U.S. Made $144 Billion in Improper Payments LAST YEAR

You might want to sit down for this.  Wednesday, the Comptroller General Gene Dodaro told the Senate Budget Committee that our inept federal government paid out $144 billion incorrectly. “These are payments that should not have been made or were made in the wrong amounts,” he revealed in his opening statements.

I guess he waited until now so the anger many of us felt on April 15th wore off.  Watch his opening statement below:

According to CNS, they’ve “lost” over a trillion dollars over the years, and the problem is growing:

The problem is growing, he said, from $125 billion in 2014; to $137 billion in 2015; to the most recent estimate of $144 billion in 2016. “This includes estimates for 112 programs at 22 federal agencies, so it is a pervasive problem,” he added.

Since 2003 – when Congress required many executive departments and agencies to estimate the amount of improper payments annually – the cumulative total is estimated to be “in excess of $1.2 trillion,” Dodaro said. “So it’s a significant amount of money.”

Dodaro said three big federal programs – Medicare, Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit — account for most (75 percent) of the improper payments. “But there are a number of programs across government where this problem is an issue,” he said.

And it’s even worse than he can even calculate, since eighteen programs don’t even report their losses.  The Department of Defense, for example, wasn’t even included in last year’s numbers.

I have had it.  The federal government makes Al Gore’s “fuzzy math” look good.  If we are ever going to change this nation, we can’t rely on these politicians for anything.  It’s time to rein in the incompetent, corrupt, inept, mathematically-challenged Washington DC and call a Convention of States.  And now, before they lose another trillion dollars.

Image Credit: Screen Cap