Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BEAN of Florida. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for the time.

Madam Speaker, if there is one group of Americans who definitely shouldn't be receiving Federal payments, it is the dearly departed. There is a famous line in the movie ``The Sixth Sense'' where the star says: ``I see dead people.'' Our Treasury Department doesn't see dead people. They just write them checks.

Year after year, gaps in our data system allow improper payments to flow to individuals who are no longer living. It is wasteful, avoidable, and undermines trust in government-run programs.

As founder and co-chair of the DOGE Caucus, I am proud to support the Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act. It is a commonsense, bipartisan effort to strengthen the accuracy of the Death Master File, improve data sharing across Federal agencies, and ensure that benefits programs have the timely, reliable information they need to verify eligibility, and a pulse, before payments go out the door.

The results, Madam Speaker, speak for themselves. The Treasury Department recently announced it recovered $31 million in fraud and improper payments in just the first 5 months of test driving and implementing these reforms. The legislation makes these temporary provisions permanent and stops payments to deceased individuals moving forward.

Madam Speaker, this bill is a big step toward accountability, and I urge my colleagues on all sides of the aisle to join me in supporting this vital antifraud, antiwaste, antiabuse legislation.

As the saying goes: You can't take it with you, so let's stop writing checks to dead people.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source