Remember when eliminating government waste, fraud and abuse was a bipartisan goal? Well, now that Elon Musk is trying to do that, Democrats say his Department of Government Efficiency is tilting at windmills.

“At Oval Office, Musk Makes Broad Claims of Federal Fraud Without Proof,” said a New York Times headline. The White House retorted: “Apparently, the Times and other like-minded outlets lack access to a newfangled research tool called Google.”

No proof of fraud? How much do you want?

A Government Accountability Office report last spring estimated the “federal government could lose between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud.” The federal auditor said “a government-wide approach is required to address it,” and recommended that the Treasury “leverage data-analytics capabilities” to stop questionable payments. That’s what DOGE is trying to do.

GAO earlier estimated that 11% to 15% of unemployment benefits during the pandemic were fraudulent, totaling between $100 billion and $135 billion. Some went to gangs, prisoners and state-sponsored hackers.

The Secret Service found hackers linked to the Chinese government stole at least $20 million. The pandemic employee retention tax credit has been another ripe target. According to the Internal Revenue Service, a California prisoner claimed more than $550 million from the ERTC.

The IRS paused processing of new ERTC claims in 2023 because of rampant fraud. Initially estimated at $55 billion, the program’s costs have ballooned to $230 billion and counting. One culprit is outdated government IT systems that lack fraud controls.

Congress in 2021 authorized a pilot program that gave the Treasury access to the Social Security Administration’s Full Death Master File to prevent payments to dead people. The Biden Treasury last month said this prevented and recovered $31 million in improper payments.

Better financial controls, technology and data-sharing could reduce IRS improper payments, including in the earned income tax credit, ObamaCare net premium tax credit, the refundable portion of the child tax credit and the education tax credit. Those estimates came from the Biden Administration.

IRS improper payments increased under Mr. Biden, no doubt because it’s harder to stop fraud when so much more money is flying out the door. Biden officials also eased income verification for ObamaCare subsidies, Medicaid and other welfare programs. The Health and Human Services Department last year estimated $85 billion in “improper payments” in Medicare and Medicaid.

It’s ironic that Democrats have lambasted the peer-to-peer payment app Zelle for not doing enough to prevent fraud on its network. Zelle’s estimated fraud rate (0.1%) is 99% lower than the goal for government programs, which many agencies don’t achieve. Maybe they need a “know your customer” rule so they don’t send money to criminals.

The political left’s hostility to Musk’s antifraud campaign is hard to understand. But the partisan times are such that if Musk said the sky is blue, liberals would probably also say he has no proof.

The Wall Street Journal