August 3, 1978
Page 24104
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts has offered an amendment to increase the number of lawyers in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. The amendment would expand the department's resources to investigate and prosecute a wide range of organized crime and Government fraud. I support that amendment. It is reasonable and fiscally responsible.
The amendment would increase the appropriation for the Department of Justice by $1.3 million. I would note, Mr. President, that this amount could be accommodated within the first budget resolution targets for function 750, administration of justice.
I am particularly drawn to support this amendment, Mr. President, when I consider it within the context of the entire budget. For within that larger context, this is not an amendment to increase Federal spending. This is an amendment that has the potential to substantially reduce Federal spending and to make that spending more effective.
I share with many other Senators a concern about waste and outright fraud in Government programs. Fraud and crime drain away tax dollars that are intended to respond to real national needs. And they disrupt and undermine programs and agencies created to carry out the will of Congress.
The likelihood of fraud always presents a dilemma to the Congress when we respond to crying needs. However carefully Federal programs are designed, there will be those with criminal intent and ingenuity who will try to subvert the program. Although we may not be able to stop this fraud, we can discourage it and reduce it with vigorous investigation and prosecution. The potential savings could be not millions but tens of millions or even billions of scarce Federal resources.
I read with alarm the report of the Inspector General of HEW that the department is wasting up to $7.4 billion annually out of its budget. Fully $1.0 billion was estimated to be the loss resulting from fraud. Much of that resulted from "medicaid mills" and crooked nursing homes, where owners sent in bills for services never rendered, issued phony cost reports, charged off personal items for their own use and invented lists of drugs and other items of equipment.
HEW was also defrauded out of additional hundreds of millions of dollars by people lying about their eligibility for welfare, or by fraudulently defaulting on student loans, or diverting student loan funds to improper purposes.
That requires firm action. I recall that the distinguished Senator from Virginia, Senator BYRD, moved to reduce the targets for function 600, income security by over $5.0 billion and then by $2.1 billion when the fiscal 1979 first budget resolution was being considered on the Senate floor. He made the amendment as a result of his concern for fraud in medicare, medicaid, and other programs of HEW.
I opposed that amendment as an ineffectual way to attack fraud and an inappropriate way to save tax dollars. I stated at the time that the diversion of funds from a complex program cannot be reduced by just cutting the dollars going into the program. I am convinced that the way to reduced fraud and waste is to increase the oversight of the Congress and the executive branch over programs.
The amendment now before us provides one of the ways to affect real savings of tax dollars, and that is why I support it.