In the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration was responsible for spending $24 billion more on improper payments than President Joe Biden’s administration spent his last year in office.
When the report strips out the usual fraud from the fraud because idiots are running the bureaucracy, we’re left with the same old playbook: announce the topline, hide the anatomy. Transparency doesn’t mean “trust us, we’re working on it.” Transparency means show your work as others have also mentioned.
I made some very real and very ugly findings in HUD—housing programs are a perfect storm: huge dollars, fragmented local administrators, high complexity, and weak enforcement incentives. HUD itself has been chronically noncompliant in the improper-payment regime for years, and that tracks with what anyone watching housing knows anecdotally: the system leaks because it’s built to leak.
I recently published an analysis on my Resevere Substack that examines a multi-state voucher “middleman” nonprofit and compares reported voucher outlays to HUD’s own plausible ceilings (based on fair-market rent logic and real-world utilization). The punchline: the reported numbers aren't just “high.” Under multiple scenarios, they are mathematically impossible without deliberate action occurring on the receiving end through misreporting or abuse and either collusion or nothing short of a pathetic level of waste on the other side.
Put simply the per-voucher disparities across the 4 states this NGO operates in look like different universes compared to what is realistic as well as the maximum possible figures. Yes, the maximum HUD ceilings with 100% occupancy everything maxed out still are not possibly attributed to “cost-of-living variation” and are mind-boggling. The average Section 8 voucher household earns $10-15k per year, and, for example, in Richmond, VA the average voucher through this NGO I report about is $95k per year.
So yes—improper payments are down from COVID-era highs. Great. But if the data is less complete while the programs stay structurally fraud-friendly, that’s not progress. That’s optics. If anyone cares about what this looks like in an actual program with actual dollars, my Section 8 deep dive is here:
The government needs a central procurement system that reviews all material payments to one vendor for compliance with policy and legality. Also add an approved vendor list. And a weekly list should be published of all approved payments for all to see. A separate agency could be used for defense and homeland security. Of course, salaries are excluded.
If you REALLY THINK - that the total of "improper payments" at the Pentagon, is $2.1Billion - I've got a medically contra-indicated Covid injection to sell you... That's the Branch of our Regimes, that has NEVER passed an audit - and has somehow lost track of more than $30 Trillion... Did they think about looking under the couch cushions?
That's the Department of Death and Destruction for all - the one that DOGE never looked at... I mean sure, the private information of Americans, from the IRS, is totally within their purview - but G-d forbid we should ever look into the wisdom and utility of $1000 dollar hammers, or endless unlawful wars of aggression; on behalf of the Zionist AbomiNation State, or for "Global Supremacy".
How much more does it cost to deploy an entire Armada to the Caribbean, so we can randomly murder boaters, without any warrants or lawful procedure - based on 'we say they're bad guys' - than it does to deploy a Coast Guard cutter, to intercept them, board and detain, and then make lawful arrests, where appropriate?
The money handed to weapons makers on behalf of the criminal cartels running our nation, probably doesn't get counted as "improper payments"... And those weapons will almost certainly be put to an unlawful use - if the International Criminal Court ever acts against any of our Politicians, Military Leaders, or our "allies" - for any of the long string of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, to which Americans are all made accessories, by our Government.
Let me assure you - $180+ Billion, or $200+ Billion...these are just rounding errors, compared to the transfers of ill gotten wealth, that run through the Pentagon, and into the pockets of politically-connected Billionaires.
They act as though the money is water running through their fingers. Why can't they claw much of the misdirected or improper payments back? From everyone that received them?
Question: was it a typo that HUD went from $45M in 2024 to $5.8B in 2025? I did not see mention of that incredibly massive jump in improper payments by HUD.
But no one is auditing these agencies to find out where their budgets are actually being spent.. Solari.com is up to $55 Trillion in actual theft from federal treasuries. When is Open the Books going to start discussing why we are not allowed to audit federal agencies: FASAB Ruling 56.
When is Open the Books going to start calling for the dissolution of unelected and unaccountable organziations that somehow create binding regulations that undermine and destroy our Constitutional right to " Government BY the People."
More and more I see OTB as a limited hangout, herding us to a spot analytically and informationally. Has anyone at OTB ever taken a look at the stuatory basis for money control regulations within the government. Check out PTAR - The Parallel Table of Authorizations and Rules. Under the PTAR, the IRS is using two statutes as it's basis for it's primary actions against citizens - when neither of those statutes was written to be used in that fashion.
All you do is publish the wow info. What about the structural and procedural rot that makes it happen?
When the report strips out the usual fraud from the fraud because idiots are running the bureaucracy, we’re left with the same old playbook: announce the topline, hide the anatomy. Transparency doesn’t mean “trust us, we’re working on it.” Transparency means show your work as others have also mentioned.
I made some very real and very ugly findings in HUD—housing programs are a perfect storm: huge dollars, fragmented local administrators, high complexity, and weak enforcement incentives. HUD itself has been chronically noncompliant in the improper-payment regime for years, and that tracks with what anyone watching housing knows anecdotally: the system leaks because it’s built to leak.
I recently published an analysis on my Resevere Substack that examines a multi-state voucher “middleman” nonprofit and compares reported voucher outlays to HUD’s own plausible ceilings (based on fair-market rent logic and real-world utilization). The punchline: the reported numbers aren't just “high.” Under multiple scenarios, they are mathematically impossible without deliberate action occurring on the receiving end through misreporting or abuse and either collusion or nothing short of a pathetic level of waste on the other side.
Put simply the per-voucher disparities across the 4 states this NGO operates in look like different universes compared to what is realistic as well as the maximum possible figures. Yes, the maximum HUD ceilings with 100% occupancy everything maxed out still are not possibly attributed to “cost-of-living variation” and are mind-boggling. The average Section 8 voucher household earns $10-15k per year, and, for example, in Richmond, VA the average voucher through this NGO I report about is $95k per year.
So yes—improper payments are down from COVID-era highs. Great. But if the data is less complete while the programs stay structurally fraud-friendly, that’s not progress. That’s optics. If anyone cares about what this looks like in an actual program with actual dollars, my Section 8 deep dive is here:
https://resevere.substack.com/p/3-billion-section-8-fraud-hud-affordable-housing
The government needs a central procurement system that reviews all material payments to one vendor for compliance with policy and legality. Also add an approved vendor list. And a weekly list should be published of all approved payments for all to see. A separate agency could be used for defense and homeland security. Of course, salaries are excluded.
So sad because all this waste adds up to real money lost for defense, infrastructure, feeding children (not like the MN fake programs).
If you REALLY THINK - that the total of "improper payments" at the Pentagon, is $2.1Billion - I've got a medically contra-indicated Covid injection to sell you... That's the Branch of our Regimes, that has NEVER passed an audit - and has somehow lost track of more than $30 Trillion... Did they think about looking under the couch cushions?
That's the Department of Death and Destruction for all - the one that DOGE never looked at... I mean sure, the private information of Americans, from the IRS, is totally within their purview - but G-d forbid we should ever look into the wisdom and utility of $1000 dollar hammers, or endless unlawful wars of aggression; on behalf of the Zionist AbomiNation State, or for "Global Supremacy".
How much more does it cost to deploy an entire Armada to the Caribbean, so we can randomly murder boaters, without any warrants or lawful procedure - based on 'we say they're bad guys' - than it does to deploy a Coast Guard cutter, to intercept them, board and detain, and then make lawful arrests, where appropriate?
The money handed to weapons makers on behalf of the criminal cartels running our nation, probably doesn't get counted as "improper payments"... And those weapons will almost certainly be put to an unlawful use - if the International Criminal Court ever acts against any of our Politicians, Military Leaders, or our "allies" - for any of the long string of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, to which Americans are all made accessories, by our Government.
Let me assure you - $180+ Billion, or $200+ Billion...these are just rounding errors, compared to the transfers of ill gotten wealth, that run through the Pentagon, and into the pockets of politically-connected Billionaires.
Have you considered doing an audit of Substack?
how much of this money is recovered
They act as though the money is water running through their fingers. Why can't they claw much of the misdirected or improper payments back? From everyone that received them?
I’m amazed at how much of our hard earned taxes are wasted because of fraud. Does anyone really care? Who goes to prison if caught?
Will the new “fraud czar” have any real authority?!
Question: was it a typo that HUD went from $45M in 2024 to $5.8B in 2025? I did not see mention of that incredibly massive jump in improper payments by HUD.
But no one is auditing these agencies to find out where their budgets are actually being spent.. Solari.com is up to $55 Trillion in actual theft from federal treasuries. When is Open the Books going to start discussing why we are not allowed to audit federal agencies: FASAB Ruling 56.
When is Open the Books going to start calling for the dissolution of unelected and unaccountable organziations that somehow create binding regulations that undermine and destroy our Constitutional right to " Government BY the People."
More and more I see OTB as a limited hangout, herding us to a spot analytically and informationally. Has anyone at OTB ever taken a look at the stuatory basis for money control regulations within the government. Check out PTAR - The Parallel Table of Authorizations and Rules. Under the PTAR, the IRS is using two statutes as it's basis for it's primary actions against citizens - when neither of those statutes was written to be used in that fashion.
All you do is publish the wow info. What about the structural and procedural rot that makes it happen?