President Trump has signed an executive order creating a task force to crack down on fraud in government programs. Vice Ppresident JD Vance will head it.

This is the administration’s second effort to reduce government misspending and overspending following Elon Musk’s effort as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

As we approach another April 15 with a $38 trillion debt, addressing fraud ought to be a bipartisan goal. The fact that it hasn’t been a priority for politicians is largely because, I suspect, it isn’t their money being wasted. It might also be said that those on the receiving end of ill-gotten gains are not about to relinquish their largesse.

How bad is the problem? According to the disingenuously named Government Accountability Office, the federal government “loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud in improper payments.” The GAO can’t give an accurate figure and says it could be higher because not all losses are reported. If there was more accountability perhaps fraud would not be that big a problem.

The GAO says 16 agencies reported a total loss of $162 billion in improper payments across 68 programs just in fiscal year 2024. It distinguishes between fraud and improper payments, but lost money is lost money no matter the process. It should come as no surprise, given past reports, that Medicare and Medicaid account for more than half (53 percent) of the fraudulent losses. Congress — especially Republicans — has failed to do anything to reform these entitlement programs for fear of being demagogued by the opposite party.

Each of these government agencies have inspector generals, whose job it is to identify fraud and improper payments. Sometimes they do, but given the huge amount of lost money, it seems clear the crooks are running things like an old Chicago crime syndicate.

President Trump says that eliminating fraud will balance the budget. While it might help reduce the debt it wouldn’t be enough to cancel it, not even close. Congress would need to step in to achieve a balanced budget like the deal worked out between President Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich way back in the 1990s. Fiscal responsibility seems to have gone the way of personal responsibility in our entitlement and no-fault culture.

A White House fact sheet describing the president’s executive order says that in addition to the reported $19 billion in fraud in Minnesota, “there is strong reason to believe similar vulnerabilities exist in California, Illinois, New York, Maine and Colorado, where insufficient safeguards and weak oversight increase the risk of large-scale fraud.” Trump and Vance promise not only Democrat states will be investigated, but also Republican states.

It’s a worthy goal and one taxpayers should favor, but eliminating fraud is something like eliminating sin, or Dracula’s lust for blood. Once the initial announcement has been eclipsed by other events, let’s hope the effort doesn’t fade with it.

There used to be something called the Puritan ethic in America where people — and government — were supposed to live within their means, avoid debt and especially be honest in their financial affairs. You have to go back a century to read about those values being generally accepted.

As half the country that pays taxes prepares to send more of the money we earn to Washington, one wishes the vice president more than luck in achieving his and the president’s goals. It will take something we are unfamiliar with to achieve them.

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.