| July 5, 2026 |
| Montana has always measured its worth in hard work and straight dealing, not in gimmicks or hidden costs. As our nation marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, that frontier sense of fairness collides with an uncomfortable reality: in today’s America, fraud has become a tax no one voted for and everyone pays. It does not arrive with a public debate or a line on a tax bill. It seeps into family budgets through higher prices, rising premiums, and federal borrowing that pushes the cost of government further onto future generations. When vast sums of taxpayer dollars leak out of public programs through fraud and improper payments, the money does not disappear — it comes back as a hidden tax on every American. Federal watchdogs have put numbers to a problem families already feel. The Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion each year to fraud and improper payments, based on recent years of data. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned that waste, fraud, and abuse may consume as much as 10 percent of the federal budget — roughly $300 billion to $600 billion annually — drawing on that GAO analysis. At a time when Washington spends more than $7 trillion a year and runs deficits in the trillions, that level of loss is not a rounding error. It is a structural problem. Families know they are the ones who ultimately pay that bill. When fraud drives up spending or forces more borrowing, it shows up in higher taxes, steeper insurance premiums, and stubborn inflation that makes every trip to the grocery store or gas station feel a little more expensive. Those losses filter down into state budgets, local programs, and household costs when higher spending, softer oversight, or new borrowing push the burden onto everyday taxpayers. In Montana, we have seen how serious oversight can change that equation. As State Auditor and Commissioner of Insurance, I have made fraud prevention and consumer protection central priorities. Working with law enforcement, regulators, and tribal partners, my office helped uncover a large health care fraud scheme that targeted Native communities and turned federal benefits into a business model for bad actors, with fraudulent claims reaching into the tens of millions of dollars. Those efforts blocked or clawed back those wrongful claims, protecting both vulnerable Montanans and the integrity of programs meant to serve them. Every fraudulent claim we stop is a dollar that does not have to be covered by higher premiums, higher taxes, or higher debt. Every restitution check that goes back to a Montanan is a small reversal of the hidden tax fraud imposes. When you add those actions up across states, the impact grows. The State Financial Officers Foundation’s latest Oversight Report found that treasurers, auditors, and other financial officers protected and returned $28 billion in 2025, including $5.7 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse they stopped outright. That is real money that stayed with taxpayers instead of disappearing into the fraud economy. It is proof that holding the purse strings tightly can do more for affordability than any new program or headline‑grabbing proposal. For a quarter of a millennium, Americans have insisted that government be accountable to the people it serves. The Founders opposed taxation without representation; today we should oppose extraction without oversight. Fraud is a quieter offense, but it violates the same principle. It takes from citizens without their consent and without a clear vote, hiding the costs in higher prices and bigger debts. We do not have to accept that. With common-sense safeguards and a renewed commitment to oversight, we can reduce this hidden tax on American families. Every dollar we protect from fraud is a dollar that does not have to be borrowed, printed, or taken again. In this 250th year of American independence, it should stay where it belongs — with the people who earned it. |
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