Fraud in Federal Programs

Chris Edwards

On May 11, 60 Minutes examined the huge fraud problem in federal spending programs. The piece stressed the growing losses from large-scale looting of benefit and subsidy programs by criminal gangs based both here and abroad.

The federal government is a vast transfer machine. It spends more than $4 trillion a year on 2,400 aid, benefit, and subsidy programs—from Social Security and Medicare to hundreds of lower-profile programs that members of Congress probably don’t even know they are funding.