By rushing to defend their government union benefactors against scrutiny by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE commission, many Democrats have only solidified their reputation as the party of big and ineffective government. But a few members of the party understand that pushing to root out waste is both wise and politically popular.
On Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen, fresh off a narrow re-election win in November, introduced the Improper Payments Transparency Act in the upper chamber. The legislation is co-sponsored by Sen. Pete Ricketts, a Nebraska Republican, and is an effort by Sen. Rosen to show Nevada voters that she wasn’t blowing smoke when she made a campaign commitment to bipartisanship.
The proposal would tighten requirements on federal agencies regarding outlays that shouldn’t have been made or were made improperly, such as benefit overpayments. The Economic Policy Innovation Center estimates that about 85 percent of such mistakes “are the result of agencies’ failure to identify that people are who they say they are and that they are eligible for the benefits they claim.”
The General Accounting Office — which calls improper payments “a long-standing and significant problem in the federal government” — estimates that Washington has made $2.8 trillion in erroneous payments since 2003, including $161.5 billion for fiscal 2024.
“We owe it to the hardworking people of Nevada to make sure that the federal government is using their tax dollars efficiently and responsibly,” Sen. Rosen said in a news release. “Our bipartisan legislation will help to increase transparency and cut down on wasteful government spending.
Why, she sounds almost Muskian.
Federal rules already exist to force agencies to identify payment mistakes. But the bureaucracies often ignore them. The GAO reports that 10 agencies were found to be noncompliant in a 2022 review. The Rosen-Ricketts legislation would tighten requirements by demanding that the executive branch include additional data in budget requests. That could include an explanation for why such mistakes occurred and the remedial action the agency has taken to fix the problem. The goal is to make it easier for Congress and the president to identify problems and to take the necessary corrective measures.
A similar bipartisan bill passed out of a House committee last year but never made it through the Senate. This year, however, the effort dovetails nicely with the DOGE scrutiny into federal waste, bloat and fraud. Republicans should welcome Sen. Rosen’s bipartisan bill. Let’s hope her fellow Democrats are just as receptive.