Davis Opening Statement on Worker and Family Support Subcommittee Hearing on Unemployment Insurance Fraud

(As prepared for delivery)

Democrats want to hold criminals that stole from workers and our unemployment insurance, or UI, program during the pandemic accountable. We provided $2 billion in the American Rescue Plan Act to strengthen program integrity, access, and equity, and Democrats want to work on a bipartisan basis to finish the job. However, I cannot open this hearing and pretend that business is usual in the face of illegal and unethical actions by this Administration. 

I must recognize and criticize the firing of the Department of Labor Inspector General whose job it was to investigate and prosecute UI fraud and who specifically asked our Committee to extend the statute of limitations for UI fraud. Inspector General Larry Turner served with distinction in both the Trump and Biden administrations and led the Inspector General’s office to 1,400 successful pandemic UI fraud prosecutions and over one billion dollars in court-ordered restitution and repayment. Mr. Turner was recently fired by President Trump along with nearly all of the non-partisan Inspectors General.

After firing these IGs charged with prosecuting fraud and making sure agencies follow the law, the Trump Administration illegally blocked states from accessing essential health, child care, child welfare, and other funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and illegally blocked non-profit organizations from accessing already-appropriated funds just as they were trying to make payroll. The harm done by a short delay in payments gave us a preview of what might happen if we enacted the cuts being pushed by my Republican colleagues.

In the last few days, President Trump gave Elon Musk - an unelected billionaire – and his hackers unfettered access to the extremely confidential data regarding payments to workers, businesses, seniors, and entities around the world via the systems for the Treasury Department, Centers for Medicaid and Medicare, Labor Department, and NIH.  These systems include private financial information for seniors receiving Social Security or Medicare, workers receiving tax refunds, private health information about you and your loved ones, and the privileged information of Mr. Musk’s business competitors. 

This hearing is about preventing fraud, yet this Administration appears to be gifting Mr. Musk the unlimited ability to defraud individual Americans – to access their most private financial and health information for any purpose.  Will Mr. Musk illegally stop your Social Security, tax, Medicare, Medicaid, or disability payments? Will he clawback your tax refund or Social Security payment if he thinks you didn’t deserve it? Will he use his unchecked power to sell your Social Security numbers or bank account information to the highest bidder or delay government contract payments or grants to his competitors or people he dislikes? 

As much as my colleagues and I want to finish the job of prosecuting pandemic fraud and ensure that the unemployment system is ready for the next recession, I cannot ignore the silence of my Republican colleagues in this offensive fraud against the American public. And the sad reality is that the next recession might be very soon given the President’s determination to start trade wars with our closest allies that will skyrocket prices on nearly everything Americans buy. 

I look forward to hearing from Shelby Meyenburg and getting good advice from the workers on the front lines of making sure that state UI programs pay the right workers the right amount at the right time. Yet, I also am extremely concerned that any new IG in this current lawless environment would not appropriately target true criminal rings and instead focus on the workers unemployed during the pandemic who received overpayments due to no fault of their own.  The first step is for our Committee to work together to protect the privacy and prevent the defrauding of the American people. 

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