The federal government blows as much as $800 billion a year on fraudulent benefit payments, according to a leading expert who said the incoming Trump administration could make a major dent in the federal deficit without having to slash departments or agencies.

Haywood Talcove, CEO of government at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, figures that 20% of the big spending programs such as Medicaid and food stamps are wasted on fraudulent payments.

And the size of the waste challenges the convention wisdom in Washington, which for decades has held that while fraud and abuse were good buzzwords, there just wasn’t enough money in them to bother with major changes. After the pandemic exposed massive fraud, however, experts now say there’s more than enough to invest the time and effort to weed it out.

“I think there’s probably $800 billion annually sitting there, and I think $500 billion is low-hanging fruit,” Mr. Talcove told The Washington Times. “The focus needs to be on the fraudulent and improper payments. I don’t think in many cases there needs to be this action to cut spending in a program.”

His estimate comes as President-elect Donald Trump and his budget-cutting commission, the Department of Government Efficiency, are plotting an assault on the federal deficit.

Conservatives have eyed ending prominent government programs, ranging from slashing public broadcasting to eliminating the Education Department.

But Mr. Talcove said there’s a lot of room to maneuver in the area of fraud and abuse before needing to ax full programs.

That sounds about right, said Jordan Burris, a former senior federal IT official and now general manager for public sector at Socure, a digital identity verification and fraud prevention technology firm.

He said there’s plenty of money for Uncle Sam to save — if agencies try a little harder to shut the door on bogus and erroneous claims.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if between 10% to 20% of payments that are rendered today for many federal programs prove to be fraudulent,” Mr. Burris said.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the leaders of Mr. Trump’s DOGE, suggested anywhere from $500 billion to $2 trillion as their savings goals — though Mr. Musk this month said $1 trillion is probably the sweet spot.

“I think we’ll try for $2 trillion. I think that’s the best-case outcome,” Mr. Musk told Mark Penn, a political strategist, in an interview on X.com. “But I do think that you kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting 1 [trillion].”

Mr. Ramaswamy and Mr. Musk, in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, said they were looking to nix programs that Congress spends money on, even though it hasn’t officially authorized them through non-spending legislation — or that agencies have twisted to go beyond what Congress did authorize.

But the experts said they can reach those goals without axing any programs.

“Vivek and I should have a contest: who can find $500 billion the quickest? I think I could find it in five days,” he said. “Another couple weeks, I’ll find you another $500 billion. It’s not that hard.”

The key to the change, the experts said, is to stop letting bad payments go out the door and trying to track down and recapture the ones that shouldn’t have been made. That’s known as the pay-and-chase model, and the experts said it’s a bad way to run a government.

“Pay and chase is not something that should be part of our vocabulary,” said Mr. Burris, adding that private firms don’t use that model for their spending.

The fraud is made even worse because of some of the major players. The experts said criminal syndicates backed by adversary nations, such as China or Russia, are responsible for a large chunk of what Uncle Sam misspends.

“It’s not like your average everyday person,” Mr. Burris said. “These are coordinated efforts leveraging AI at scale to launch automated attacks, and they’re coming from other countries.”

Federal authorities last year brought charges against one fraud operation run by Romanians that netted nearly $200 million in bogus food stamp payments over a 21-month period from 2022 to 2024.

Investigators said they used card skimming machines to steal the card numbers and number codes used by actual food stamp recipients, then recode that information onto blank cards so the fraudsters could claim all the benefits that were supposed to be paid.

Mr. Talcove said converting the food stamp payment cards to chip cards could quickly reduce the fraud — but under current plans, it will take the government years to make the switch.

He pointed to Social Security’s disability benefits program as another area ripe for action.

Mr. Talcove said Social Security only does asset testing on a small segment of the total population, allowing people who shouldn’t qualify to end up claiming benefits.

“By simply doing what they’re supposed to do they would probably save $100 billion annually,” he said.

Some policymakers on Capitol Hill say that’s the point. Unlike businesses, the government needs to find ways to get cash out the door to people who deserve benefits under the law. Fraud and other erroneous payments are a necessary evil to make that happen.

Mr. Burris dismissed that concern.

“I believe it is a false premise that you cannot have strong fraud prevention while at the same time getting payments issued to the right people,” he told The Times. “When historically we’ve seen this go wrong, it’s because they’re using a legacy technology or a legacy approach to issuing these payments.”

The federal government collected more than $4.9 trillion in revenue in fiscal year 2024, but spent nearly $6.8 trillion, leaving a deficit of $1.8 trillion. That’s the third-largest on record, trailing only the two years in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Congressional Budget Office says the government will run trillion-dollar deficits every year for the foreseeable future, quickly adding to the current $36.2 trillion total federal debt.

That’s an increase of $8.4 trillion during President Biden’s four years.

President Trump oversaw a $7.8 trillion increase during his four years, President Obama tallied $9.3 trillion during his eight years, and President George W. Bush notched $4.9 trillion during his eight years.