress 
that point enough.
    Agencies at times view anti-fraud controls being at odds 
with their mission to support their intended beneficiaries. 
However, these are not opposing goals. Any dollar that is 
improperly paid or defrauded results in one less dollar going 
to an eligible beneficiary or for another beneficial program 
purpose.
    Next, agencies must assess the extent of their unique fraud 
risks. This involves assessing fraud risks to determine their 
fraud risk profile, including fully considering the specific 
fraud risk faced, analyzing the potential likelihood and impact 
of fraud schemes, and documenting prioritized fraud risk and 
determining their risk tolerance.
    After that, they need to design and implement a strategy 
with specific controls to mitigate, assess fraud risks, and 
collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to help 
ensure effective implementation.
    And, finally, agencies must evolve and adapt. This includes 
evaluating outcomes of their efforts using a risk-based 
approach and adapting activities to improve their fraud risk 
management.
    It is also important to realize that this is a journey, and 
it requires regularly assessing the threat landscape and 
adjusting as the threat environment changes and the types of 
fraud being perpetrated evolve. The fraudsters never sleep, and 
Federal agencies cannot either.
    This focus on fraud risk management also aligns with other 
actions agencies can take to prevent improper payments that may 
not be fraudulent. For example, agencies' focus on front-end 
controls is critical for preventing improper payments, 
especially in emergency situations when money needs to be moved 
out the door quickly.
    In closing, I will also note the important role that 
Congress can play in addressing improper payments and fraud. In 
addition to dozens of recommendations to agencies to address 
their individual programs, we have also identified numerous 
legislative actions that Congress could take to strengthen 
payment integrity related to transparency, accountability, and 
oversight of improper payments and fraud.
    Through hearings and other oversight tools, Congress could 
also hold agencies accountable for putting needed safeguards in 
place to protect Federal dollars.
    As always, we stand ready to help Congress carry out this 
oversight and advance the fight against fraud and improper 
payments.
    This concludes my opening statement, and I would be happy 
to answer any questions at the appropriate time.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. Ms. Brown, thank you very much.
    Ms. Miller, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                       STATEMENT OF LINDA MILLER
                          CO-FOUNDER AND CHAIR
                       PROGRAM INTEGRITY ALLIANCE

    Ms. Miller. Thank you very much, Chairman Sessions, Ranking 
Member Mfume, and Members of the Subcommittee.
    My name is Linda Miller, and I have spent the last 15 years 
trying to help Federal agencies manage their risks to fraud. 
Some of those years were spent at both the organizations that 
my fellow panelists represent today.
    I recently cofounded a nongovernmental organization called 
the Program Integrity Alliance, and today I am here in my 
capacity as the chair and cofounder of PIA.
    PIA's mission is to strengthen integrity and data-driven 
fraud prevention in the U.S. through a more trust--to establish 
a more trustworthy, effective, and efficient government.
    PIA is expressly nonpartisan because fraud is not a 
partisan issue. Administrations on both sides of the aisle have 
ignored or downplayed this issue for decades.
    How big is this problem? GAO's recently issued estimates of 
$531 billion a year, that could fund almost 10 million 
veterans' benefits every year. That is how big this problem is.
    After 15 years of studying this problem and then walking 
shoulder to shoulder with government officials to address it, I 
believe there are four key issues that I want to discuss today.
    The first one is data. Agencies cannot or do not try to 
access the data that they need to find fraud. As you can see on 
the screen here, this is an analysis of the 31 programs that 
report their improper payments through the paymentaccuracy.gov 
website. As you can see, there is significant misalignment 
between what the agencies are saying the cause of the problem 
is and what they are actually doing about it. On the left, you 
can see that of those programs, almost 75 percent have cited a 
failure to access or verify data as the root cause of their 
improper payment. And on the right-hand side, you can see that 
the main mitigation strategy that agencies report pursuing is 
training.
    Training is not going to get agencies more access to data. 
So, the agencies are already telling us a big part of what the 
problem is right here.
    No. 2, agency leaders are by and large terrified to even 
utter the f-word. Fraud is literally a four-letter word to most 
agency leaders, and you cannot solve a problem you refuse to 
admit exists.
    When I speak on this topic, I often say, if you took all 
the police officers off the road, you would not have any more 
speeding. Obviously, people would still speed. You just would 
not be looking for them.
    Too often today that is how agencies are approaching fraud, 
by remaining willfully blind to its existence. And it is just 
easier for them that way.
    No. 3, agency leaders lack incentives or a mandate to 
meaningfully address the problem of fraud in their programs. 
And this turns into a compliance exercise where they really do 
check-the-box tasks and activities to satisfy reporting 
requirements that continue to pile up year after year, not in 
service to achieving an outcome.
    And, finally, fraud prevention requires technology and 
tools. And many agencies do not prioritize the funding to 
acquire the tools.
    During and since the pandemic, we have seen a dramatic 
uptick in the number of fraud actors targeting government 
programs and the sophistication of their methods. Fraud of 
today utilizes artificial intelligence and stolen identity 
information. Fraud actors are smart, savvy, and creative. And 
in many ways government agencies are just no match.
    The private sector, on the other hand, is using proactive, 
predictive automative tools designed to stay ahead of or at 
least at pace with the fraud actors. But they have invested in 
those tools.
    Too often, government is simply taking the word of the 
hidden entity on the other side of the screen that they are who 
they say they are, that they are, in fact, unemployed, 
disabled, or disadvantaged in some way.
    Shell companies, agencies posing as recipients, nation-
state actors attacking systems at scale, all are rampant in an 
environment that places so little importance on finding and 
preventing fraud. This is a whole-of-government challenge, and 
it is going to require a whole-of-government response, 
including investment and better accountability for outcomes.
    A word on investment, because we all know that adding more 
money to a problem is often not Congress' favorite way to solve 
a problem. But we do know that the return on investment in 
fraud prevention is positive and in many cases many, many times 
over the dollars invested.
    We need a fundamentally new framework to see meaningful 
progress in fighting fraud. The emphasis must be on data, and 
we should get rid of the burdensome reporting requirements for 
the low-priority programs. We need to take a risk-based 
approach to this problem.
    We need to hold agency leaders accountable for measurable 
results, and that means a real and sustained reduction in their 
fraud and improper payments.
    There are bright spots. Treasury's Office of Payment 
Integrity is working tirelessly to increase access to data-
driven tools and to put more and more data into its Do Not Pay 
system, and SBA has increased its use of data and proactive 
tools in service to preventing fraud prior to awarding a loan.
    Hardworking public servants across the government are 
trying to meaningfully tackle the problem. But legal barriers, 
technological limitations, scarce resources, and lack of senior 
level buy-in are too often standing in their way.
    I am heartened the Committee is taking this time this 
morning to closely examine the problem, and I look forward to 
robust discussion on the path forward.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time. Thank 
you very much.
    I want to thank all three of you, and I think each of you 
have provided this panel with the opportunity of Members to 
delve in. And I know each of you have much, much more to give 
us.
    I would like to, if I can at this time, yield to the 
distinguished gentleman, the Ranking Member, for any opening 
statement that gentleman chooses to make.
    The gentleman is recognized.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    I, too, want to again thank the witnesses, all three of 
them, for being here with us and make a couple of brief 
comments before we go to the question-and-answer portion of 
this hearing.
    I want to thank you, Chairman Sessions, for, again, 
convening us on this very important topic.
    Since the beginning of the 118th Congress, my colleagues 
and I, on the House Oversight Committee, on both sides of the 
aisle, have been laser-focused on combatting waste, fraud, and 
abuse within our Federal Government. And it is, for the most 
part, not been a partisan issue. No matter what side of the 
aisle you are on, we should be able to agree, I think, that 
every single cent of people's money that we spend ought to be 
going to its intended purpose.
    From our conversations with the distinguished panelists who 
have appeared at several other hearings, as well as the helpful 
work of the Government Accountability Office, the Pandemic 
Accountability Response Committee, and others, we have learned 
that the potential extent of improper payments and fraud within 
our government is, for lack of a better word, simply 
astounding.
    For example, in April of this year, as was mentioned by Ms. 
Brown earlier, the GAO released a report estimating that 
between $233 and $521 billion per year worth of fraud occurred 
in the span of 2018 to 2022. While the Office of Management and 
Budget has taken significant issue with the methodology for 
obtaining these figures, there is no doubt that there is a 
very, very large level of fraud that has occurred.
    On the improper payments front, this past March, the GAO 
reported a total of $235 billion in improper payments to 
government entities in the last fiscal year. That is almost 
$500 billion, at least by the numbers that I have, since 2015.
    In recognition of what I consider is a shared challenge, 
Chairman Sessions and I have been working, roughly, for about a 
year on a bipartisan basis to create a congressional scorecard 
to assess the progress of key government spending programs and 
reducing fraud and improper payments. The Federal programs on 
this scorecard were selected because they represent those in 
many instances with the highest fraud risk per dollar.
    The earned income tax credit, which has helped 359,000 
people in the state of Maryland alone to be able to make ends 
meet last year, is on that scorecard. The Supplemental Security 
Income, which keeps the lights on for more than 35,000 of my 
eligible constituents alone, is on that scorecard as well.
    And so, it is increasingly and crucially important for me, 
and I will say for all Members of this Committee, that we 
assess the degree of fraud and progress in combatting fraud and 
the improper payments in these programs because they have been 
so successful at keeping our country afloat, particularly 
during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Thanks to the policies passed by a large bipartisan 
majority during the beginning of the pandemic and the American 
Rescue Plan passed by congressional Democrats and signed into 
law by the Biden-Harris Administration, the United States has 
had the largest and the strongest economic recovery out of the 
entire developed world.
    So, many of us believe that Congress should defend those 
programs from those that seek to abuse them deliberately over 
and over again by strengthening, as we have heard today, the 
executive branch's ability to track the success and ongoing 
prevention efforts.
    And before I conclude, I would also be compelled, Mr. 
Chairman, to mention the importance of investing in solutions 
that we already know are effective in combatting waste, fraud, 
and abuse. In the Council of the Inspector General for 
Integrity and Efficiency's 2023 report to the House and to the 
President, it was found that for every dollar spent on the 
Office of Inspectors General, $26 were saved by the Federal 
Government. It may sound like a small amount, but when we talk 
about billions of dollars, it is significant.
    So, I would continue to urge my colleagues to consider the 
benefits of further investments in the OIGs to achieve greater 
cost savings for all of us.
    Furthermore, Larry Turner, the Department of Labor 
Inspector General, has done an exemplary work in investing--
investigating in potential benefits of data analytics, which we 
have talked about often, in preventing fraud, and found that 
the use of such analytics could have prevented much of the 
unemployment insurance fraud that occurred during the pandemic.
    So, I am very interested in learning more about how this 
Committee, and indeed the entire Congress, can invest in those 
kinds of tools for prevention. Our Subcommittee has tried to be 
an island of bipartisan productivity in a storm of what really 
has been a chaotic 118th Congress. So, I am proud of the work 
we have done and the strength and the cooperation across party 
lines to get us to this point. I look forward to hearing more 
about this topic today.
    Mr. Chairman, I, again, want to thank you, and I would 
yield back any time I might have.
    Mr. Sessions. I thank the distinguished gentleman.
    And so that the panel knows, we do approach this with 
serious nature and on a bipartisan basis, and that comes down 
to the leadership that Mr. Mfume provides that we work together 
including this Committee.
    We will now move to Members' questions. I would give 5 
minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Alabama, Mr. 
Palmer.
    Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I appreciate the witnesses being here.
    Mr. Horowitz, is there adequate access to data sources for 
effective oversight?
    Mr. Horowitz. No, not currently. There is--there is some 
access, but it is clearly insufficient.
    Mr. Palmer. Particularly a problem with Social Security and 
their Death Master File, isn't it?
    Mr. Horowitz. Yes. Look, the most obvious source of 
information, if you want to verify data, is the Social Security 
Administration's Death Master File. Is someone living or dead 
is a pretty straightforward question.
    Mr. Palmer. How dependent is the Social Security 
Administration on state data for ensuring that the Death Master 
File data is accurate?
    Mr. Horowitz. I am sorry. I did not hear you there.
    Mr. Palmer. Well, my question is, the Social Security Death 
Master File is dependent on data from the states. Is that--how 
well is that working?
    Mr. Horowitz. I actually have not done, myself, a review of 
how SSA manages its own Death Master File index. I can 
certainly get back to you on that, talk to the SSA OIG. I know 
they have issued reports about that and have concerns about the 
reporting in that space.
    Mr. Palmer. I think the Government Accountability Office, 
Ms. Brown, has reported that one of the leading causes of 
improper payments is antiquated data systems. And what I am 
trying to find out is, how much of a problem in terms of having 
adequate access to data sources is related to antiquated data 
systems?
    Ms. Brown. The two are definitely related.
    In the work that we did in 2023 on unemployment insurance, 
one of the things we looked at were the states' data systems. 
And we found that many states were using data systems that were 
established in the 1970s and the 1980s, and this was across a 
number of their programs.
    So, it is no question that antiquated data systems were a 
factor, not only in being able to execute the programs, but 
definitely not able to help prevent any type of improper 
payments and fraud because the systems just could not handle 
the type of analytics needed.
    Mr. Palmer. So that is one----
    Mr. Brown. So, it is an issue.
    Mr. Palmer. That is one roadblock, Mr. Horowitz, and you 
have run into other roadblocks dealing with Social Security 
Administration on this issue. Would you like to elaborate on 
that?
    Mr. Horowitz. Yes. One of the challenges we had during our 
effort to take applicant information that came to the Small 
Business Administration, their Paycheck Protection Program, 
Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, referred to as PPP and 
EIDL, it took us I think it was around 8 months to get an 
agreement in place with the Social Security Administration so 
that we could verify applicant information. It should not take 
so long. It is then, I know, for both us and Treasury Do Not 
Pay, costly to get that verification information from Social 
Security Administration.
    So, there are several things that need to get fixed. They 
should be able to have that data accessed by programs so they 
can verify applicant information and not pay substantial sums 
to get that verification.
    Mr. Palmer. Is that a standard practice, though? I mean, 
should one Federal agency be charging another agency, 
particularly an oversight agency, for data?
    Ms. Brown. So, this is no question it was an issue. So, 
Treasury getting access to the Death Master File took 
legislative action, and their current access is temporary. And 
one of the things that we would like to see is for that access 
to be made permanent, and we would like to see the 
democratization of data.
    Mr. Palmer. Does that require legislation, Ms. Brown?
    Ms. Brown. I think it would. Definitely in the case of the 
Death Master File, it would require legislation for Treasury's 
access to the Death Master File to be made permanent.
    Mr. Palmer. What other statutory changes would be 
recommended?
    And that is a question for Ms. Miller. I do not want to 
leave you out.
    Ms. Miller. Yes. Treasury has a strong need to get access 
to not only the death files, the full death file permanently, 
but also the national new hire data base, another data base 
that GAO took almost 10 years to get access to. They also would 
like to have more authority to be able to have some exemptions 
from the Computer Matching Act, which is another big barrier 
for agencies using data.
    So, Treasury's Do Not Pay Initiative has expanded 
significantly in the last year through the Office of Payment 
Integrity, and they are really looking to improve their access 
to data which they can then make available to all of the 
Federal Government in a centralized fashion. But it does take 
legislation to give them those authorities and to give them 
further access to those datasets.
    Mr. Palmer. There is also another issue that I think has--
needs to be addressed, and that is, at the state level during 
the pandemic on the unemployment, the state unemployment 
agencies, in my opinion, under pressure from the Federal 
Government to get money out in some cases, but they were very 
lackadaisical in verifying eligibility. They were making--they 
were sending unemployment checks to people who applied through 
foreign IP addresses.
    I tried to address this. I tried to get the last big relief 
bill amended to prohibit foreign IP addresses, to make some 
other--put some other safeguards in. Could not get that in.
    But I do think the states have some responsibility here, 
some culpability here. And because when they approved payments 
of unemployment, sending out unemployment checks, that carried 
with it the Federal Government's check as well, that $300.
    Ms. Brown. Absolutely. And I would add that any program 
that is a Federal-state partnership, the states have a role in 
getting the Federal dollars out, requires a strong partnership 
between the Federal Government and the states, but the states 
then become critical partners in getting it out.
    Totally agree, unemployment insurance was an example. 
Medicaid is another example, TANF. There are a number of 
programs that are administered at the state level. And the 
states have to have really strong and robust IT systems, and 
they also need to have strong data analytic capabilities.
    Mr. Palmer. Well, Mr. Chairman, I have been working on this 
issue almost from the time I came into Congress. I was able to 
get it into the budget as an action item for reducing improper 
payments.
    And when you think about the fact that improper payments, 
just the improper payment side of things, about $250 billion a 
year, with us operating a deficit, every dollar of that is a 
borrowed dollar. We are paying interest on money improperly 
expended. And I think we have got to take this much more 
seriously than we have to do something about this.
    With that, I thank you for your generosity in time. And I 
yield back.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    The distinguished gentleman, Mr. Mfume, is recognized.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to recognize and yield at this time to the 
distinguished Chair of the full Committee, former Chair, Mr. 
Raskin of Maryland.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you to the Ranking Member for your 
courtesy here.
    Ms. Miller, I want to start with you. Is the problem of 
fraud and improper payments one that affects America uniquely 
or is this a struggle that takes place in governments around 
the world? I want to know. I mean, is it because of something 
in our culture or economy or is this a global problem?
    Ms. Miller. It is a global problem. When I was at the PRAC, 
I was a member of the International Fraud Forum that brings 
together international organizations to look at this issue. And 
I am also a member of the U.K. Public Sector Fraud Authority's 
Advisory Panel. So, I have spent time talking with other 
countries, including the U.K. and Australia, about their issues 
with fraud.
    We did have a much more significant problem here in the 
United States than they did in the U.K. I mean, obviously our 
budget is larger. But we also had--we had fewer safeguards in 
place during the pandemic, and so we did lose a whole lot more 
money to fraud during the pandemic than most other nations.
    Mr. Raskin. Some of the fraud is transnational in 
character, right?
    Ms. Miller. Yes. Some of it is transnational in character, 
and, you know, those numbers are sort of unknown. Mr. Horowitz 
may be able to speak more to this, but the Secret Service has 
indicated that they believe about half of the pandemic 
unemployment assistance fraud went to transnational nation-
state actors. That data is very difficult to get. A lot of 
identity theft-based fraud you never get back, you never find 
it.
    Mr. Raskin. Uh-huh.
    Ms. Miller. And so, you really have to--you know, it is 
very difficult to know exactly what was lost. But we do know 
that there were adversarial nation-state actors that were very, 
very active during the pandemic, and they continue to be active 
today.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Horowitz, you want us to establish a 
central data analytic center. How would that remove barriers to 
accessing the data across the full reach of the Federal 
Government?
    Mr. Horowitz. Very important question, Congressman.
    One of the things that you have given us in the IG 
Empowerment Act was an exemption from the Computer Matching Act 
that Ms. Miller mentioned. You also in the IG Act gave us the 
power to access all data from the agencies.
    So, what we are able to do--and this is the challenge for 
Treasury--is go to the agencies. We have a group of IGs that 
can go to agencies, get the data. We are centralized. Again, in 
the CARES Act, I worked with your staffs, Republican staffs, to 
give us the ability to get that data. So, we are centralized 
already with that data. And we are able to proactively look at 
it for various fraud risk indicators, and there are many, 
including, by the way, as you just mentioned, foreign IP 
addresses. Applicants----
    Mr. Raskin. That would be something of a tip-off, no?
    Mr. Horowitz. That would be a tip-off.
    Mr. Raskin. Yes.
    Mr. Horowitz. Now, to be fair----
    Mr. Raskin. Yes.
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. Right, the pandemic froze 
everybody. So, there were people overseas at the start of the 
pandemic who could not get back. But it is a pretty good reason 
to put somebody in secondary inspection, right, because that is 
what we talk about here, by the way. And that is what the PACE, 
I think, does.
    It is like a magnetometer in the airport. We are not 
telling people you cannot get the money, but there are 
suspicious indicators that are causing you to do a secondary 
inspection.
    Mr. Raskin. But how did you create that data hub so quickly 
and so effectively for PRAC?
    Mr. Horowitz. Well, first of all, Congress in the ARP, in 
the American Recovery Plan, gave us $40 million to get that 
going and move it forward. And that was because, back in 2015, 
Congress, the Administration, let the prior analytics platform 
expire despite GAO's recommendation. So, we needed that $40 
million to get it going, and that was a lifeline.
    And it--we also had, I have to add, the strong support of 
the leadership of Office of Management and Budget.
    Mr. Raskin. So, Mr. Chairman, I introduced a bill to 
transition the essential functions of PRAC, as described by Mr. 
Horowitz, to a permanent entity called the Government Spending 
Oversight Committee.
    Mr. Horowitz, if we do not extend or codify the PRAC, what 
are we risking in terms of our ability to uncover and detect 
fraud and improper payments?
    Mr. Horowitz. Well, first of all, right now, as far as I 
understand it, we are the only analytics platform that can look 
across agencies for multiagency fraud schemes which we saw 
repeatedly during the pandemic. And Treasury Do Not Pay is a 
passive data base that is--requires agencies to go to it.
    We have the ability to look at this data and go to the 
agencies and let them know where the frauds are based on this 
multiagency data that we are getting. And a fraudster who knows 
they can steal from SBA, we saw, learning they can go and try 
and steal from the Labor Department and unemployment insurance.
    Mr. Raskin. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Horowitz. And they can pretend they are a rural 
broadband need in assistance or that they are faking and 
pretending they are a veteran and getting other benefits.
    And it is important to keep in mind, it is not pandemic 
only. Emergency spending for hurricanes, tornadoes, fires going 
on now, et cetera, there are 30-plus agencies that manage 
those--30-plus entities, subagencies, agencies that manage 
those programs. The possibility of multiagency fraud is sitting 
there in our government programs because we are siloed.
    Mr. Raskin. Alas, I am out of time.
    Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to note that the companion bill 
to the one I have introduced in the House has broad bipartisan 
support over in the Senate. And I hope that we might be able to 
get together to create a similar bipartisan consensus here in 
the House on doing this, and I would love to talk to you about 
that.
    And thank you for your indulgence. I yield back.
    Mr. Sessions. I thank the gentleman for his line of 
questioning, and it is good to see the gentleman.
    I would now like to go to the distinguished gentleman from 
Missouri, Mr. Burlison. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Brown, I think it has been said before, we know that in 
2023 alone there has been $240--$236 billion that is--of 
improper payments. Do we have any idea about what happened 
during the COVID era, how much in total? That may be a question 
for Mr. Horowitz.
    Mr. Horowitz. We actually do not have a number for the 
pandemic at this point, although SBA IG and Labor IG alone have 
recommended a combined $300 billion-plus in fraud.
    We are still--we are still pursuing. We alone are involved 
in about 900 cases involving 22,000 subjects. The amount of 
fraud was enormous. Could have been prevented, by the way. And 
that is what, you know, love to chat further about.
    Mr. Burlison. Yes.
    Mr. Horowitz. But we are not going to know the final number 
for several more years. The hardest part to get our arms 
around, as was mentioned before, is the foreign, international 
wrongdoing, because it takes so much work to follow money that 
has left the country and fraudsters that have left the country.
    Mr. Burlison. So, it was said that we, you know, we need to 
pass--there is legislation that would need to be passed in 
order to help this.
    Ms. Miller, I think you referenced that. What is included 
in that legislation that would give the agencies the tools that 
they need?
    Ms. Miller. Well, there is a lot of different legislative 
solutions that probably need to be considered.
    I mean, certainly, I think codifying the PACE feels like a 
no-brainer to me because it is an amazing, centralized tool, as 
Mr. Horowitz has been talking about.
    Allowing Treasury to have more access to more datasets will 
help as well, because as Mr. Horowitz is talking about, the 
PACE and the PRAC are in the oversight community and there is 
an independence line between the management side of government 
and the oversight side of government. And so, Treasury also 
needs additional tools and they need additional authorities and 
they need additional datasets.
    It takes up to 2 years to get a new dataset implemented 
into Do Not Pay right now. Because of the way it is set up, OMB 
has to go through a lengthy process to approve the use of a 
dataset to be used in Do Not Pay.
    So, some of this stuff is sort of low-hanging fruit, in my 
opinion. There is some legislative fixes that could really 
improve access to data very quickly for Treasury, as well as 
codifying the PACE.
    And then I think really what needs to happen is we need to 
start investing in some return on investment analytics 
activities as high-risk programs.
    I also, you know, while you are asking, I kind of think we 
need to jettison the regime at the moment that just encourages 
paper pushing right now. There are many agencies that engage in 
improper payments reporting for the sake of reporting, and they 
are very low-risk programs. CRS has estimated that up to----
    Mr. Burlison. Sorry. Can you break that down for me a 
little bit?
    Ms. Miller. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison. So, you are saying the low-risk programs. 
Give me an example.
    Ms. Miller. So, you know, the Pension Benefit Guaranty 
Corporation, maybe that, that would be one of the programs.
    So, the congressional Research Service has done studies 
that have found that up to 95 percent of all improper payments 
in the government are centered on those high-priority programs 
that are reporting to paymentaccuracy.gov. It is about 30 
programs. It is about 95 percent.
    So, we are talking about risk. You know, Ms. Williams 
mentioned the importance of the GAO Fraud Risk Management 
Framework. I led the development of that framework 10 years 
ago.
    Risk is important here, and we have to think about this 
problem in the context of risk. It does not make sense to be 
telling an agency with a budget, you know, that is a couple of 
million dollars, to spend a lot of money and time, considering 
how much improper payments they have. We ought to be focused on 
the big programs, and we ought to be making those programs do 
data-driven, outcome-oriented activities. And we ought to be 
asking them to demonstrate that they are reducing their fraud 
and improper payment.
    Mr. Burlison. Is it possible that some of the data that 
they are needing access to, even a program that is, like, a 
smaller program like that, that they could have, I do not know, 
an interface or some kind of ability to quickly query these 
other----
    Ms. Miller. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison [continuing]. Datasets----
    Ms. Miller. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison [continuing]. So that they do not----
    Ms. Miller. In an ideal world, we would have a centralized 
capability. And, I mean, honestly, the PACE is a great example.
    And, again, it in the law enforcement side of government. 
And so, a challenge for you guys, but you guys are the ones 
that can solve this challenge, is a way to get the management 
side of government access to some of that data as well, because 
there are things like the OIG Empowerment Act that give IGs 
access to data that then management side of government does not 
have.
    Mr. Burlison. And it could be done--we have little time. 
But it could be done in such a way where you are not creating 
more exposure risk, right, because--I mean, just the other day 
I got an FSA letter saying that my personal information has 
been compromised. But we could do this in a way where there is 
no additional exposure for the data, right?
    Ms. Miller. Yes. There is a lot of technological 
advancement in hashing and being able to mask the identities of 
the personally identifiable information. And so, this privacy 
issue, the tension between privacy advocates and the use of 
data for fraud prevention is a real tension in the policy 
space.
    Mr. Horowitz.
    Mr. Horowitz. Yes. Can I--it is an excellent question. It 
is a very important question and one that we have been very 
mindful of and I have been very mindful of.
    If I could have a minute to just talk about what we have 
done to make sure we are--how this can be done in a safe and 
secure way.
    Our data analysts took 33 million applications from SBAs, 
PPP, and EIDL programs. They identified about 2.7 million of 
those 33 million using advanced data analytics that we have for 
potential anomalies, suspicious numbers potentially. Does not 
mean they are. They were potential.
    We spent, as I mentioned earlier, about 8 months or so 
getting agreement in place with Social Security Administration.
    What we did was we took the name, date of birth, and Social 
Security number and sent it to SSA, Social Security 
Administration. We did not want any of their data for the 
privacy issues and all. We sent the applicant information to 
them and said answer three questions.
    Mr. Burlison. Yes.
    Mr. Horowitz. Is it a real number? Yes or no. And if it is 
a real number, do those three indicators match your three: 
name, date of birth, Social?
    And, finally, living or dead?
    We got back over 200,000 hits that were--did not answer all 
three questions the right way. Of those, 69,000 got $5.4 
billion. OK. It took us--took Social Security Administration 
less than 2 weeks to answer the three questions for the 2.7 
million numbers.
    We can do this. What needs to be done is IGs and their 
agencies--and this is what has to happen going forward in the 
prevention space. We can enter into an agreement. And I have 
talked about this with GAO and Gene Dodaro, and we are in 
agreement. It does not impair our independence.
    We enter into an agreement with agencies where they can 
send us applicant information to run against our data base and 
use--I have over a hundred agreements with agencies now where I 
can send them data and they can give me verification 
information, for example. And we have used those tools to 
verify.
    It does not mean someone is ineligible, but it does mean 
they should be essentially pulled out of line at the airport, 
like happens if you beep at the magnetometer----
    Mr. Burlison. Right.
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. And undergo secondary 
questioning. And it can be done promptly.
    It is a false choice if people say, `oh, it will take 
months and months and months to figure this out.' The data is 
sitting there. We have done the hard work over 4 years to get 
those agreements in place. It can be done quickly, and I--and 
the Committee should not accept people's explanations that, oh, 
it will take too long.
    Mr. Burlison. Well, and the--sorry. If I may, Mr. Chairman, 
I would just make a comment.
    The problem is that it is causing impact to everyone, 
right. So, you have got legitimate claimants who are being 
delayed. Sometimes they are being accused of committing--being 
lumped into the fraudsters. And at the end of the day, we just 
need to make this system more efficient.
    Mr. Horowitz. If I can just say, we had a--we had hearings 
on this. We heard from, to your point, Congressman, in the 
unemployment space we heard from unemployed--about examples 
where unemployed individuals were second. The fraudsters beat 
them in, and they did not get their payments initially because 
a fraudster beat them to it first. And they had to get help to 
convince the agency that they were not the fraudster or an 
improper payee.
    And, of course, the people who need unemployment insurance 
probably do not have a lot of money to get the support they 
need to do that.
    So that is the reality of what is happening.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you.
    Ms. Brown. Mr. Chairman, can--I want to add one point, 
because I think just another illustration.
    Similar to the example that Mr. Horowitz shared about 
sending the files to the Social Security Administration, GAO 
took much of that same information and ran it against the 
national new hire data base. And we found millions of 
questionable loans. And we referred that information to the SBA 
IG.
    So, it is just another illustration of, if all of the 
available datasets are together and they--and an application or 
a potential claimant can be run through all of those data 
bases, then you really get the best information because you are 
able to cross-check across all of them and identify and refine 
questionable payments before they are paid out. And it goes 
back to prevention being key.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much.
    The gentleman yields back his time.
    The gentleman, Mr. Mfume, is recognized.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. I want to, if I 
might, just kind of look through a long, long lens and give my 
impression as to why so many people across our Nation believe 
that we simply know what the problem is and that we do not do 
enough about it.
    And for many years, the Federal Government has been reliant 
on a pay-and-chase-and-catch model, where payments are made up 
front, and then payment errors are discovered and recovered, 
chased down after the fact and some of the money--some of the 
money--is recovered.
    And while that type of model, I think, can succeed in 
recuperating some lost funds, I continue to believe that our 
biggest challenge is to prevent the fraud to begin with, to 
stop it before it starts.
    Now, in 1987, as a Member of this body, with Ronald Reagan 
as President and Jim Wright as our Speaker of the house, myself 
and many others in that 100th Congress, which was a very 
partisan Congress. I mean, there were philosophical 
differences, but there was never seemingly a difference on the 
issue of fraud, because it affected all of our constituents, it 
affected all of the government agencies, and we realized it was 
throwing money away.
    So, during that time, one of the few things that seemed to 
come together was a general feeling across the aisle that this 
was a priority. So, you, I hope, can imagine how I must feel 
now 37 years later, after having spent 10 years here and been 
away for 23 and back for 4, and we are still dealing with the 
same thing.
    And so, it is difficult to tell people, with all the 
suffering and hurt that needs to be addressed in our society, 
and the efficiencies that need to be put in place, it is really 
difficult to say to the American onlooker, the taxpayer, the 
citizen, do not worry, we are working on this, we have got it.
    So, I do hope, Mr. Chairman, that we really do have it this 
time. We are all kind of seeing this thing play out as if it's 
deja vu. And there is so much that can be done if we, as a 
Congress, do our job.
    Now, I think I am speaking to the choir here on this 
Committee, but the rest of our colleagues in the House and in 
the Senate must know that this, among so many other things, has 
to be right at the top of the priority list.
    So, I have got a quick question for each of you. All of you 
have given great testimony as to what you think should be done. 
And, Ms. Miller, I appreciate the fact that you have gone out 
and tried to put together an organization outside of Congress 
to deal with this.
    But if all of you could just give me one thing from your 
own perspective as to what the No. 1 priority of the Congress 
should be, I will either come up with three priorities or we 
will have unanimity in some form or another as to how we should 
go forward.
    I am going to start with you, Mr. Horowitz, if you do not 
mind.
    Mr. Horowitz. I think the biggest opportunity now since 
1987 is data. And I think agencies, as Ms. Miller indicated, 
IGs, need to have data, data access, and data tools to put 
enough hurdles in place to prevent fraud and improve program 
integrity.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you.
    Ms. Brown?
    Ms. Brown. Mine is consistent. It is really prevention, 
which the data is a key part of the prevention, but we have to 
make sure that agencies understand that prevention is key. And 
having upfront controls is not at odds with their core mission. 
It is actually integral to the mission.
    And I think that is--if Congress could push on one place, I 
think that is critically important, because that will make it a 
priority for the agencies.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you.
    Ms. Miller?
    Ms. Miller. I just want to absolutely agree with what Mr. 
Horowitz said. I think I would have said that, but since I get 
to say a second thing, I also believe we have to do something 
about the incentives that we do not have in place. I mean, why 
did we lose this much fraud during the pandemic and there is 
almost--I mean, we are just wringing our hands. We are not--
nothing has really happened. Agency leaders have to see this as 
a priority.
    I mean, you made an excellent point. Why, in 30 years, is 
this not a priority? You know why it isn't is because when 
somebody does not get a benefit, they call you up and they say, 
I need to get my benefit quicker. And, boy, that happens.
    Customer experience, user experience, we are investing in 
that. And I am not saying that is a problem. We should be doing 
that. But nobody is calling up. This is a silent problem. The 
fraud actors are quietly over here stealing the money, and no 
one is calling their Congressman. And so, the agency leaders 
are content to look the other way and say, we do not have a 
fraud problem here.
    And so there has to be something has to change where agency 
leaders are held accountable, and they have incentives, whether 
those are carrots or sticks or both, so that we are not going 
to be sitting here in 37 more years saying, `gee, agency 
leaders just do not prioritize this problem.'
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Now, I 
will move to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana. You 
are recognized for 5 minutes, Mr. Higgins.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I thank our panelists for being here today to talk about 
this. It is a very frustrating conversation you have back home. 
Most of us do a lot of town halls. I certainly do. Sometimes my 
town halls last 3, 3-1/2 hours, 4 hours, and unscripted.
    You are talking to American citizens that are struggling, 
man. They are having a hard time buying groceries, paying rent. 
And we have--allegedly, you know, we have built a beautiful 
Nation wherein we the people run things.
    And they are not feeling like that. The American people are 
feeling discarded. They are feeling like their struggles get 
lip service, and their financial woes are further injured by 
big policies out of the elite rulers of D.C.
    I am just telling you this is some of the levels of pain. 
That if you are a compassionate American, you are listening 
very carefully to the citizens that you have sworn to serve, 
this is what you are hearing.
    And one of the--one of the common refrains that we listen 
to with our constituents and share a concern is the level of 
fraud and fraudulent payments coming out of the Federal 
Government, totaling billions and billions of dollars, 
depending upon what study you look at, what period of time. It 
is a lot of money.
    And, you know, my constituents are looking at the cost of 
eggs and bread. They cannot make it. And they see, `oh, the IRS 
sent, you know, 3,000 refunds to the same address.'
    This kind of thing requires accountability, ladies and 
gentlemen. And the way Americans like me measure accountability 
is somebody in jail in a small cell getting their next meal of 
bread and eggs through a small hole in a steel door. That is 
how we measure accountability. We have had enough of this theft 
of our treasure.
    So, it is not a comfortable conversation that we are 
engaged in, but this may be one of the most uniting topics that 
I share with my colleagues across the aisle. We demand an end 
to this, and we insist upon accountability.
    Mr. Horowitz, if I could, regarding the Pandemic Response 
Accountability Committee, so you can throw that switch in your 
brilliant mind, and we appreciate you being here today. What, 
if anything, do our agencies and IGs need to help combat the 
billions of dollars of fraudulent and improper payments?
    And I will give you a broad question like that for you to 
share with America what you feel the problems are and how they 
can be addressed. It is a lot of money that we have invested to 
respond to the pandemic, and it makes us quite angry when that 
money is stolen and then nothing is done about it.
    What can we do better?
    Mr. Horowitz. There are many things to be done. First of 
all, I will mention for several IGs, like the Small Business 
IG, the Labor Department IG, they are suffering from an 
inability to pursue all of the fraud and hold people 
accountable that you mentioned, because they have not been 
funded sufficiently to go after that fraud.
    That is one of the things I know they have been asking for, 
and so I will just mention there are some IGs that are having 
that challenge.
    From a broader standpoint, the key is, as was mentioned, 
prevention. We need to take commonsense steps to ensure this 
kind of activity is prevented up front, because we can put a 
lot of people in jail for stealing the money after they have 
stolen the money, but that is not what people want first and 
foremost. They want it stopped.
    Mr. Higgins. True.
    Mr. Horowitz. They do not want the money going out to the 
fraudster. What drives them crazy, as you said, is the Social 
Security Administration is sitting on a Death Master File Index 
to know someone is living or dead, right?
    Pandemic hits. Checks go out from the IRS and the Treasury 
Department to people who are dead. How does that happen? SBA 
sends loan money that is intended for small businesses to 
people who are dead. How does that happen, right?
    That is what I think, in many respects, drives people even 
crazier. It is both the prevention up front that needs to 
happen and, as you said, on the back end, we cannot let 
fraudsters get away with it, because if we let fraudsters get 
away with it, we have done a couple of things.
    We have trained fraudsters, `come back, because you will 
get away with it.' And, you know, as we all grew up being told 
by our parents, crime can never pay, right? There has to be a 
consequence to it, I think, on both sides.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you for your insightful answer.
    My time has expired, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the 
indulgence.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you 
very much.
    The gentlewoman, Ms. Norton, is recognized.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    When the unemployment rate spiked to nearly 15 percent at 
the onset of the pandemic, expansions of Federal programs 
served as the bulwark against poverty for millions of American 
families.
    For example, one study found Democrats' American Rescue 
Plan child tax credit expansion helped drive child poverty to 
an all-time low of 5.2 percent. Another study concluded that 
expanded unemployment insurance benefits kept an estimated 5 to 
6 million people out of poverty in 2020 alone.
    I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the 
record these two studies from the Center for Budget and Policy 
Priorities into the hearing record, please.
    Mr. Sessions. Without objection, it will be entered into 
the record.
    Ms. Norton. As we consider reforms to tackle improper 
payments, it is imperative that we strengthen Federal programs 
and not gut them.
    Ms. Brown, in time, in the time that Government 
Accountability Office has been studying improper payments in 
Federal programs, has it even once recommended program cuts or 
program elimination to Congress or Federal agencies?
    Ms. Brown. Those are public policy decisions. So, no, I am 
not aware of any recommendations that GAO has made in that 
regard.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you. Ms. Brown, what are two or three 
successful strategies that agencies have used to fight improper 
payments?
    Ms. Brown. So, the agencies that really are most mature on 
the scale are agencies that have done a couple of things, and 
that is not to say that there are any agencies that are perfect 
in this space, but agencies that have designated someone in the 
agency to be responsible for managing fraud, for identifying 
the risk and then developing a strategy.
    I mentioned this in my opening statement, but one of the 
first things that has to happen is an agency has to admit that 
they have a problem. So, in order to identify those agencies 
that are not at high risk of fraud, they have to do an 
assessment.
    And that is what we really push for, for agencies to 
proactively do that determination, and not just assume that 
they are at low risk of fraud, because we have identified a 
number of agencies that have told us they are at low risk of 
fraud, we do our investigation and we find fraudulent activity.
    So, agencies really have to come to terms with their real 
risk of fraud, and then put a plan in place to deal with it. 
You are not going to deal with the problem if you are 
fundamentally in denial about the problem.
    So, those are a couple of things that agencies that 
recognize their risk and they then start to take efforts to 
prevent it, because we cannot stress enough this issue of the 
change that has to happen is really a focus on prevention.
    Because when you are not identifying improper payments, and 
even improper payments or overpayments that are not the fault 
of the beneficiary, they create all sorts of havoc on the parts 
of those beneficiaries.
    So, they--it is not just a way to stop the fraudsters, but 
it is also a way to not harm people who are already struggling.
    Ms. Norton. Well, one simple way to fortify programs and 
reduce improper payments is to streamline, clarify, and 
simplify applications for Federal programs.
    At this Subcommittee's last hearing on improper payments, 
we heard witness testimony from Adrian Haro of The Workers Lab 
about the onerous and poorly designed application process for 
Federal programs that create needless barriers to receiving 
vital assistance. Federal application forms, which sometimes 
are still paper, can be difficult to read and nearly impossible 
to get right.
    It should not shock us that many applicants make mistakes 
that lead to improper payments. According to the Government 
Accountability Office, insufficient information or a lack of 
documentation from applicants caused about $20.3 billion, or 
approximately 8.2 percent of all improper payments in fiscal 
2022.
    By investing in tools and practices to design simple and 
accessible applications, the Federal Government can serve those 
who Congress intended and reduce improper payments.
    Ms. Miller, what technologies or processes should agencies 
employ to help them improve their agency processes?
    Ms. Miller. Well, I am really glad you asked that question, 
Congresswoman, because we have seen some really impressive 
activities in different pockets across the agencies.
    And one in particular, recently, the IRS took significant 
impressive preventative action in the Employee Retention Credit 
program where they were seeing flags that looked suspicious.
    And so, they said, we are going to take a 6-month 
moratorium, 6 months, not 5 years, 6 months, and we are going 
to go back and look at these applications. And they found $65 
billion in fraudulent applications for the Employee Retention 
Credit that they saved. They did not make those payments.
    And so, we have been talking about, you know, we have a 
pay-and-chase problem. We know we have a pay-and-chase problem. 
That is a really, really great example of an agency taking 
proactive measures and using data, right? And so, they had to 
identify those flags using data.
    And these are the kinds of things I think we want to see 
more of. I think we want to see agencies taking, you know, 
examples like that. So, pick a program. Like Social Security 
Administration, the President's budget for 2025 has identified 
that continuing disability reviews have a nine-to-one return on 
investment.
    So, that is crazy, right? So, you would obviously want to 
do that, because you are going to get nine times the money back 
by investing in conducting continuing disability reviews. What 
are some other examples where we can get an ROI similar, or it 
does not even have to be that high, five to one, three to one.
    And I think that when agencies--that is why, again, I want 
to go back to high risk. Pick the high-risk programs. Pick 
specific pieces of the high-risk programs, and then implement 
data-enabled tools, and then measure your outcomes.
    This is what we really need to do. We need to start showing 
those. We need to start advertising them. We need to start 
highlighting and showing agencies. And incentives can be, `hey, 
IRS, great job, you know, we want to see other agencies do 
similar things to that.'
    So, it has to be data-driven. I think it can be use-case 
and pilot and proof of concept-driven. And I think we are going 
to see the power of being able to use data if we invest in--and 
these are small investments--in some of these kinds of 
activities.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time. Thank 
you very much.
    The distinguished gentleman from South Carolina is 
recognized.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    During the pandemic, there were countless cases of fraud 
and abuse, with GAO estimating over half a trillion taxpayer 
dollars lost. Countless bills have been filed, letters have 
been sent, and congressional committees have had many hearings 
to dissect what went wrong during COVID.
    We must ensure that this mismanagement of funds never 
happens again. And the work we have done points to many ways we 
can actively improve our improper payment and fraud protection 
programs. We must fill the gaps in these systems while 
providing transparency to the American people to prove we can 
be good stewards of their tax dollars.
    Focusing on fraud prevention, the 2015 GAO Fraud Risk 
Framework is a good place to start.
    Ms. Brown, 9 years since the framework was developed, could 
you give an update as to how much of it has been implemented 
across the 15 executive agencies? Further, could you speak to 
the relationship between GAO and individual agencies in 
implementing this framework across the board?
    Ms. Brown. So, GAO has done dozens of individual reviews of 
agencies' implementation of the framework, and we have seen 
some mixed results. We continue to beat the drum on this.
    I think we have positive relationships with OMB, for 
example. And we make ourselves available to agencies 
proactively if they want to work through how to go about 
implementing the framework, if they have questions.
    One of the things that we did a couple of years ago, we 
provided a framework to help agencies address improper payments 
in emergency programs that really built on the 2015 framework.
    Mr. Timmons. Would you be able to give each agency a grade, 
C, D, F, A? I mean, if we asked you in writing, could you do 
that?
    Ms. Brown. On their implementation of the fraud framework?
    Mr. Timmons. Correct.
    Ms. Brown. It would be difficult, because there is not a 
lot of information provided. The Payment Integrity Information 
Act repealed some of the reporting requirements that existed 
before that required agencies to provide information on that.
    Mr. Timmons. I am going to followup with additional 
questions.
    Ms. Brown. So, we could, yes.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you.
    I would argue the largest blind spot in our effort to 
combat fraud during the Paycheck Protection Program, I mean, it 
was just extensive, and I think it could have been fairly easy 
to address some of the concerns.
    Mr. Horowitz, what additional identity verification tools 
could we have put in the statute to limit the amount of fraud?
    Mr. Horowitz. I think, Congressman, you are exactly right. 
The Paycheck Protection Program, PPP, and the
    Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, EIDL, both 
administered by SBA, their goal at the outset was to get the 
money out.
    And they lowered the guardrails. Congress did not put any 
guardrails in, arguably encouraged them to get the money out, 
based on the language in the law. And so, they sent it out 
based solely on self-certification. I say who I represent I am, 
I am truly that person.
    And what we have learned is, not surprisingly, lots of 
people were fraudsters who were willing to fill out that form, 
swear to the truth of it, and take the money and run.
    Mr. Timmons. Would it have been difficult to use Treasury's 
certifications to achieve the same objective? If you cannot pay 
your taxes, sorry. I mean, if you have the ability to pay your 
taxes, you have the ability to get relief?
    Mr. Horowitz. So that is exactly right. So, even what was 
available back in 2020, which was the Treasury's Do Not Pay 
System, which is a list, essentially, of bad actors, as you 
indicated, known bad actors, that was sitting there. SBA did 
not check that in 2020. They sent the money out instead.
    57,000 applicants got $3.6 billion who were already on that 
Do Not Pay list. So--and that, by the way, the Payment 
Integrity Information Act, it is part of that that they should 
be checking Do Not Pay. But they could have done more with the 
data analytics, right? Again, we have identified individuals 
who were deceased got paid while that Death Master File Index 
is sitting at the Social Security Administration.
    Mr. Timmons. Hindsight is 20/20, but we need to learn from 
this.
    Ms. Brown. Could I jump in for 1 second on that on the 
issue of SBA? So, early in the pandemic, GAO pointed out some 
of those steps, preventative steps they could take. And when 
SBA implemented our recommendation, it resulted in over $4 
billion prevented in potentially fraudulent payments.
    And then for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, we also 
recommended that if they do any--the same thing with that 
program, that they take some additional actions. And when they 
did, that prevented $6 billion of fraudulent funds going out 
the door. So, it definitely pays off.
    Mr. Timmons. I yield the remainder of my time to my friend 
from Alabama, Congressman Palmer.
    Mr. Palmer. I thank the gentleman.
    Mr. Horowitz, you said Social Security charged PRAC for 
verification data. Can you provide an itemized list to the 
Committee on how much the Social Security Administration 
charged PRAC? Just to verify Social Security numbers and other 
data, that was all you were asking, wasn't it?
    Mr. Horowitz. That is right. I can check that. I do not 
remember off the top of my head what the number was, but what I 
do recall from it was when my--when we first got this agreement 
in place, when we went there with the 2.7 million numbers, they 
came back with some--with a number that I thought was not 
reasonable.
    I told our folks to go back and ask them for an itemized 
list of why they were charging that much. And the price started 
dropping. So, it was subject to negotiation.
    Mr. Palmer. It would be good for the Committee to get that 
list. And would you recommend that we consider legislation to 
require the Social Security Administration to verify the data?
    Mr. Horowitz. Absolutely.
    Mr. Palmer. And you would be willing to help with that?
    Mr. Horowitz. Absolutely, be happy to work with you.
    Mr. Palmer. I thank the gentleman.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Horowitz. And can I just add one thing in terms of 
where we are going? We have put out a couple of Blueprint 
Reports of lessons learned, and we are continuing to do that 
over the next 6 months, because we want to put in one place all 
of the issues that GAO has identified.
    I should add the SBA IG also issued reports that were 
finally implemented that saved taxpayers billions of dollars as 
well. The same with the Labor IG. And we have collated those, 
brought them together in one document. We have put out two 
chapters so far, and we have got three more to go.
    Mr. Palmer. Well, you know I am a nerd, so send them to my 
office. Thanks.
    Mr. Horowitz. Absolutely.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you 
very much.
    The gentleman, Mr. Connolly, is recognized.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And let me just say, I think this is one of the best panels 
we have ever had on this subject. I have been going to hearings 
and getting excited about improper payments for 16 years. Your 
predecessor, Todd Platts, chaired the first hearing I went to. 
And like Ms. Miller, I bemoan the fact that we do not seem to 
have made much progress.
    Let me just start by saying, to me, if you are going to 
have data sharing and data analytics that help us flag and 
ultimately prevent fraud, you need an IT platform that works. 
And a lot of this can be sourced back to the fact that we have 
underinvested in IT in Federal agencies, let alone state 
agencies, which I will get to, Ms. Brown, for a long time.
    You know, IRS is a great example, where we kind of starve 
the beast of modernized IT upgrades, and then we are surprised 
when systems fail, when fraud occurs, when even nonfraud 
improper payments occur, because we do not--the information is 
not correct.
    I want to give you a chance, Mr. Horowitz, just to comment 
on that aspect of this problem, the failure or the lagged 
nature of our staying up with IT modernization in the Federal 
Government,
    Mr. Horowitz. It is absolutely a problem, as you outlined. 
I will go back to 12 years ago when I became IG. One of the 
things we were going to look at and undertake in one of our 
early data analytics efforts was disability fraud, where 
Justice Department employees----
    Mr. Connolly. I think you and I met on it.
    Mr. Horowitz. We did. And doing both, getting money from 
Labor, through Labor Department, disability, as well as still 
collecting a paycheck from somebody else.
    One of the problems was the Justice Department's IT systems 
could not read all of the data that Labor had, and so they 
could not do the match. Ours--we had to cleanse the data, build 
the system. We do it, as you know from our time together 
working on these issues, pretty effectively and efficiently, 
but we had to do it because the IT systems were not 
interoperable with each other.
    Mr. Connolly. Right. Even within agencies, we had----
    Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
    Mr. Connolly [continuing]. Competing H.R. systems could not 
talk to each other. Unbelievable.
    Ms. Brown, you and Mr. Palmer, my friend from Alabama, were 
talking about unemployment. And during the pandemic, you know, 
we changed the rules. We streamlined and made simpler 
eligibility. We pumped up payments. We extended the eligibility 
time period.
    But the problem with all of that is so we set the rules at 
this level and we pumped the money, but it is managed by 50 
different IT systems, 50 different states, and we do not 
control any of that.
    Knowing that, at the time--and we were worried about the 
emergency, so not everything was going to go perfect. But did 
we invest any money in helping the states upgrade their 
unemployment IT system so that we could try to minimize fraud 
and try to make sure the system was efficient and payments got 
to people who really needed it in the midst of the worst 
pandemic in 100 years?
    Ms. Brown. So----
    Mr. Connolly. No, no, my question is real simple. Did we 
provide money? Did we make investments to give states resources 
to upgrade their IT systems to manage unemployment?
    Ms. Brown. Not enough.
    Mr. Connolly. Not enough?
    Ms. Brown. No.
    Mr. Connolly. OK. I just say to my friend from Alabama, I 
mean, I did not mean to cut you off, but I am trying to make a 
point here, that when we have sort of third-party execution--so 
we are not running the unemployment program, they are.
    Ms. Brown. Yes.
    Mr. Connolly. What can go wrong with 50 different systems? 
And some did well and some did not. And the whole point was, 
get it out now. People are in urgent situations. We do not want 
them evicted. We do not want them hungry. We want to keep them 
together. And we could not meet that goal.
    By the way, the same with Small Business. But we could not 
meet that goal, because we got some old clunky, underinvested 
unemployment IT platforms in the 50 states. And, you know, I--
certainly in my own home state of Virginia, I know people were 
not getting their unemployment benefits, which was supposed to 
be flowing in April and May 2021, they were not getting it 
until October-November. And sometimes we had to go through a 
rigamarole of trying to make sure they were eligible.
    Ms. Miller, good to see you again. You appeared before my 
predecessor's subcommittee I chaired. By the way, this is a 
good example of why IT and government ops need to be married.
    But you had a phrase earlier today that fraud is a four-
letter word even though it is, of course, five, but for 
government, we will let it go, a four-letter word in a lot of 
agencies. And I want to explore that a little bit, and the 
others could jump in. This will be my last question.
    But one of the things that struck me about improper 
payments, not only fraud prevention, the biggest challenge, but 
even just trying to get it right so that we are not duplicating 
payments or whatever.
    There is no incentive system in the Federal Government to 
really make this your cause in life. You are going to get, you 
know, a Nobel Peace Prize if you prevent hunger and made sure--
you know, make sure famine is turned around. If you are at CMS 
or HHS, you are going to get some big award if you can say, I 
expanded healthcare coverage by 10 million people.
    No one is going to give you an award, in theory, for you to 
say, I prevented $10 billion in fraud. Something did not 
happen; I am going to get an award. I mean, I liken it to local 
government. You know, no one is going to give you, if you are 
on the Board of Supervisors, you know, an award for upgrading 
the sewer system to prevent blowout of--you know.
    Ms. Miller. Right.
    Mr. Connolly. Even though it is a pretty critical function. 
So, how do we turn that around? How do we--and I know, Ms. 
Brown, you kind of alluded to this as well. How do we turn that 
around, so we create real incentives both for the agency itself 
and for individuals within the agency to make this a priority?
    Ms. Miller. Well, so, I think we have to get creative. We 
cannot fire people in the government, right? So, we are not 
going to say, `oh, agency leader X, you lost half a trillion 
dollars of fraud so you lost your job,' right? And we cannot 
cut their budgets, because most of the budget is going to 
benefit the people that they are trying to serve.
    So, cutting the budget does not--it impacts the actual--the 
victims themselves, right? And so, we have to be creative in 
this problem. This is not--we cannot be analogous to the 
private sector.
    I think there is a couple things. One, when I was at GAO, 
and we would talk to agencies about approving, let us say, 
applications, the performance metrics were all how quickly do 
we approve an application.
    Mr. Connolly. Yes.
    Ms. Miller. So, if I see that this application has some 
flag on it, well, my incentive, my performance measure is 
about, `well, did you get your 15 done today?' It is going to 
take me another hour to go run down this flag, so I am just 
going to let that go, right?
    So, part of it is incentivizing performance metrics around 
program integrity and around fraud prevention at every level, 
including leadership. There needs to be the scorecard idea that 
has been floated around here for senior leadership. The 
organization that I just co-founded, the Program Integrity 
Alliance, we are creating a fraud benchmarking scorecard.
    And, I mean, you know, Partnership for Public Service has 
this, you know, best places to work in the Federal Government. 
Agencies are super proud to be on the top of that list. They 
put their--GAO puts its--it is right in the front, right? GAO 
is--we are the best place to work in the Federal Government for 
mid-size government agencies.
    So, it is a Hall of Fame/Hall of Shame kind of idea. I have 
been advocating for a long time that agencies who are 
continuing to see significant losses in fraud, waste, abuse, 
and improper payments ought to be put on some sort of Hall of 
Shame list. They ought to be having regular hearings. It could 
be quarterly.
    If we look to the private sector, things like banks who 
are--undergo monitorships when they have a big fraud event. 
Like Wells Fargo has a big fraud event, they have to do--they 
are undergoing this big monitorship for the next year. 
Everybody is like--they have got, you know, an army of auditors 
in there making sure that they are not going to--it is not 
going to happen again.
    I mean, I think it would have to increase the budget of Ms. 
Brown and Mr. Horowitz, but you could create similar 
monitorship kind of for those really egregious agencies and 
say, we are just going to be all over you, like white on rice, 
until you fix this problem.
    So, I think incentivizing leadership performance metrics 
and coming up with some sort of creative shaming and, you 
know--and advertising and, you know, awarding and rewarding 
those agencies that are doing it good. But we are definitely 
going to have to be creative in this problem.
    Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And thanks so much 
for holding this hearing. I really want to commend you and Mr. 
Mfume. I think this is one of the most substantive hearings we 
have had on this subject in the 16 years I have been here. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Connolly, thank you very much.
    I think that the expression of support that you have given 
here, if we listen to these witnesses, as you and I, Mr. Mfume, 
and others have done, we really glean together enough 
information to know that there is a desire on their side to do 
something to fix this.
    And in discussions that I had with them yesterday, each and 
every one of them, we found common ground to things that they 
asked me for. And I think it is important that we follow this 
up.
    Mr. Mfume and I do very well with each other, as you and I 
do, Gerry, of following up on those tasks that I believe they 
have presented to us, also, to be responsible about that. And I 
will look forward to working on that, as I know Mr. Mfume would 
with you also. Thank you very much.
    I now will yield myself my 5 minutes and would defer that 
to the gentleman, if he would choose, from Alabama. Are you 
still seeking additional time?
    Mr. Palmer. No.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman is not seeking additional time. 
Thank you very much. I will give that to myself then.
    Each of you have been here and spoken, I think, very 
clearly about the things which are in the best interests, which 
are ideas that are very available to us.
    Does this mean that we need to gather together and re-meet 
with you as a group, perhaps, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Perry, Mr. 
Frost, Mr. Mfume, myself, and come up with a real plan?
    Because it seems like, to me, there is a desire if you 
gained our agreement, if we were able to put things in 
legislation, if we were able to listen to Mr. Horowitz about 
the things which he talked to me about, about extending his not 
only legislative mandate that he has, but the tool kits that 
are available within that. Is this the kind of thing that we 
really should be following up on?
    Ms. Brown, what would you expect us to do following this 
hearing?
    Ms. Brown. Absolutely. And the GAO is--stands ready to work 
together. I think this is a problem that is solvable, but it is 
going to take all of us to work together to solve it.
    In my statement, I lay out a number of legislative 
proposals that we would like to see addressed. In terms of the 
issue that Congressman Timmons asked about rating, we think we 
could get there with a rating, but there needs to be some 
additional information. There are a number of other legislative 
proposals. We have talked about making permanent Treasury's 
access to the Death Master File.
    There are a number of other steps that we think could take 
in terms of improving the accuracy of data that is available on 
USA Spending, for example. That is the place that we send 
Americans to go when they are interested in getting information 
about Federal spending. And the data are not reliable. And we 
want to make sure that OMB and Treasury understand that they 
have a responsibility to make sure that that information is 
accurate.
    I think all of this goes to helping restore the public 
trust in government. And, you know, I understand the 
frustration of taxpayers across America when it comes to making 
sure that the government is being responsible stewards of their 
hard-earned tax dollars.
    So, it is important we are ready to work with all of you to 
come up with a path forward on this, and I think we can do it. 
And we have talked about the things that need to be put in 
place to really address the issue of prevention, data 
analytics.
    To Representative Connolly's point about IT investments, 
that is a huge issue. It is something that is easy to ignore 
when things are going OK. And I think that is a lot of what we 
saw with unemployment insurance. You know, unemployment was 
fairly low. There were agencies that had really low rates of 
unemployed people seeking unemployment payments. So, there was 
not necessarily an investment. But then trying to push out 
trillions of dollars through systems that were 40 or 50 years 
old, no one should have been surprised at the outcome of those 
efforts.
    Labor has tried. They have provided about $780 million to 
states to modernize their IT systems, but we have to make sure 
that those efforts are fully executed on. So, we are ready to 
work with you.
    Mr. Sessions. Thank you. Ms. Miller, there is--I am going 
to let you add, but I also want to say, and how do we go about 
engaging states, please?
    Ms. Miller. Yes. So, I really think--I do not want to 
oversimplify some of the really significant policy tensions 
that exist here. So, when we talk about data, there are an 
awful lot of people, American citizens, people in academia, 
people in the private sector, who are really concerned about 
government's use of data to prevent fraud. And so, there is 
this sort of privacy protection arm, let us say, and then there 
is the--sort of the fraud prevention arm.
    And I have been advocating for a long time. One of the 
reasons that I started the Program Integrity Alliance is 
because what I see missing is getting people in a room. And 
that is why I really love the idea that you have come up with, 
Congressman, because getting those people in the room, we have 
got to find the common ground.
    I think we can all agree that American people's personally 
identifiable information should not just be available for--you 
know, for use no matter what, in any circumstance, right? But I 
think we also know that the fraud actors have our data, all of 
our data. Every single one of us, they have all of our data and 
they are using it right now.
    And so, it is really important, I think, to start to get 
the privacy advocate arm that exists in academia and in some 
pockets of policy and politics onto the same page with the 
fraud prevention arm and find where there is the common ground.
    I think these conversations that need to happen, because 
these problems are not easy. They are going to require 
compromise. They are going to require people saying, `OK, we do 
need more access to data on citizens. How can we do it in a 
safe way?' How do we make sure IT systems are modernized that 
we can trust when we are sharing that data, and how can we 
create a legislative framework that enables the sharing of that 
information and makes American citizens feel safe about how 
their data is being used.
    That is one example where I think a lot of this information 
or this common ground connection and getting to someplace where 
we are all walking in the same sort of--in the--you know, we 
all sort of agree this is a problem. We do not all agree on how 
to solve it.
    And some of these legislative proposals that have been 
talked about are sort of--they are the easy ones. Those are the 
easy ones. Get access to the full death file. That should not 
be hard. You know, codify the PACE, that should not be hard.
    These other things, these are going to be harder, and they 
are going to require conversations, they are going to require 
compromise.
    Mr. Sessions. I think you are right. And I think also, of 
course, it is so broad. When we were talking yesterday perhaps 
with all three of you, there was a conversation about SBA, 
where there are large numbers.
    Mr. Horowitz may have given us the number again today about 
how stunning that amount of money is, but I just cannot imagine 
you would not expect that they would come in and take out a 
loan and you would gain all the information. You could 
certainly look at it instead of trying to get it out the door. 
It would be trying to do the right thing.
    I think that what we need to recognize is that if we will 
work together, we cannot just plug a lot of these holes. We can 
come up with an understanding about your responsibility, the 
agreement that we have about what the American people would 
have to do to get a loan, to share information. But the 
government has an incredible amount of information.
    My last point here, because I am over my time, is in 
conversation with you yesterday, someone brought up about all 
the calls that we personally received during these COVID 
periods about, `hey, all you have to do is come to us.' They 
were some third party. Come to us and we will go get that money 
for you. Come to us and we will get this student loan, or we 
will get this whatever it might be.
    And I think, Ms. Miller, what you just said is the bad 
actors have data also. They know the right answers to the 
questions. They know who might be doing these things. And yet 
they were in the--had positioned themselves in the marketplace 
as an intermediate to the agency on behalf of people. I think 
that is a very interesting concept that we need to delve into 
and understand also.
    I will now go to the gentlewoman, Ms. Lee, for her time. I 
yield back my time.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    My colleagues have touched on this throughout our hearing 
today, but to get to the heart of what we are talking about, 
improper payments simply means that the government did not or 
cannot tell whether its payments to the right person--got 
payments to the right person or in the right amount.
    Ms. Williams Brown, overpayments, where the government sent 
more money to someone than they were supposed to receive, are 
considered improper payments. Is that correct?
    Ms. Brown. Correct.
    Ms. Lee. About what percent of errors in payments were 
overpayments?
    Ms. Brown. Ninety percent.
    Ms. Lee. Goodness. It was more than I thought. Overpayments 
are not necessarily fraudulent. It could be that someone is not 
even aware they received an improper overpayment, right?
    Ms. Brown. Yes.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. So, the Social Security and Disability 
Insurance programs have a history of these types of 
overpayments, ones where the recipient is not even aware they 
were overpaid.
    Ms. Miller, if the Social Security Administration somehow 
overpays a person's Social Security benefits, the Social 
Security Administration is required to take that money back.
    What are some of the ways an agency like SSA might try to 
get that money back?
    Ms. Brown. So, they have a number of possibilities. In some 
cases, the person can repay the amount in full. There may be 
payments made over time. So, there are a range of actions that 
an agency like SSA could take to try to recoup it. They--some 
agencies associate it with refunds, Federal refunds. In some 
cases, waivers are a possibility. So, there are a range of 
potential actions.
    Ms. Lee. So, as you said, we have seen in some cases SSA 
would dock a Social Security recipient's monthly benefits 
entirely, though, forcing some seniors and those with 
disabilities to lose their homes or go without food. So, the 
government makes a mistake and the person on Social Security 
benefits, who is likely unaware of the overpayment, pays the 
price, literally.
    Fortunately, as a small fix by this Administration, 
recipients of these overpayments now have nearly double the 
time to repay the government than they had previously, but more 
time can still be a problem. So, recouping overpayments has 
real kitchen table, as we call them, implications for seniors 
and people with disabilities, who rely on Social Security 
benefits and live on tight budgets.
    Any change in the amount can mean less food or a missed 
mortgage payment or foregoing medications. These heartbreaking 
scenarios could be prevented if the government leveraged 
technologies to more effectively track program payments from 
the outset.
    Mr. Horowitz, the PRAC has made great strides in advancing 
how the government uses data to prevent improper payments in 
pandemic spending.
    What have been some of your greatest successes?
    Mr. Horowitz. So, Congresswoman, I think you are absolutely 
right. You know, one of the things that what we have been able 
to do with the analytics efforts is--well, first of all, 
support tracking down the fraudsters, because, as said earlier, 
these are people who stole money from the public, who harmed 
intended recipients.
    So, that I think has been very important. But I think 
another thing that we have done that has really changed the way 
we do oversight is we have worked closely with our state and 
local oversight partners, with state auditors, county auditors, 
county officials, with GAO, which we had a close relationship 
with before this.
    But working with state and locals, we got word to them 
early on about fraud alerts that we were seeing, so they could 
do, as you said, stop things early, prevent it early, and 
thereby ensure money was going to go to the beneficiaries, the 
unemployed, the small businesses, not the fraudsters.
    Ms. Lee. Certainly. Mr. Horowitz, a lot of that success 
also has been through leveraging cyber talent, data analytics 
to improve these processes, correct?
    Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
    Ms. Lee. Would codifying the analytic capacity at the PRAC 
help combat improper payments or--excuse me, and overpayments?
    Mr. Horowitz. Absolutely, they would. It is such an 
important and potential prevention tool that we just should not 
lose.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. So, improper payments, they just do not 
exist in the government contracting world. It affects real 
people who rely on these benefits to live. No one should worry 
about affording their prescription drugs or putting food on the 
table because the government is clawing back on overpayments 
that they did not even realize they received.
    I am hopeful that this upcoming scorecard will incentivize 
agencies to use technologies that prevent these improper 
payments. Of course, our constituents deserve nothing less. And 
also, it is something that is anxiety-inducing and truly, you 
know, punishing folks who have done no wrong, but still, we 
have to make sure that we are correcting these.
    Mr. Horowitz. And you are exactly right, Congresswoman. Can 
I add to that?
    Ms. Lee. Please.
    Mr. Horowitz. As I mentioned earlier, you know, there are 
people who were the intended beneficiaries who fraudsters beat 
to the unemployment line, and they had to prove they were the 
real person. And for someone who does not have the money and 
who needs the unemployment, very hard for them to find someone 
to help them get through the agency bureaucracy at that point, 
right?
    In addition, I bet you all of your constituents were the 
victims of an identity theft and a fraud that occurred. They 
were not beneficiaries. They were simply people whose 
identities were stolen who learned after the fact when they got 
a 1099 from the IRS or a notice from their local government, 
that somehow they got benefits that they never got. And those 
are victims here, also, I am sure in every district in the 
country.
    Ms. Lee. Yes. Thank you so much for that. I thank you all 
for your time. And thank you to our Chair and Ranking Member 
for this important hearing.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    The gentlewoman, Ms. Crockett, is recognized.
    Ms. Crockett. You can tell I was a little surprised.
    First of all, thank you so much, Mr. Chair, for recognizing 
me, and thank you so much for pulling together this hearing.
    I want to go over a few things. Some of the things were 
actually just brought up by my colleague. I was surprised to 
hear that 90 percent was the percentage of overpayments, which 
leaves 10 percent, if I am good at my math, potentially that 
would be the realm for fraud.
    Go ahead.
    Ms. Brown. I would just say that improper payments includes 
underpayments. So, the 10 percent could also include 
underpayments.
    Ms. Crockett. Oh. But--OK. Oh, got what you are saying. So, 
we are saying that there is potentially--OK.
    So, my question is this: If we had to tie down--and if you 
do not know the answer, that is fine, because literally I am 
just going here because I just was surprised by the number.
    If I had to tie down how much money we are losing 
specifically as it relates to fraud, do we have a number for 
that?
    Ms. Brown. So, we did an estimate of losses related to 
fraud, based on 2018 to 2022 data.
    Ms. Crockett. OK.
    Ms. Brown. And we estimate that the range is between $233 
and $521 billion dollars annually.
    Ms. Crockett. OK. And my next question is--because I do not 
have this information. So, if you do not, that is OK as well. 
As it relates to recommendations around technology, there have 
been a lot of conversations around basically upgrading, doing 
something different, basically moving us forward instead of 
kind of sticking to the old way.
    Do we have estimates or proposals or requests that have 
been made by any agency as it relates to what it would cost us 
to go ahead and put in the technology that would be most 
helpful?
    Ms. Brown. I am not aware of an estimate.
    Mr. Horowitz. I am not aware of an estimate. And I think 
one of the challenges, Congresswoman, is what you and others 
have talked about here, which is, agencies are not incentivized 
necessarily to come forward with that number and to focus on 
fixing this problem, which is why I think this hearing has been 
so valuable.
    Ms. Crockett. OK. Well, I am going to say this right now. I 
am charging all of you all to go and get me some numbers, 
because at the end of the day the American people are relying 
upon us, especially those of us that sit on Oversight, to 
actually be watchdogs over their tax dollars.
    And so, I really hate to leave a situation where we have 
had lots of good, feel-good conversations and we have no 
solutions. And so, most technology costs money. For instance, 
we have had Oversight hearings as it relates to issues with the 
Department of Defense, who cannot pass their audits, and at 
least we are getting estimates on what the cost would be.
    I at least would like to say that we have had that 
information before us, because none of us--and I am maybe being 
presumptuous--sitting up here have the expertise to know what 
it is that you need to make sure that these agencies are going 
to be able to better do their jobs.
    And the reason that I ask for the numbers is because I 
could guess--this is just a guesstimate--that whatever the 
technology costs, it is less than $233 to $521 billion dollars 
a year. That is just my guess, but I could be wrong. And I am 
here to provide some sort of solutions.
    In addition to that, you know, I appreciate this hearing 
because, No. 1, we are acknowledging that there is a problem. 
That is a good start for us, specifically here in Congress, to 
agree on that.
    But one of the issues that I have is kind of this blind eye 
that we sometimes turn, because as we are in election season. 
And there is definitely a candidate that said that he is just 
going to get rid of fraud in his first 6 months. You know, I do 
not know what kind of wizardry he has going on to be able to 
snap his fingers and get rid of anything in 6 months, but I 
would like real solutions, because the talking is not getting 
us anywhere.
    It is my understanding that if we go back a few years, back 
to 2013, I believe the number was, the number as it relates to 
this particular conversation was down at $35 billion? Yes, back 
in 2003, the number was $35 billion. And now we are truly just 
going through the roof.
    And again, as we are hearing the conversations around how 
the American people are struggling, we need to do something 
better about the moneys that we are getting in so that we can 
then move on to help people that need help, such as those that 
are relying on SNAP benefits and things like that.
    So, I appreciate any assistance that you all can provide. 
And maybe the next proposed budgets, you all can put in 
something for technology upgrades to help and assist all 
agencies that need the help and assistance to make sure that we 
can start to rein this in.
    Thank you so much, and I yield.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    The gentlewoman, Ms. Tlaib.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate both 
you and Ranking Member Mfume for working on this.
    I know we always talk about money, but I want to talk about 
the human impact. It is devastating when they--when our 
residents get that letter. And, honestly, when they get those 
checks, they do really have no idea, but they are like, `OK, I 
got a check from the Federal Government.'
    They have no idea to say, pause and let us figure this out, 
because what happens, not in a month, not in a few months, 
sometimes over 6, 8 months later, and they get charged--Mr. 
Chair, Ranking Member, they get charged interest and back fees.
    And this reminded me of when I served in the state house, 
the Michigan Unemployment Agency at that time, they had put in 
a computer system. We have a lot of auto workers in Michigan. 
And so, in July, they would take--I think it was around the 
summertime--they would take a couple weeks off for what they 
call turnover.
    You know, they would do some maintenance on some of the 
auto companies in assembly lines. And so, folks would apply. 
And, of course, just like every year, they would get their 2-
week unemployment check. Years pass by, or so forth, and all of 
a sudden, they get this automated letter saying, you committed 
fraud. We had people lose their homes, like homes, over just 
not being able to pay their taxes and a number of other things.
    The question I have--and, you know, Ms. Williams Brown, you 
can help me. We cannot determine whether a payment went to the 
right person in the right amount. We call it improper payment, 
correct? That is what we call it, improper payment.
    Ms. Brown. Correct.
    Ms. Tlaib. So, are most improper payments financial fraud 
or are there other causes at play? And you guys talked a little 
bit about it, but I read that 91 percent of improper payments 
are attributed to an agency's failure.
    And we are seeing this now, right now, where I have folks 
that were getting unemployment during the pandemic, and they 
continued getting payments, even though they had--you know, did 
the proper paperwork saying--you know, did not send in their 
paperwork, they were getting automated payments.
    And now they are getting back and they are saying, you 
committed fraud, even though they could prove like, `hey, I did 
not fill out the paperwork, I did not do anything.' But it 
takes a long time, because they have to go through the process 
of showing that they are innocent.
    Can you talk a little bit about that, Ms. Brown? Because it 
is devastating when they do get those letters.
    Ms. Brown. So, we have done work.
    I will take an example from the Social Security 
Administration space and their disability program. They have a 
program called Ticket to Work that encourages people with 
disabilities to work. We found that it also creates a 
disincentive, because if you breach the threshold for the 
program, you then risk having your disability either reduced or 
cut. And there are a number of issues in terms of timing of 
reporting that can result in an improper payment or the 
beneficiary actually provides all of their paperwork in time 
but Social Security Administration does not process that 
paperwork in time to adjust----
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes.
    Ms. Brown [continuing]. A payment.
    Ms. Tlaib. I have actually heard about this.
    Ms. Brown. Yes.
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes.
    Ms. Brown. So, I have a--we testified on this in June. I am 
happy to submit that testimony for the record. But it creates--
it creates an issue.
    So, it is definitely a challenge. And if you look at some 
of the root causes, we really stressed that agencies need to 
get behind the root causes of improper payments.
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes.
    Ms. Brown. And often if you look at the root causes they 
provide, they really are providing reasons. They are providing 
categories of improper payments but not the root cause.
    So, the Social Security Administration identified, you 
know, kind of failure to process the paperwork as one of the 
causes of improper payments. But the question then becomes, 
well, what was the cause for the slowness in processing the 
information? And that is where you start to pull the thread to 
get behind what the real root cause of the improper payment is 
in order to be able to address it.
    Ms. Tlaib. One question to the Chair Horowitz. One of the 
things I hear--and I do not know if it is you. But during the 
pandemic, what I heard is, you know, even some people were 
coming back to work, but it was not full 40 hours. It was not 
the original. So, they were trying to at least still be able to 
make up the difference between, you know--they went back to 
work.
    And I actually have family--a resident right now that did 
everything right but said, oh, but my hours were reduced. So, I 
still would qualify at least because I am not back at 40 hours.
    And there was this whole mix-up. And they were, I guess, 
given different kind of information.
    But then they said, no, you are committing fraud. You are 
back at work.
    But I am not back at work at the full 40 hours. I am only 
back at 20.
    I mean, can you talk about what we can do? Because our 
families are stuck in this. It is--you know, there are the 
scammers, and I love going after scammers. I cannot stand them. 
I do not care if they are billionaires or not, all of them. The 
ones who scam our IRS system, all that, I cannot stand it.
    But it is our families that just do not know, and they get 
that check. And, of course, they are not like, let me go send 
it back, let me make sure this is right. They cash it. They put 
it in their bank account. They go pay their bills.
    Mr. Horowitz. Right.
    Ms. Tlaib. And I do not know how to fix it and how to make 
sure that we are not ruining their lives because we cannot get 
it right on our end.
    Mr. Horowitz. Yes. Yes, I agree with you, Congresswoman. 
And I think it is something we have talked about here. When 
that happens, when the agency makes a mistake and sends the 
wrong amount of money out, they hold the person who got the 
check accountable.
    Ms. Tlaib. Yes.
    Mr. Horowitz. But they do not hold themselves accountable--
--
    Ms. Tlaib. That is right.
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. For it.
    And what we have to figure out is a way to have that 
happen. I think the scorecard is a very important part of that 
actually, the bipartisan scorecard----
    Ms. Tlaib. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. Because I agree that, you know, 
the public should know, you should know, the policymakers 
should know which agencies are doing it well and which agencies 
are falling down on the job.
    And when that happens with agencies, what you are 
mentioning--and Social Security Administration has had this 
problem----
    Ms. Tlaib. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. As talked about, what 
accountability measures are there internally----
    Ms. Tlaib. I agree, yes.
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. To figure that out?
    And, frankly, as we have all talked about today and as we 
have discussed in this hearing, there aren't many. There are 
not many agencies that are doing that. There are a few but not 
many, and that is what we need to sit and work together on to 
address.
    Ms. Tlaib. I apologize. I went over time. I did not realize 
that Mr. Chair. I apologize sincerely.
    But we do need to talk about timing. Our residents, after 
they made the mistake and they get the letter in a year, that 
is not fair. They have already spent the money. They are living 
check by check. They do not deserve to be punished.
    Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And I yield.
    Ms. Brown. Could I just add one--one thing about this 
issue? One of the things I want to make sure I mention, that 
agencies do have some flexibility in terms of waiving nonfraud 
payments that have been deemed to be improper because of 
eligibility concerns. And two things they can consider is 
fairness and impact.
    So, agencies do have some flexibility to try to parse out 
someone who may have innocently received an overpayment and 
they tried to do the right thing versus fraudsters.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    The gentleman from Florida is recognized.
    Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you so much for 
calling this hearing.
    Americans have heard about improper pandemic relief 
payments and the bad actors who took advantage. There are also 
many folks, to what my colleague, Congresswoman Tlaib, was just 
talking about, folks in my own family who are, you know, not 
fraudsters, received incorrect overpayments, and were very 
stressed receiving those letters, receiving those calls, 
figuring out what they need to do next.
    These bad actors use the government's need to act urgently 
as an opportunity to claim taxpayer dollars meant for those who 
needed it the most.
    Mr. Horowitz, I want to talk really quick about trends and 
patterns. Have you--I mean, you have helped identify several 
individuals who have stolen and misused COVID relief money. Are 
these individuals usually pretty sophisticated fraudsters?
    Mr. Horowitz. We are seeing the range of fraud. It was 
mentioned earlier about the Secret Service. We have worked with 
them on international organized crime efforts.
    On the other hand, you have people who just do it as an 
opportunity, as an opportunity to get money. Some people 
because they really thought they needed more money, because 
they were economically disadvantaged--does not excuse the 
fraud--and other people who were billionaires or millionaires 
who decided to buy luxury yachts, Lamborghinis, we call them--
refer to them as Lamborghini cases sometimes--people stealing 
the money and buying expensive cars, yachts, diamonds, et 
cetera, going on trips.
    We have plenty of those cases, sadly, as well.
    Mr. Frost. And do you feel like the government was very 
clear in what would be a proper use and improper use of all the 
funds that people were requesting?
    Mr. Horowitz. Well, I think one of the challenges with the 
Small Business Administration programs was the lack of clarity 
on expectations. And we have heard in other programs, that we 
have had hearings on and discussed with program administrators, 
the lack of clarity from the agencies on how to implement new 
programs, the lack of guidance, and that they--they struggled 
with states, localities, other entities that were getting 
grants and loans.
    That is something that also needs to happen with 
regularity.
    Mr. Frost. Are there patterns in their behaviors, the 
fraudsters, that make catching future ones easier to catch?
    Mr. Horowitz. You know, one of the things I have talked 
about is avoiding the perfect being the enemy of the good.
    There are plenty of hurdles we can put in place of people 
who try to engage in fraud. And what we have seen over and over 
again--and I was formerly a prosecutor earlier in my career. If 
you put a hurdle or enough hurdles in front of people, you 
might not stop the most sophisticated fraudster. You might need 
even more stringent efforts and guardrails, but you are likely 
to stop most people. Because when they first get the call or 
are told, you know, you triggered an alert, we want to talk to 
you, most people who know they are fraudsters drop it right 
there, right. They do not show up for the interview.
    I have, again, compared it at the airport. If you know 
there is the magnetometer there, you are probably going to 
think before you try and walk through with a weapon, right? 
That does not happen with great frequency, fortunately.
    But if there is no magnetometer there, if it is, like for 
many of these programs, just sign a form and say you are 
telling the truth and we will give you the money, you get 
fraudsters lining up.
    Ms. Miller. Could I--could I add something really quickly?
    Mr. Frost. Yes, please.
    Ms. Miller. The Comptroller General testified several times 
during the pandemic that, you know, GAO put the GAO fraud 
framework out almost a decade ago and agencies did not 
implement the practices within.
    And one example, when you ask about these fraud cases 
during the pandemic, there was a case in California where an 
enterprising group of fraudsters applied for unemployment 
insurance on behalf of every prisoner in the California state 
penal system, and they got it.
    So it was, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of 
obviously improper stolen unemployment insurance. When the 
California State Auditor went back and looked, the state had 
never conducted a fraud risk assessment.
    Now, if these things are done well, as the GAO fraud 
framework clearly lays out, then the state of California would 
have at some point in that time prior to the pandemic asked--
that would have been a fraud scheme, somebody posing as a 
prisoner trying to get an unemployment benefit.
    And then they would say, how would we mitigate that? Well, 
we have access to prisoner data. Do we have access to prisoner 
data? We do not. So, we see a gap. Now we are going to get 
access to prisoner data, and we have now closed that fraud 
scheme, that risk.
    And that is what is--you know, when Ms. Brown is talking 
about the importance of implementing the GAO fraud framework, 
that is really a real-world example is, if the state had done 
that, then they would have known they needed that access to the 
data prior to the pandemic. They would have gotten that data-
sharing agreement in place, and that fraud scheme and that--
those hundreds of millions of dollars would not have been 
stolen.
    Ms. Brown. And that is also the importance of the states 
and the Federal Government working together, because California 
can then share its experience with all the other states and all 
the states can look for it.
    And to his credit, the Department of Labor IG in April put 
out a fraud alert about this, and that was one of the 
situations that they put states on alert to.
    But just to add on to Mr. Horowitz' point with another 
example. The retention tax credit program is an IRS program. 
And what they have done is they suspended the program and they 
put a pause on all of the folks that had filed claims for this 
particular tax credit. And they ran analytics and they 
identified a number of them as likely fraud. And then they had 
a category of, like, a higher-risk level that they were 
uncomfortable with and then a lower level. And they also 
offered folks who had filed a claim an opportunity to withdraw 
their claim.
    And a number of people withdrew their claim because it is, 
like, if you--you know, IRS has now flagged it. So, if this is 
problematic, we are going to give you an opportunity to 
withdraw your return.
    So, I think that is another example of where an agency was 
proactive in preventing money from going out the door 
fraudulently.
    Mr. Frost. Well, thank you to the three of you for being 
here.
    I think, you know, something I am really getting out of 
this is it is not that--it is that we have--we have a ton of 
best practices, right, and use cases that we can use in the 
future, so that way the conversation is not around not doing 
programs that are going to help the American people, especially 
in time of need, but making sure we do it in a better, more 
efficient way.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    The distinguished gentleman from Arizona is recognized.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding 
this hearing today.
    And I thank the witnesses for their testimony. I am sorry I 
have missed most of it.
    GAO has estimated the Federal Government improper payments 
totaled $236 billion in Fiscal Year 2023. Since 2003, it is 
estimated that the cumulative improper payments total $2.7 
trillion.
    And while we will never know the exact total of improper 
payments made, that in and of itself, that statement in and of 
itself, is a sad one to make.
    We will not know the total funds lost to fraud during 
COVID. GAO estimates that it exceeded half a trillion dollars.
    While congressional and agency attention to this 
longstanding problem has resulted in increased accountability, 
improper payments and outright fraud persists, particularly 
when policymakers, including congressional policymakers, 
prioritize shoveling money out the door in response to a crisis 
instead of ensuring those funds reach their intended 
recipients.
    Ms. Williams Brown, thank you for your testimony and for 
GAO's attention to improper payments. We appreciate that.
    In a 2022 review of COVID-19 relief programs entitled, 
``Emergency Relief Funds: Significant Improvements Are Needed 
to Ensure Transparency and Accountability for COVID-19 and 
Beyond''--a very pithy title to your report--GAO made a number 
of recommendations for Congress to consider in order to reduce 
fraud in Federal emergency programs.
    I am happy to announce that my office has drafted a bill 
that is actually in GAO's hands now for review to implement 
some of those recommendations.
    One of those recommendations is that Congress enact a law 
effectively requiring Federal agencies to adopt model internal 
control plans based on OMB guidance which can be used in or 
adapted to a future emergency response.
    Can you please talk about the need for agencies to adopt 
emergency internal control plans and what steps those plans 
should include?
    Ms. Brown. Absolutely. And thank you so much for your 
support on this endeavor.
    So, what we really want OMB to do in conjunction with the 
agencies is to really think about how they will handle 
emergency situations before they happen. Trying to figure out 
what those upfront controls are in the moment, it is not going 
to happen. The priority is going to be getting the money out 
the door. And many of the controls that need to be in place are 
controls that need to be in place for existing programs. So, it 
is not that they necessarily need to do something special or 
different, but it is making sure that agencies are building 
those controls in upfront, having a plan in place so they are 
thinking about it.
    So, it is similar to coming up with, you know, a 
contingency plan. You think about it ahead of time so when you 
are faced with the emergency, you already have the muscle 
memory to know what you need to do in place.
    And this is--this is what we want OMB to work with the 
agencies to do because we think that is the best way to really 
achieve that goal of preventing those dollars from going out 
the door, before they go out the door.
    Mr. Biggs. I appreciate that. Thank you.
    The widespread proliferation of sensitive personal 
identifiable information due to data breaches, like the recent 
national public data breach or the activities of the 
unregulated data broker industry, is making it very easy for 
fraudsters to assume identities and steal government benefits 
using date of birth, Social Security number, or childhood 
address. Yet many methods of identity verification actually 
rely upon the data matching conducted by those same data 
brokers.
    Some recommendations to Congress mentioned data matching as 
a useful tool to prevent improper payments. But as Congress is 
working to strike a balance on preventing fraud and protecting 
consumer privacy, can you speak to the pros and cons of 
deploying it as a fraud prevention solution?
    Ms. Brown?
    Ms. Brown. Identity verification is critically important. 
It is a complicated issue, but it is one that has to happen. I 
think Mr. Horowitz may be able to speak to it, but I think 
identity theft was a huge issue during the pandemic, as well as 
synthetic identities. That is a new, complicating factor that 
makes it even more complicated to identify the fraud.
    So, there was a perfect storm brewing as the pandemic hit 
and the fraudsters were really ready to pounce because there 
was lots of readily available personally identifiable 
information available on the dark web for them to exploit.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
    Now, Mr. Horowitz, this next three questions, I am putting 
them into one compound question before I run out of time, 
because he will let you run on and answer a question but he is 
not going to let me run on too long.
    So, here is my three questions for you. Last time you were 
here, I flagged that early implementation of ID verification 
technology in Arizona based on NIST Digital Identity Guidelines 
is credited with preventing more than $75 billion in 
unemployment insurance fraud. There was 99 percent reduction in 
fraud in Arizona using that.
    What has prevented more states from implementing similar 
measures? How can Congress encourage states to consider 
identity verification technology and other fraud tools more 
broadly?
    Now while you are thinking about that, I am going to ask 
the other question real quick too. We wrote to you on August 
22, 2023, about the IRS whistleblower cases and specifically 
the scope of your investigation of their claims of retaliation. 
Are you--can you today, before you leave, can you provide us an 
update about their cases and maybe tell us a bit about the 
scope of your inquiry and when we can expect a resolution?
    So, two very different topics, but I--you know, I tried to 
get those in before my time was too far expired.
    Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Congressman.
    On the first issue, I think, you know, as we have talked 
about during the hearing, we have--every state has its own 
workforce agency. They are at varying levels of sophistication 
on technology. Some of them have very old technology. Some of 
them have newer technology that makes it, frankly, a lot easier 
to implement some of the verification tools that you and I have 
talked about in the past.
    And so, I think probably first and foremost, that is the 
overlying issue, which is I think it is very important for us 
to get a baseline understanding of where the states are, not to 
point fingers and wag fingers at people, but you cannot know 
the scope of the problem unless you understand what they can 
and cannot do. And I think that is very important up front.
    Mr. Biggs. So how do you get that?
    Mr. Horowitz. Well, I think what Congress needs to do--and 
we are happy to come and speak with you about this--is put 
together an effort with the Labor Department and the state 
workforce agencies, which, by the way, we worked with closely 
on pandemic-related issues, and understand how we can figure 
that out and how we can understand best what they need and also 
what kind of identity verification tools will work for them and 
can work for them.
    We have been seeing this at the Federal level in trying to 
understand--and we have seen varying programs be out there, 
including facial recognition software, others on how to 
identify individuals. And there are challenges.
    When a pandemic hits, for example, people are not going--
could not walk into the agency, right. They were closed. So, 
how do you do that from a distance?
    Not everybody has, as we saw, broadband or internet access. 
And so, people in rural areas, we saw, were not able to timely 
apply for some of these programs and got shut out from some of 
them because they did not have access to that kind of software, 
individuals who were elderly who did not have internet access 
or did not know how to best pursue that.
    So, it is a complicated area. But I think the first thing 
that is missing is, you and I have talked about, what you 
mentioned, which is understanding what the state workforce 
agencies can and cannot do in the first instance, because it is 
widely varying out there.
    On the second issue, as we have talked about before on 
this, when there is an ongoing criminal case, we put on hold 
some of our work. We have met with the whistleblowers in the 
past. We continue to have that matter on our list of items, but 
we follow our usual course. We hit a pause while a criminal 
case is going on. That may be winding down, and that will allow 
us to consider where we go from there, so--and I am reminded, 
OSC has jurisdiction on this, and I know they have a matter, 
the Office of Special Counsel, the agency, not the Justice 
Department Office of Special Counsel. Now we are talking about 
a separate agency for the public's purpose. I know you know 
that.
    And so, they have the look of the retaliation. What we have 
is the management-related issues that I have authority over as 
the Justice Department Inspector General.
    So, we are trying to keep those lanes, as we always do by 
the way, separate.
    Mr. Biggs. So, the DoJ, are you able to pursue and 
investigate now the management side which is the DoJ side?
    Mr. Horowitz. If and when the criminal case gets completely 
resolved, which is--you know, it is not completely resolved 
yet--we can then reengage on that. And I am happy to talk with 
you further about that, Congressman.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for 
indulging me. Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    I am going to ask one more set of questions that will be 
perhaps a bow on top of this package that has been developed 
today. So, welcome to the lightning round.
    I really want to ask a question. Let us suppose this is 
2026 and you are looking back to 2024. We have been getting 
numbers about what previously was 2018 through 2022, somewhere 
between $233 billion a year and $531 billion. That was looking 
back.
    It is now 2026. How much fraud are we going to subscribe to 
in 2024?
    Mr. Horowitz?
    Mr. Horowitz. I am not going to predict an exact number 
because I will probably get it wrong. But you know what I would 
love to see?
    Mr. Sessions. Well, we will not know yet.
    Mr. Horowitz. Yes. But what I would love to see is working 
together to get the number on a downward trend for 2, 3, 4 
years in a row----
    Mr. Sessions. OK.
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. Because it is going the wrong 
direction.
    Mr. Sessions. But you did not want to play my game.
    Mr. Horowitz. Well----
    Mr. Sessions. My point is----
    Mr. Horowitz. I would say 10 percent----
    Mr. Sessions [continuing]. A little bit longer is that we 
have talked about the past and we have talked about, hey, we 
have caught on, we saw things, we are making changes. We are 
now applying the Social Security data. We are now doing those 
things as if it was happening this year.
    Mr. Horowitz. Right.
    Mr. Sessions. So, I am asking, so we will go to Ms. Brown--
I understand you do not have to play my game--and Ms. Miller, 
what is going to be our number that we see in 1926 for 1924?
    Lightning round. Go.
    Ms. Brown. I also do not have a predictive number, but what 
I would like to see----
    Mr. Sessions. Well----
    Ms. Brown [continuing]. Us do is really----
    Mr. Sessions. You have got between $233 and $531. So, we 
kind of gave you guardrails there, and this is really telling 
me how much confidence you have the things that you have been 
doing provided some worth.
    Thank you. Not everybody has to play my game.
    Ms. Miller?
    Ms. Miller. It will be higher, and here is why.
    The fraud actors are getting more sophisticated every 
single day. We are not. Just patting ourselves on the back that 
we have finally got access to a dataset that took a decade to 
get access to, is not going to work when we are dealing with 
really, really sophisticated actors using artificial 
intelligence, generative AI, and all kinds of deepfake 
technologies. We are losing this game big time. And we are 
losing ground every year by a bigger and bigger margin.
    So, I do not personally feel great about the things we have 
done to date, though we have talked about things that have been 
done and definitely we are in a better place than we were in 
2020. But we are nowhere near where we need to be. And in 2026, 
we are going to be further behind unless we make some really, 
really significant changes in the way that we are doing things 
today.
    Mr. Horowitz. Can I just jump in on that? I agree if 
nothing is done--if we come out of the hearing and nothing is 
done, it will go up.
    Mr. Sessions. Well, I----
    Mr. Horowitz. I think we have----
    Mr. Sessions. That was not the question.
    Mr. Horowitz. No, I know, but I think----
    Mr. Sessions. Well, of course----
    Mr. Horowitz [continuing]. We come out of here----
    Mr. Sessions [continuing]. We could say that.
    So, if you--I am not putting words in your mouth, but if 
you view that Mr. Mfume and I are lackeys and would hold this 
hearing and not do something, then perhaps that could be a true 
statement.
    Mr. Horowitz. No.
    Mr. Sessions. I was trying to gain a foothold off now that 
we are hearing positive things that each of you have presented, 
how--what kind of an impact those things had. And the bottom 
line is it is a bigger swell of water against us than we are 
making headway, treading water, and making advances. So, it 
simply proves to me in that bow that I wanted to put on the 
top, get ready.
    So, Mr. Mfume, would you like to give any closing remarks 
to our distinguished panel?
    Mr. Mfume. Well, I would, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to again thank you for this hearing and this really 
bipartisan effort that you and I have been able to put forth 
throughout the 118th Congress.
    I only hope that it does more than last. I really hope that 
many of the other committees look at this as a starting point. 
I mean, we have got a million things that we do not agree on. 
But on something like this, where it is a starting point, it is 
very important.
    I want to thank our witnesses again.
    Ms. Miller, thank you for being so outraged about what was 
going on that you took it upon yourself to form your own 
organization, to find a way to come at this in a very 
straightforward fashion, as has been the case with the other 
two. I really appreciate that that has not been lost on me.
    Mr. Horowitz, thank you for the eloquence of the example 
that you have provided over the years at the Department of 
Justice, a real steady hand as Inspector General, receiving the 
confidence of former Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden. That 
says a lot in and of itself. I can tell you that Members of 
this Committee trust also in what you have said to us today and 
in previous times.
    And, Ms. Brown, thank you for almost 34 years of exemplary 
work at the Government Accounting Office. That says a lot. And 
congratulations also on the--I think it is the Roger Jones 
Award that you have received for excellence in leadership. I 
can tell you the American University does not give that out 
lightly. So, congratulations belatedly.
    Mr. Chairman, you and I are of like minds on this. And 
because it is such a priority, I am looking forward to the 
joint action that we move ahead with.
    People hearing a lot of this for the first time probably 
are about as disturbed as we were when we heard it over and 
over again, this whole notion of how people just robbed us 
during the pandemic. We were in a rush to get it out the door. 
We as a Congress--I think that is the blame of all of us--did 
not do enough to put up guardrails.
    This notion of self-certification, I do not know where in 
the hell that came from. God knows that is the--it is just 
unbelievable that any agency would put forward self-
certification as a way of getting government dollars. It is 
like, here, come take it, we do not want it. And so, when you 
see, particularly in SBA, the amount of fraud that came out of 
that, it is just--it is unbelievable.
    So, we know we have a lack of access to data. We know we 
have got inadequate technology. We know all the problems that 
have been said and said over again, including my little look 
down the telescope at the last 37 years.
    We are here, Mr. Chairman, and I think it would be great if 
we can now find a way, given all of the suggestions that the 
witnesses have given, given all of the testimony that we have 
taken in previous hearings from other witnesses, and given what 
we know really will get us to where we are going, if you and I 
can look at constructing, along with Members of your side of 
the aisle and mine, a sort of omnibus antifraud act that 
incapsulates all of that, that runs up, by the way, also, the 
penalties for those who are caught, and that gives some sense 
of assurance that, once and for all, we are going to either do 
this as a Congress united or we are going to pass the ball on 
again.
    So, I would absolutely be in favor of something like that. 
I am not speaking for you, but I know where your heart is on 
this and I know you would also.
    I agree first priority right now is to track down and to 
continue to track down the fraudsters and to lock them up and 
put them in jail for very long periods of time. But at the same 
time, I do want to pursue this omnibus antifraud act, for lack 
of a better term, so that we can do what we know we have to do 
and then lay that before Members of the House and Senate for 
adoption.
    So, I would yield back. And thank you again for the 
opportunity.
    Mr. Sessions. I thank the gentleman.
    We often, and I think our panel knows this, Members of 
Congress get challenged back home about a number of things that 
the American people see. But one of them is, I sure wish you 
guys would work well together.
    And I think Mr. Mfume landed on what might be my point now, 
and that is, I think that it is possible to find areas of 
concentration. And we found it with each of you today, also.
    I will accept the challenge that, as we began talking about 
this today behind the dais, I will accept the challenge and be 
prepared next week with some things in writing----
    Mr. Mfume. And me too.
    Mr. Sessions [continuing]. To gather together. I would like 
to be able to deal with all three of you.
    I am interested, Ms. Miller, in your feedback, even if you 
want to give us your scorecard. I think that would be fair. If 
we are going to rate some other people, let them rate us other 
than just at the ballot box.
    I want to thank each of you.
    Ms. Brown, I am going to get something from you that I know 
you brought me today.
    We will come down, Mr. Mfume and I, and thank each of you.
    This now concludes the hearing.
    But we need to read the statement about that Members would 
have 5 days--5 legislative days within this to submit 
additional written questions for our witnesses which will be 
forwarded to them.
    Not seeing any further business from the Subcommittee, we 
are now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:38 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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