U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday revealed the Trump administration has saved nearly $100 million of taxpayer money destined for dead people, and he projected savings of $350 million by the end of the year.
Using the federal Do Not Pay program, Treasury has so far screened more than 885 million payments totaling approximately $2.77 trillion as part of the new payment verification process.
The screening has identified more than 4,900 payments worth approximately $99 million that were associated with deceased payees. Those payments were returned to the originating federal agencies for review before any funds were disbursed.
“It’s common sense,” Bessent told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business. “President Trump issued an executive order for us to be able to go to the Do Not Pay to have it interact with the Treasury payment systems.”
“And as a result, so far we’ve saved about $100 million of payments that didn’t go to deceased people. And that would have gone out. We think that there’s up to $350 million that we can stop before the end of this year.
“And that goes along with the vice president’s task force on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the government. The GAO estimates that it might be, this number might be up to $500 billion, which is about 1.66% of GDP,” Bessent continued.
“So that could go a long way towards paying down the debt, providing more services. And this is just the start.”
Bartiromo responded: “That is incredible. I mean for all of the fighting that we see back and forth between the Republicans and the Democrats about governing and about allocating capital and spending money on projects, to think that there’s all these millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars that have actually been on the cutting room floor because of fraud and waste that people just weren’t paying attention to.”
WATCH:
🚨 BREAKING: Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent has just found $100 MILLION IN FRAUDULENT PAYMENTS that would’ve otherwise gone to deceased people
Bessent says there might be $500 BILLION in total fraud 🤯🤯
If the Biden admin were still in power, the $100M would’ve been PAID AND… pic.twitter.com/7hcLjRpooK
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 21, 2026
In a prepared statement, Bessent said: “Treasury has delivered on a key promise of President Trump’s mandate to stop improper payments and fraud before money leaves the Treasury, and strengthen the integrity of the federal payment system.”
“Together with Vice President Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, this new safeguard addresses a longstanding vulnerability and helps ensure every dollar the federal government spends reaches its intended recipient. Treasury will continue efforts to modernize the federal payment system, strengthen safeguards against fraud and improper payments, and protect taxpayer dollars.”
In February 2026, Congress passed, and President Trump signed, the Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act, providing Treasury with permanent access to the Full Death Master File and allowing these payment integrity efforts to continue on a permanent basis.
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