Ranking member enters IG letter, urges bipartisan support for anti-fraud programs and inspectors general funding

An unidentified ranking member of the subcommittee on government operations asked unanimous consent to enter a letter from James Clark, Inspector General of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, into the hearing record and urged a bipartisan approach to rooting out fraud.

“I have a request for unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from James Clark, the inspector general of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, requesting information on the alleged 700 tips that have been received,” the ranking member said. He stated the letter was directed to the state fraud prevention and oversight committee and asked that it be entered without objection.

The ranking member said he has spent about 3½ years leading oversight work on waste, fraud and abuse and described current efforts with a Texas colleague, “Mr. Sessions,” to create a bipartisan congressional scorecard to measure how well key government spending programs reduce improper payments. He called recent federal funding — provided through the American Rescue Plan — for the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) and the Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence “vital” to deterring and detecting fraud across state and federal agencies.

Citing a report from the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), he said that the IG offices provide a significant return on investment, asserting that CIGIE found every dollar spent on IG offices yielded $26 in savings. He added that last year the Trump administration had "illegally defunded CIGIE," and said he and colleagues had led letters opposing those firings; he urged Congress to restore the congressionally designated funding to CIGIE and inspector general offices so they can continue fraud-prevention work.

The ranking member also said he has co-led several anti-fraud bills in the House and that defending programs aimed at preventing fraud should be a bipartisan priority. He yielded back to the chair at the end of his remarks.

The letter from the Minnesota Department of Human Services' inspector general requesting information on about 700 tips was entered into the record by unanimous consent, according to the ranking member's request.