Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn.,left, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, talk before appearing before a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on oversight of fraud and misuse of Federal funds in Minnesota, Wed., March 4, 2026, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.) If you didn’t know better, you’d think June has been officially declared National Government Fraud Prevention Month. It was not, but it at least deserves some special recognition, given the profusion of anti-fraud measures being sent to the floor of the House of Representatives.
By my count, seven major fraud-fighting bills were cleared by the House Rules Committee for floor action during the first, second and fourth weeks of this month. As House Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) exclaimed, “We have a mandate to root out fraud and disembowel it.”
Another 15 less controversial measures of similar character over those three weeks were approved under the suspension of the rules process that allows for limited debate, no amendments, and requires a two-thirds vote for passage.
What has caused this sudden interest in exposing government related fraud? One can understandably attribute it to the upcoming midterm elections for control of Congress and the uncertainty over their outcome. It has certainly spurred a more activist posture on Capitol Hill than was previously evident. Scoring points off the opposition party by milking contentious issues has historically characterized that struggle.
This particular controversy, however, was not manufactured out of whole cloth. It is traceable to recent charges about fraud being perpetrated on the federal government. This month’s spate of activity was jump-started by the release on June 8 of a staff report of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, titled in part, “The Cost of Doing Nothing.” It accuses Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and state Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) of being aware for years of “widespread taxpayer fraud in federally funded social programs” and doing nothing to stop it.
The committee’s press release on the staff report cites a Government Accountability Office estimate that between $233 billion and $521 billion is lost annually due to fraud. The office, Congress’s oversight watchdog and auditing arm, released a report in December finding a total of around $186 billion in “improper payments” nationally in fiscal 2025 across 64 programs in 15 federal agencies. That is an increase of $24 billion from the prior fiscal year.
The report explains, contextually, that improper payments have been a government-wide issue for more than 20 years. Estimates since fiscal 2003 point to roughly $3 trillion in improper payments.
The House Oversight Committee reacted by reporting a dozen bills to protect taxpayers from fraud and to strengthen oversight of federal programs “that are ripe for fraud.” It also called on the White House anti-fraud task force to conduct a thorough investigation into the Minnesota social services program, which was passed on to the Justice Department.
At the heart of so many of the scandals coming to light today are the new ways in which the internet and artificial intelligence are being used to defraud the government and scam the people. In a December 2024 bipartisan House task force report on artificial intelligence, a key watchword running throughout is “guardrails” — steps needed to protect against AI risks and harms, both accidental and malicious.
Building such guardrails, the task force report advises, will require a combination of technical and policy solutions that seek to identify, understand, and mitigate such damage while still promoting AI governance and innovation.
Such forward thinking about “guardrails” against the misuse and abuse of these new technologies are coming none too soon, as news stories appear almost daily on the fraud and corruption permeating our society. Much of it is being perpetrated over the internet and its most recent progeny, artificial intelligence.
This month’s government fraud awareness legislation bears witness to such concerns over how best to prevent waste, fraud and abuse. June may not have been officially designated as government fraud prevention month, but the surge in fraud related bills cleared for House floor action is clearly revealing.
It would be presumptuous to judge current anti-fraud bills as being primarily partisan. The old saw that good politics makes for good policy does not differentiate between sheer partisan politics and deliberative, give-and-take lawmaking. Ultimately, the proof lies in the pudding. Is it edible and credible?
Public approval of government is at an all-time low, mostly based on a perception that all three branches are corrupt from top to bottom. Whether this month’s small anti-fraud fixes can make a difference is unclear. It is, nonetheless, at least a preliminary test of Congress’s ability to reclaim its Article I powers.
Don Wolfensberger is a 28-year congressional staff veteran who served as chief of staff of the House Rules Committee in 1995. He is author of “Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial,” and “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays.”
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