Kennedy’s Bill Ends Payments To Dead People
Senator John Kennedy pushed a simple idea. Stop sending checks to people who are dead. It sounds obvious. It wasn’t easy.
He says the checks were being cashed. That means fraud. Kennedy told NewsNation the change took years and met resistance. He said it will save the country big money.
Partial transcript via Overton News:
KENNEDY: “The idea that we send billions of dollars to dead people and they get cashed. The checks get cashed so obviously a lot fraud.”
KENNEDY: “When you die Katie, not that you’re going to die anytime soon, but when you die, your name goes to the Social Security department, they have a list dead people.”
KENNEDY: “And but they wouldn’t share it with anybody else. They wouldn’t share it with the Department of Treasury for example.”
KENNEDY: “So I had to go pass a bill. Took four years to pass the bill, believe it or not I had opposition. But we finally got it passed and the president signed it yesterday.”
KENNEDY: “And so far as I can tell, dead people can still vote, but they can’t cash checks because we’re not going to sending them to them anymore and it’s going to save billions and billions and billions of dollars.”
KENNEDY: “Well, every state is different. Some state governors cooperate, some of them don’t.”
KENNEDY: “Governor Walz didn’t cooperate. He knew about this fraud, he knew all about it. You know, he lied about it. I’m sorry.”
KENNEDY: “No offense to the governor but he learned to lie before he learned to talk.”
Here’s part of a press release from Kennedy’s office:
President Donald Trump signed Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-La.) Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act, which will save hard-earned taxpayer money by curbing erroneous payments to individuals who have passed away, into law.
And Kennedy said it bluntly, in his release: “Using dead Americans to rip off taxpayers is as low as it gets. Many Americans have seen these scams play out across the country and are tired of watching these fraudsters game the system—so am I. That’s why I wrote this common-sense bill to end this outrageous abuse permanently, and I’m grateful President Trump signed it into law so we can ensure taxpayer dollars go to living Americans who actually need our help,” said Kennedy.
The bill fixes a simple gap. Social Security knows who has died. But that data didn’t always get shared with agencies that cut checks. Now it will. That should make it harder for fraudsters to cash a dead person’s benefits.
It took pushback to get this done. Kennedy names governors who resisted. He calls out fraud and lies. That direct talk will play well with voters tired of waste.
Watch the clip here:
https://x.com/overton_news/status/2022174693491368123
Video (cued to 0:54):