This week the GAO admitted the feds pushed out an estimated $186 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2025 — and that’s only the part they can measure. As PJ Media laid out, more than half of all federal spending can’t even be traced to confirm it reached the right recipient. Read that again: trillions move through Washington every year, and nobody can say with certainty where it went.
The rot isn’t hiding in the shadows — it’s baked into the programs. Citizens Against Government Waste reports that roughly 6.2 million Obamacare enrollments this year — about 27% of all ACA sign-ups — were improper, costing up to $25 billion in subsidies. Add business loans handed to “entrepreneurs” as young as 11 and unemployment checks mailed to infants and people listed as 115 years old, and you stop seeing a glitch. You see a machine that feeds itself.