During his State of the Union Address in February, President Donald Trump announced that his administration would focus on identifying waste and abuse in federal programs. This week, the president made good on that pledge by signing an executive order creating the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.

The federal task force will spearhead a government-wide effort to root out fraud across various programs, specifically joint programs with states that provide healthcare, food, and housing. Vice President JD Vance will lead the initiative. Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, will serve as vice chair, and White House adviser Stephen Miller will serve as the task force’s senior adviser.

For too long, states have accepted federal funds designated for specific government programs, yet many have failed to account for them. In many cases, it’s not merely accidental negligence due to the size and complexity of the programs themselves, but criminal intent.

As the president’s executive order explains, “illegal aliens, criminals, foreign gangs, bureaucrats, State and local officials, non-governmental organizations, and ineligible providers exploit these programs — which are intended to provide a safety net to lawfully eligible Americans — with ease.”

Of course, we knew this had been going on for years, but no one in the media or the government had the interest or willingness to investigate the problem until a YouTuber named Nick Shirley exposed Somalis committing fraud in Minnesota. Shirley was criticized by many Leftmedia outlets and on social media, but his work opened the floodgates to the reality of abuse. His work effectively ended Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s political career. It also put other states on notice.

Recently, thanks to separate investigations by Mehmet Oz, Nick Shirley, and CBS News, we learned of hospice fraud in California totaling more than $100 million.

According to the Washington Examiner, “A top official at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services informed Congress on Tuesday that federal investigators have stripped billing privileges from three-fifths of newly enrolled hospice agencies that have continued to pop up in California, a state long riddled with healthcare fraud.”

The tentacles of the problem reach in all directions and at all levels. No program is untouched, it seems.

Back in 2025, The Washington Post published a report on the abuse of benefits provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Post found that the VA encouraged veterans to apply for benefits to cover health issues unrelated to their military service, resulting in billions of dollars in payments.

As our own Thomas Gallatin wrote at the time, “In 2001, veterans filed and received disability benefits for roughly six million claims. Over the last two and a half decades, the annual number of claims has steadily increased, rising to 41.7 million last year. Yet over the same time span, America’s total population of living veterans has steadily declined, from 26 million in 2001 to 17.6 million today.”

Another example of fraud is the theft of funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

“SNAP is the largest federally funded nutrition assistance program—providing about $96 billion in assistance,” says the Government Accountability Office. “But hundreds of millions of dollars may be stolen from SNAP recipients’ accounts each year, representing federal dollars diverted from their intended purpose.” SNAP fraud is a result of many states failing to require chip cards, allowing people to hack into the system and empty accounts. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of Americans receive SNAP benefits in more than one state.

After President Trump announced the effort to combat fraud in federal programs during the State of the Union, the Cato Institute’s Romina Boccia and Tyler Turman explained that fraud, “represents only the most obvious form of dysfunction.” They add, “Poorly designed federal programs have allowed states to routinely exploit administrative loopholes to expand enrollment, deploy budget gimmicks to inflate federal matching funds, and funnel money to partisan causes.”

One important factor in these examples of fraud and abuse is the disconnect between states that receive government funds and hardworking Americans who pay for these programs through federal tax payments. As a result, the money is taken for granted, and there’s no local or state accountability.

Thanks to citizen investigators like Nick Shirley and others, some steps are finally being taken to address the broader issue. But it won’t be easy. As long as taxpayer money is funneled through multiple layers of federal and state programs and agencies, there’s bound to be fraud and abuse at some point.

Perhaps, then, states should have to foot the bill for their own social programs, eliminating the federal government bureaucracy altogether. This would make it easier to monitor these programs and place more immediate pressure on state governments to operate efficiently and transparently.

One thing we know for sure is that abuse of social programs has gone unchecked for years. Let’s hope the president’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud will take its responsibilities seriously and hold states and individuals accountable for exploiting a system designed to help those in need.