On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reacted to the Treasury Department recovering tens of millions in improper Social Security payments by stating that “when you have programs dealing with tens of millions of people, is anyone going to say, hey, there is no fraud, everything is running efficiently? Of course not. There are going to be problems.” And “of course, we try to get rid of fraud and waste and abuse. And maybe they want to take some of their attention onto the corporate world and the kind of price fixing that goes on there as well.”
Host Kaitlan Collins said, “[B]efore Trump took office, the Treasury Department clawed back and recovered $31 million in payments from Social Security that shouldn’t have gone out that went out. That was something that they were doing over a five-month period to deceased individuals. But they — the point is, I think, that what the DOGE team says they’re doing was already happening. They were going back and getting the money that was being –.”
Sanders cut in to say, “And all that I would ask the American people to understand is that, when you have programs dealing with tens of millions of people, is anyone going to say, hey, there is no fraud, everything is running efficiently? Of course not. There are going to be problems. Every bloody program out there, there are going to be problems. But you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Collins then asked, “So, what’s the solution?”
Sanders responded, “The solution is that, of course, we try to get rid of fraud and waste and abuse. And maybe they want to take some of their attention onto the corporate world and the kind of price fixing that goes on there as well. But we want to get rid of fraud and waste. But, at the same time, we want to make sure that programs that people desperately need, like Social Security, remain strong.”
Earlier in the interview, Sanders stated that the federal government is a bureaucracy that is “far from” perfect and “Absolutely” needs reform.
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