As Democrats blast Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts as a ‘constitutional crisis,’ Fox News Digital spoke to a government spending expert who explained that many departments, including entitlements, are ripe with fat that can and should be cut.
James Agresti, president of the nonprofit research institute Just Facts, spoke to Fox News Digital about some of the opportunities to make cuts to entitlements and pointed to $2 billion worth of improper payments at the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 2022, which was enough to pay 89,947 retired workers in 2023.
‘It’s hard to wrap your head around a figure like that,’ Agresti said. ‘There’s a lot of fat in Social Security, as there are in almost all entitlement programs.’
The SSA sent roughly 7,000 federal employees disability benefits in 2008 while they were still taking wages from federal jobs, according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals ‘may have improperly received benefits’ since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 ‘stimulus checks’ were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency.
President Donald Trump and Musk have signaled concerns about illegal immigrants with Social Security numbers contributing to fraud at SSA, which Agresti said are concerns backed up by facts.
In 2010, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration did a study of this problem, and it found that there were 800,000 noncitizens who had Social Security numbers and were working under them, which means they can receive benefits on them, and they obtain those Social Security numbers by submitting false birth certificates to the Social Security Administration,’ Agresti said.
Agresti explained that there are similar problems at the Internal Revenue Service ‘where they’re doling out child tax credits for the children of illegal immigrants, and they are basically accepting anything that’s thrown at them.’
There was an investigation back several years ago where the same birth certificate was issued, it was given to them in numerous cases to get these child tax credits, and they just gave it to them,’ Agresti said. ‘There was absolutely no accountability. In fact, the order from management was just get it done, get it off your desk. Don’t worry about investigating whether or not it’s legit and this is quite frankly, it’s theft.’
‘It’s stealing from the US taxpayers, it’s stealing from the government. And certain people have just come to tolerate it. And quite frankly, I just think that’s ridiculous. We would never tolerate this in our regular life. Somebody ripping us off for 10, 20% of our income.’
Agresti told Fox News Digital that Social Security is ‘actually one of the better ones’ when compared to other entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid, where the improper payments are ‘astronomical’ and ‘sometimes five, 10, 15%, 20% with the Children’s Health Insurance Program.’
Speaking about the IRS, Agresti said it has essentially become a ‘welfare program’ with the introduction of congressional laws that issue refundable tax credits’ and said there are ‘massively’ high improper payments in the agency, particularly with the earned income tax credit and child tax credit.
Democrats have been vocally railing against Trump and Musk’s DOGE efforts, particularly when it comes to entitlement programs, where they argue that the administration is attempting to strip legitimate earned benefits owed to taxpayers.
Agresti told Fox News Digital that ‘nothing could be further from the truth’ and when it comes to social security, DOGE is ‘trying to make sure that your Social Security check is there and not lost to fraud.’
I think we’re seeing one big obstacle right now, the Democratic Party, which is going after it and demonizing Trump and Musk for making a good faith effort to fix this kind of problem, and I don’t see the reason for it,’ Agresti said. ‘I don’t see the motivation for it. But it’s ridiculous that they’re misconstruing what they’re doing.’
The federal government is a behemoth, and it’s got a lot of tentacles. A lot of employees and governments are infamous for having very low accountability for their employees. It’s just the way it’s always been.’
