WASHINGTON — The U.S. House passed legislation Wednesday to help prevent federal agencies from sending out taxpayer dollars as improper payments, which U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Birmingham, sponsored.
The Zeroing Out Monetary Benefits Improperly Expended (ZOMBIE) Act would replace agencies’ practice of completing annual improper payment estimates with ongoing risk assessments. The House passed the bill via voice vote.
Improper payments are those that shouldn’t have been made or were made in the incorrect amount. The Government Accountability Office estimates that last fiscal year agencies sent about $186 billion in improper payments. There have been a total of $3 trillion worth of errors since 2003.
Palmer told Alabama Daily News that the federal government has a “huge problem with improper payments” and his bipartisan bill will help address that issue. He added that the improper payments stem from old data systems and administrative failures.
“We’ve changed some of the procedures instead of trying to be punitive toward the actions that have already taken place, we’re trying to be proactive, to prevent them,” the congressman said.
The legislation would also require agencies to implement fraud prevention practices.
Palmer’s bill was one of several pieces of legislation that Republicans pushed for this week to combat “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal government. The Trump administration has made that a top issue during this term.
“It’s something that we’ve been seeing, we’ve been exposing, we’ve been bringing more tools forward, so that we can root out fraud to protect taxpayers,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said during the GOP press conference.
While some anti-fraud bills passed mostly on party lines this week, others like Palmer’s ZOMBIE Act had bipartisan support.
“I think this is a great step forward,” Palmer told ADN. “There are other bills coming along with this that are indicative of the commitment that we have to ending the fraud and abuse of the taxpayers.”
The ZOMBIE Act now heads to the U.S. Senate for a vote.