WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson used the weekly House Republican Leadership press conference Tuesday to highlight new Treasury Department data showing the Working Families Tax Cuts delivered the largest share of tax relief to lower and middle income earners, while simultaneously calling on Democrats to support a trio of Republican bills targeting waste, fraud, and abuse in federal and state government programs.
Johnson said the Treasury analysis definitively proved the Working Families Tax Cuts, signed into law on July 4th of last year, delivered as promised for working Americans. He noted that 70 percent of filers earning less than $100,000 received a tax cut, and 96 percent of those receiving cuts earned less than $200,000. In total, the Treasury returned $82 billion to American taxpayers through the legislation. Johnson pointed out that every Democrat in both the House and Senate voted against the bill.
Turning to fraud, Johnson cited a Government Accountability Office estimate that the federal government loses as much as $500 billion annually to fraudsters and scammers — roughly $4,000 per American household each year. He singled out Minnesota and California as examples of what he described as industrial-scale theft in deep blue states, saying the fraud had gone unaddressed for years under Democratic leadership.
Johnson outlined a package of three Republican bills aimed at closing loopholes and tightening oversight of federal program spending. The legislation would place new guardrails on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funding to reduce improper payments, crack down on so-called ghost students stealing federal financial aid under fake or stolen identities, and strengthen oversight and fraud standards for federally funded childcare programs, including provisions to withhold funding from states that repeatedly misuse those dollars.
Johnson accused Democrats of planning to vote against the reforms, arguing their response to fraud has historically been to raise taxes and increase spending rather than pursue accountability. A recent poll, he noted, found that 83 percent of Americans expressed concern about fraud in government programs.