Republican lawmakers are introducing DOGE-inspired legislation to combat billions worth of wasteful government spending by increasing quality control at the Treasury Department.
Senator Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) and Representative Aaron Bean (R., Fla.) are introducing legislation in the Senate and House requiring that the Treasury Department include descriptions of government payments, link them to a budget account, and cross-reference them to other databases to ensure accuracy, National Review has learned.
Under the legislation, the payments would be reported on USAspending.gov to ensure public transparency and there would be an annual update to ongoing payments.
Giving Treasury the ability to check additional databases would allow the department to confirm eligibility and prevent fraudsters from using the same information to defraud multiple programs due to a lack of overlap between government databases.
The Delivering On Government Efficiency (DOGE) in Spending Act would require agencies to give the Treasury Department’s Do Not Pay system relevant data before issuing payments. It also instructs Treasury to code and attach each payment to the relevant appropriations account and look at other available databases to ensure the payment is accurate. These measures would allow the federal payment system to practically eliminate improper payments and go after fraudsters who evade the system.
The DOGE in Spending Act is inspired by the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to reduce wasteful spending and streamline the federal government since the start of President Trump’s term. Ernst and Bean chair the DOGE caucuses in their respective chambers.
“Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for billions in bogus payments because Washington is incompetent or lazy,” Ernst said in a statement to NR.
“Before the federal government spends your hard-earned money, the very least it should do is verify that the payment is not fraudulent, duplicative, or improper. President Trump and DOGE have created a commonsense process to effectively eliminate improper payments and save billions of dollars. But we cannot let this win for taxpayers be temporary. Congress must codify it and make the savings permanent.”
Her legislation is being co-sponsored by Republican Senators Tim Sheehy (Mont.), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Markwayne Mullin (Okla.), Mike Lee (Utah), Jim Risch (Idaho), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), Kevin Cramer (N.D.), Roger Marshall (Kan.), and Ted Budd (N.C.).
Ernst and Bean’s legislation codifies sections three and four of President Trump’s executive order, “Protecting America’s Bank Account Against Waste, Fraud, and Abuse,” designed for Treasury to verify agency payment information and implement the verification process.
The Government Accountability Office estimates the federal government loses anywhere between $233 billion to $521 billion annually because of fraud. The government-wide fraud estimate represents 3-7 percent of federal obligations. In fiscal year 2024, the GAO discovered $162 billion of improper payments, 84 of which were caused by overpayments.