Fraud: The tax no Montanan voted for | James Brown

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. Drawing on that GAO analysis, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned that waste, fraud, and abuse may consume as much as 10% of the federal budget — roughly $300 billion to $600 billion annually. 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 are the ones who ultimately pay that bill. When fraud drives up spending or forces more borrowing, it shows up as 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 also filter down into state budgets, local programs, and household costs.

In Montana, we have seen how serious oversight can change that equation. As state auditor and commissioner of securities and insurance, I have made fraud prevention and consumer protection central priorities of my agency.

Working with law enforcement, regulators, and tribal partners, my office helped uncover a large Obamacare fraud scheme that targeted Native communities and turned federal benefits into a business model for bad actors, with fraudulent claims reaching over $50 million. I’m proud of my team’s work to claw back tens of millions of dollars in 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 two and a half centuries, 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 quiet but costly tax that violates the same principles that led to the American Revolution. It is a tax that takes from citizens without proper representation or transparency, 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 independence, we need to fight to keep money out of the hands of fraudsters and in the hands of hardworking American families.