Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times,
Vice President JD Vance said on Aug. 5 that the Trump administration has identified $230 billion in fraud and prevented $56 billion in fraudulent payments since the president’s Fraud Task Force was established in March.
Vance discussed the task force’s initiatives at a roundtable in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building attended by more than a dozen Republican lawmakers. He said the work by the task force so far is starting to show results.
“We have been able to identify $230 billion of fraud just since the Fraud Task Force was set up, and that’s frankly by conservatively estimating it,” Vance said.
He urged Congress to codify certain anti-fraud actions taken by the administration to ensure that they remain in effect under future administrations.
“This effort will fundamentally always have a limitation unless our colleagues in the House and the Senate are working with us,” Vance said.
“We don’t want the next administration ... to undo all the incredible work that we’ve been doing.”
The vice president said one of the first steps Congress can take is to force data sharing between state and federal governments to crack down on fraud.
He said that if a state gives food stamp benefits to an illegal immigrant or a violent criminal, the federal government often cannot detect who is receiving those benefits.
The vice president also called on Congress to make fraud harder to commit and to ensure that convicted fraudsters receive longer prison sentences that better reflect the seriousness of their crimes.
On March 16, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a task force after large-scale fraud in Minnesota’s Medicaid and federal assistance programs drew national attention late last year. He then appointed Vance to lead the new task force while also creating a fraud-focused division in the Justice Department.
Speaking at the event, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who co-chairs the task force, said that fraudsters target federal assistance programs because they are relatively easy to exploit. He said one reason is that “the punishments associated with much of the fraud are relatively low.”
Hence, the administration wants to work with Congress to significantly increase sentences for all levels of fraud, he said, to deter potential fraudsters from targeting these programs.
On Aug. 4, authorities announced that 19 people have been charged with Medicaid fraud for allegedly submitting more than $4 million in false home care bills. The investigation was a joint effort by several federal and state law enforcement agencies.
The White House on Aug. 6 announced that it has launched a new website to track the administration’s moves to eliminate alleged fraud, waste, and abuse in government agencies.
“Each partner agency reported three figures” to the task force led by Vance, the site states, noting that the “fraud uncovered” section on the site “represents total estimated fraud identified through data analysis” while the “fraud stopped” portion “counts the dollars saved annually through administrative actions such as provider suspensions and rule changes.”
Vance said in a recent interview with Fox News:
“I don’t care where you came from, I don’t care what your name is. If you are committing fraud against the American people, all of us in public leadership should ... try to throw you in prison for enriching yourself off the American taxpayer.”
A similar initiative was established under the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was associated with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and which was wound down by July 2026. DOGE’s website also included contracts, leases, and other items that were targeted for elimination by the Trump administration.
Tyler Durden Fri, 08/07/2026 - 15:45One month after the May consumer credit posting a shocking decline - the first since late 2024 - driven by a plunge in revolving credit, things are mostly back to normal, with the Fed reporting in its latest G.19 report that in June, US consumer credit posted a healthy $14.17BN bounce - a full reversal of the May drop of $1.1 billion - and above the $11.9 billion median estimate.
The rebound was driven by a sizable reversal in last month's drop in revolving credit (i.e., credit card debt), as consumer resumed buying on credit to the tune of $6.7BN...
... bringing the total amount of outstanding credit card debt to $1.351 trillion, just $1 billion away from the all time high set in October 2024.
Meanwhile, non-revolving credit rose by its slow and steady monthly pace of $7.4 billion, lifting the total amount of student and auto loans to a new record high of $3.816 trillion.
What is interesting, is that while auto loans have barely budged since late 2023, staying around 1.6 trillion for nearly three years, and hitting a record $1.571 trillion at the end of June, student loans have resumed their ascent, and after a modest decline in late 2023, student loans are once again at all time highs although in June we saw a tiny decline of $4.5 billion.
Finally for those keeping tabs, after a modest decline in the previous two quarter, the average interest rate on credit card accounts assessed interest rose to 22.15%...
... a level last seen three years ago, when the Fed rates was almost 2% higher, which confirms our long-running observation that credit card rates go up but they never go down.
One final observation: after a period of about 6 years when the average amount financed by auto loans was around $25,000 (from 2008 to 2014), this amount has grown dramatically, and in Q1 2026 it hit a new record high of $42,500, the highest on record. Just in case there was confusion what is behind the relentless increase in car prices...
Tyler Durden Fri, 08/07/2026 - 15:32