Why Stephen Miller’s claims about fraud and the budget deficit were so absurd
JD Vance’s vaunted task force, focused on uncovering fraudulent federal spending, is off to a rough start, and this week’s meeting added to the project’s troubles. Nearly two dozen state attorneys general skipped the latest gathering because they were invited on Friday — and given a deadline to RSVP by Saturday.
It probably wasn’t a coincidence that all of these state AG’s are Democrats. Indeed, the result was an all-Republican meeting, which likely suited the White House just fine, given that Vance’s endeavor has been brazen in its partisan intentions.
Nevertheless, the meeting on Tuesday proceeded as planned, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller took the opportunity to share a claim that warranted a closer look.
“Based on what I’ve heard, we could balance the federal budget if the only dollars that went out of the treasury went to individuals who were properly, lawfully, correctly eligible to receive them,” Miller claimed.
Roughly a day later, at a White House Cabinet meeting, his boss made the same point.
If Vance’s task force roots out enough fraud, Donald Trump declared, “we’ll have a balanced budget without having to do anything.”
Notwithstanding what Miller has “heard” from unnamed sources, this entire argument is ludicrous. The budget deficit in 2025 was $1.8 trillion, and every independent estimate suggests that fraud, while a problem worth taking seriously, is nowhere near that total.
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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