R44702.pdf

interesting

I meant to add The government mistakenly disbursed more than $137 billion in Fiscal Year 2015, the highest annual level of wrongful spending ever reported, the Congressional Research Service noted last week. Over $1 trillion in improper payments have been made by government agencies since 2004.

Improper payments "are payments made in an incorrect amount, payments that should not have been made at all, or payments made to an ineligible recipient or for an ineligible purpose," CRS said.

Congress has enacted legislation to improve reporting and recovery of improper payments, but implementation "has been uneven across the government." See Improper Payments Legislation: Key Provisions, Implementation, and Selected Proposals in the 114th Congress, December 7, 2016.