[Pages S6965-S6966]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



            Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today are two of my colleagues 
from my Senate office, Mr. John Lowery and Mr. Jackson Bewley. I am 
grateful for their good judgment, counsel, and advice.
  I am delighted to see so many Members of Congress--and I mean this 
sincerely--so many Members of Congress embrace the call for a less 
wasteful Federal Government, for a more efficient Federal Government. 
We spend a little over $6 trillion a year, as Senator Sanders so 
eloquently pointed out. When you spend $6 trillion a year, somebody is 
getting $6 trillion a year.
  Every penny in our budget has a constituency, and that constituency 
will fight us. They will fight us. And I recognize that, and it is 
something that as we go about downsizing government, we have to be 
mindful of. However, there is one constituency that is not going to be 
able to fight us in our quest to scrutinize Federal spending, and I am 
referring to dead people, and that is what I want to talk about today. 
I want to talk about dead people and the fact that they are getting 
money from the Federal Government.
  In fiscal year 2023 alone--this is just 1 year--our government sent 
$1.3 billion--not $1.3 million--we sent $1.3 billion in checks to dead 
people. Those aren't my numbers. Those numbers come from the Office of 
Management and Budget. That is just 1 year.
  Not only is the Federal Government sending checks to dead people, 
those checks are being cashed. Now, I have heard of dead people voting, 
but cashing the checks? You don't have to be God's perfect idiot to 
realize that there is fraud happening with respect to all this money.
  Here is how this problem arises. When you die in America, your name 
is sent to the vital records office in your State. And at that point, 
the Social Security Administration pays each State to give an ongoing 
list of deceased Americans in that State. So far, so good.
  The Social Security Administration takes this down, this list of 
deceased people, and they compile on an ongoing basis a list called the 
Death Master File. The Death Master File. That is just a list of 
everybody, updated daily, of people in the United States who are 
deceased.
  Why does the Social Security Administration do this? Well, so the 
SSA, the Social Security Administration, can stop sending people who 
have died checks. So far, so good.
  There is just one problem. I discovered this about 7 years ago. The 
Social Security Administration refuses to share that list with anybody 
else in the Federal Government. They won't share it with any other 
Federal Agencies, many of which send out checks.
  The Department of the Treasury, for example, sends out checks. SSA 
won't share the information with them. The Small Business 
Administration sends out a lot of checks. The Social Security 
Administration has a list of all deceased Americans, but SSA will not 
share that information with the SBA.
  I will give you some examples. You remember when we were in the 
coronavirus crisis, and we had an economic meltdown. We sent stimulus 
checks to Americans to try to keep the economy on its feet. We paid 
$1.4 billion to dead people, and they cashed the checks.
  The Paycheck Protection Program, which was a part of our stimulus 
program, paid out $38 million in loans to dead people. These were 
people who were using--live people, obviously--who were using dead 
people's Social Security numbers to collect payments.
  The COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loans fund--another culprit--
was involved in sending checks to dead people.
  The Department of Veterans Affairs--and I am not blaming them. In 
many respects, it is not their fault. A couple of years ago, a scam 
artist stole the Social Security number of a deceased person--a 
deceased veteran--and received about $825,000 in checks from 1997 to 
2024.
  Now, the person committing this fraud was just quietly accepting the 
checks. Somehow, the Department of Veterans Affairs, for some reason, 
stopped sending that person the checks. So the fraudster just picked up 
the phone and called the Department of

[[Page S6966]]

Veterans Affairs, impersonated the dead person, and convinced them to 
start sending the checks again.
  Again, it was not necessarily the fault of the Department of Veterans 
Affairs. The VA didn't know that the Social Security number belonged to 
a deceased person.
  Another example: A person in Ohio was able to collect her deceased 
mother's Veterans Affairs benefits for 48 years--48 years. Of course, 
she was caught.
  The truth is, it is sort of like being asked: You didn't go fishing 
on Saturday; how many fish do you think you didn't catch?
  We don't know how much money we are sending out every year to dead 
people.
  Let me give you an example of how screwed up the data is. This is a 
strong indicator of what is wrong.
  The Social Security Administration, if you asked them, will tell you 
that there are, according to their records, 6.5 million Americans 
living today in America who are 112 years of age or older. They say 
there are 6.5 million Americans who are at least 112 years old or 
older.
  Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know anybody who is 112 
years old. And I checked. At any given time, there are about 40 people 
on an ongoing basis in the world who are fortunate enough to live to be 
112. The data is so screwed up. According to SSA, 6.5 million people 
are 112 years old.
  A number of years ago--7 years ago--I started working with Senator 
Tom Carper, a fine American if there ever was one. I started working 
with Tom on this issue. I went to Social Security, and I said: Look, 
this problem is easily solved. Just share the Death Master File with 
other Agencies and especially share it with the Department of the 
Treasury.
  I don't want to confuse anyone, but the Department of the Treasury 
has a ``Do Not Pay'' list of people who aren't supposed to receive 
checks for a variety of reasons that other Agencies consult. But I said 
to my friends at Social Security: Why don't you just give the Death 
Master File to other Agencies?
  They said: We can't. It is illegal. The way we construe our enabling 
statutes, we don't have the authority.
  Well, I said, OK, I am not going to argue with them; we will just go 
pass a law. It was harder than I thought. But we did. In 2020, Senator 
Carper and I passed a bill. The bill was called Stopping Improper 
Payments to Deceased People Act, and it gave the Social Security 
Administration permission and, indeed, directed the Social Security 
Administration to start sharing its list of dead people with other 
Agencies in the Federal Government.
  I don't want to get down in the weeds, but--believe it or not--we had 
people oppose the legislation, and many people within the Federal 
Government. So in order to get our bill passed, we had to compromise. 
We had to agree to only implement this requirement that Social Security 
share the list of dead people with everybody else--we could only get 
them to agree to do it for 3 years, in a trial program.
  This clock started ticking on our 3-year period in December of 2023. 
So, obviously, 3 years is right upon us. And if we don't make this 
program permanent, it is going to expire in 2026.
  So Senator Carper and I have introduced another bill. It does 
basically the same thing as the 2020 bill, but it makes the program 
permanent. This new bill is called Ending Improper Payments to Deceased 
People Act, and we need to pass it.
  There has been a lot of squabbling back and forth. I don't want to do 
anything to step on too many toes to jeopardize my bill, about how much 
the States are going to be paid and who is going to pay Social Security 
for sharing their dead persons list with the rest of the government. I 
think we have a lot of it worked out. But we need to go pass this bill.
  I mean, this makes no sense whatsoever. I can understand if we talk 
about changing the Medicaid Program, for example--what is fair, what is 
unfair. I can understand debating that, and I can understand reasonable 
people disagreeing over what changes, if any, we ought to make to the 
Medicaid Program. I get it.
  I just listened to Senator Sanders, once again, speak very eloquently 
about the waste at the Department of Defense. That is something that 
reasonable people, all of whom agree that we ought to have a strong 
defense--but reasonable people--can disagree over how to achieve that.
  But, my God, you don't have to be Euclid to figure out that this is 
just fraud. It is abuse. It is low-hanging fruit, and it is so easily 
solved. All we have to do is direct the Social Security Administration, 
on a permanent basis--not a 3-year trial basis, on a permanent basis--
to start sharing the list of dead people with the Department of the 
Treasury and everybody else in the Federal Government who wants it. And 
then everybody is on the same page, and we know who is deceased. And we 
can stop sending the money to dead people who cash the checks.
  Now, I am talking about this now--I have talked about it before on 
the floor. I am not going to try to pass the bill this year. I am not. 
We are running up against a clock, and we have the NDAA. We have a CR 
to pass, and we have to keep government open. We have to renew the 
flood insurance program. And you know all that. But I am going to be 
back. I am like ``The Terminator.'' I will be back as soon as the new 
Congress is sworn in.
  Many of my colleagues have said to me: You know, it is time we stop 
talking about who needs to pay more in taxes and start talking about 
and asking the question with respect to ``What the hell happened to the 
money?'' And I agree with that. I can't think of an easier place to 
start.
  Let's just pass this simple bill. Let's stop sending money to dead 
people. Again, we can debate about the wisdom of dead people voting. We 
all know it happens. But cashing checks is a bridge too far.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. FISCHER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hassan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.