'It's Really, Really Frustrating': William Timmons Accuses Democrats Of Not Taking Debt Seriously

Forbes Breaking News

At last week's House DOGE Committee hearing, Rep. William Timmons (R-SC) called out debt and deficits and criticized Democrats.

Transcript

00:00for five minutes thank you madam chairwoman we have 37 trillion dollars in debt we have a 1.8

00:05trillion dollar annual deficit the fact that this is a partisan issue and the fact that my colleagues

00:09across the aisle are not taking this seriously is really frustrating it's really really frustrating

00:14we haven't even talked about social security which goes into austerity measures my constituents and

00:19your constituents all over this country will receive 21 percent less if we do not save social

00:25security these are just facts this is just math so we have to do our job here we have to do our job

00:31here and some of the most important work doge has done in the last six months is just simply on

00:35increasing transparency their website shows the public how taxpayer funds are actually being

00:41distributed and justified on a daily basis the doge initiative has shown that enhanced payment tracking

00:47and upfront verification can eliminate billions in waste and we must make these practices standard

00:53not exceptional tens of billions of dollars are lost each year to improper payments across medicaid

00:59unemployment insurance snap housing assistance and more most people do not realize that there are 17

01:04means tested social safety nets that total more than 1.5 trillion dollar in annual government spending

01:11and a good portion of these are improper payments and it is simply due to lax or outdated income

01:16verification processes so all these different social safety nets that we appropriately provide to americans

01:22um they require that you have a an income threshold that you do not meet and we tell the states that

01:30they have leeway and how to do that but it's a patchwork framework and it's all antiquated certain states require

01:35pay stubs w-2s other income documents to the irs it's just simply not enough this is 2025 technology can

01:41solve this problem we should be leveraging all incomes in income sources in real time and continuously

01:48to verify eligibility for federal benefit programs no more pay and chase no more hoping the paperwork

01:53matches up months later and no more guesswork shockingly in the big beautiful bill the house

01:58proposal to simply require states to confirm eligibility twice a year instead of only once

02:05resulted in 11 billion dollars in savings what if we confirmed income eligibility in real time

02:11that's why i introduced hr 1755 the timely and accurate benefits act or tabs act to require states to

02:18adopt enhanced income verification across their federal benefits programs to get people the benefits they

02:23deserve faster and to stop payments to those who no longer qualify immediately now let's zoom out

02:31income verification is one example of a broader problem federal agencies are swimming in waste fraud

02:36abuse and redundancy and thanks to doge we now have a public facing receipt book of over 180 billion

02:43dollars in identified savings from unnecessary grants to absurd leases to federal offices with

02:48no measurable output doge is shining a light on the insane bloat of our frivolous spending and again

02:55this is critical work that must be done we have 37 trillion dollars in debt and run a 1.8 trillion

02:59dollar annual deficit our social safety nets will fail if we do not make appropriate changes to save

03:06them uh mr lips doge is attempting to overcome barriers to data sharing among and within agencies

03:12to enhance fraud detection isn't the inability to cross-check databases a problem historically

03:18in identifying fraudsters absolutely thank you for the question um congressman it's important to

03:26to look at this history around improper payments that uh there was a executive order issued by

03:30president obama establishing the do not pay system that the treasury department has been

03:36trying using to try and uh increase verification and tighten controls over uh federal payments um but

03:43we that was uh more than 15 years ago and we've seen um hundreds of billions of dollars of improper

03:49payments reported annually um over those past 15 years it's important to know that the um treasury

03:56department has been asking for help asking for the ability to share information a long time ago uh the

04:02social security administration couldn't um share information about deceased americans with the

04:08treasury department that stopped for a few years um they can now do that there's a lot more that can be

04:13done to share information between agencies to stop fraud and and prevent improper payments there have been

04:20bills introduced both uh um in the senate and the house to do that bills by um republican members and

04:26uh democratic members i'm running out of time let me finish um so this is not a maybe this is a must

04:33piece of legislation we cannot continue down this path uh my bill came from a missouri pilot program

04:39that resulted in 17 percent savings 17 of just medicaid is 140 billion dollars annually annually 17

04:49across all social safety nets that are means tested is 250 billion dollars we are running out of time we

04:57got to pass these pieces of legislation we got to use technology to make sure that we're being efficient

05:00with our tax dollars with that madam chair i yield back

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