Exclusive: House Budget Chair Backs Trump’s ‘War on Fraud,’ Calls for Reforms in Reconciliation 2.0
By Jasmyn Jordan
February 27, 2026
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House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX) said Thursday that congressional Republicans should build on President Donald Trump’s newly announced campaign against government fraud by advancing additional reforms in an upcoming budget reconciliation package, citing federal estimates that hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are lost each year to fraud and improper payments.
Arrington provided the following exclusive statement to Breitbart News:
“Since his first day in office, President Trump has been laser focused on rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, and he’s just getting started. We lose an estimated $500 billion a year to fraud, according to the Government Accountability Office. That’s why President Trump and Congressional Republicans took historic action to put in place guardrails that safeguard taxpayers’ sacred treasure through the One Big Beautiful Bill. But, as President Trump’s declaration of a ‘war on fraud’ underscores, there is still work to do.
“I applaud President Trump for taking this decisive action, am confident in Vice President Vance’s commitment to seeing it through and urge my Republican colleagues in the House to follow suit by codifying additional anti-fraud reforms in Reconciliation 2.0.”
The chairman’s comments come after President Donald Trump formally declared a “war on fraud” during his February 24 State of the Union address and placed Vice President JD Vance in charge of the effort. In that speech, Trump remarked, “But when it comes to the corruption that is plundering America, there’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota,” adding that members of the Somali community had “pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,” and asserting that “the number is much higher than that.” He also referenced California, Massachusetts, Maine, and other states, describing the situation as “the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation.”
Speaking Wednesday at a press conference with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, Vance emphasized, “We’re certainly going to make sure that our anti-fraud efforts go after the fraudsters and not after anybody who actually benefits from these services.” He added, “The problem is the fact that these programs are being defrauded to begin with.” Warning about long-term consequences, Vance stated, “They will not exist. Our social safety net will disappear unless we take fraud more seriously,” and cautioned that without action, “all the money’s going to go to fraudsters.”
Vance also announced, “We have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligation seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money.” Referencing a specific case, he explained a program meant to support autistic children “has made a number of people rich,” alleging it occurred “not by providing services to needy children, but by allowing fraudsters to take money that ought-by-right go to American citizens,” including by setting up “sham businesses” and “sham clients,” and claiming individuals “who are not even autistic” in order to receive funds.
Arrington has previously identified Minnesota as an example of deeper structural problems in federal welfare programs. In remarks issued December 2, 2025, addressing a pandemic-era fraud scheme in the state, he said more than $1 billion in federal funds designated for child nutrition, elderly care, and autism-related services had been diverted despite numerous internal warnings raised to state leadership at the time.
He asserted, “It’s important to note, Democrats fought tooth and nail against congressional Republicans’ efforts to root out over a trillion dollars in waste and fraud in federal welfare programs in the Big Beautiful Bill.”
Arrington further contended, “Taxpayers expect the federal government to provide safety net programs that actually help the most vulnerable Americans, not allow their hard-earned money to be needlessly wasted by fraudsters and incompetent politicians.” He concluded by asking, “I’ve got one question: which party do you most trust to steward your tax dollars?”
Arrington has pointed to the One Big Beautiful Bill as a key anti-fraud measure to address what he characterized as “a system with inadequate guardrails and vulnerabilities that invite fraudsters to siphon funds away from those the program was intended to serve,” noting that the law reinforces SNAP’s 20-hour weekly work requirement for able-bodied adults and ends waiver workarounds some states used to effectively opt out of enforcement. He praised the legislation for taking “historic strides to safeguard taxpayer dollars and protect services for the most vulnerable,” while restoring “the dignity of work.”
