If there is one word to describe Democrat governance nationwide, it is fraud. State governments have a responsibility to safeguard benefits programs and elections, yet blue states have taken little to no action to protect them. Instead, they have put fraudsters and illegal aliens ahead of taxpayers and American citizens. Under President Trump’s leadership, Republicans are bringing this malfeasance to an end.

Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. froze $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota over widespread, suspected fraud in both states. Under Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom’s tenure, government spending in California has surged from $209 billion a year to more than $350 billion, driven in large part by a doubling in state Medicaid spending. The California State Auditor has repeatedly flagged billions of these expenditures as questionable payments, including to potential fraud operations, but state Democrats have continued to push the money out the door. 

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D.) has similarly overseen billions in fraud, especially through the state’s Medicaid program. Pervasive scam operations, where front businesses bill millions for nonexistent services, could help explain why Minnesota has the second highest per enrollee Medicaid spending under Obamacare. 

California and Minnesota aren’t the only Democrat-run states that have turned a blind eye to fraud. In New York, Dr. Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator, warned that Chinese organized criminal groups have stolen millions of dollars through fraudulent Medicaid billings. Within a single one-mile radius in New York City, 64 adult care centers billed to Medicaid, which distributed $2.1 billion to the neighborhood.

Such blatant theft from taxpayers should outrage every American. Yet for years, Democrats have allowed these schemes to flourish. Now that Republicans are exposing their failures, they are trying to duck accountability. During a recent Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Medicaid fraud, just one of the committee’s seven Democrat members showed up.

While encouraging fraud in government programs, blue states have also opened the door to fraud in federal elections. Just last week, New Jersey disclosed that the state registered 6,600 noncitizens to vote, among whom at least 400 cast ballots in federal elections. New Jersey is one of 14 states that does not require any ID whatsoever to vote and refuses to compare its voter rolls with the federal SAVE database, which verifies a person’s immigration status. 

States that use the SAVE database, including Texas and Ohio, have discovered thousands of noncitizens on their rolls. President Trump recently announced that the Department of Homeland Security estimates that approximately 278,000 noncitizens are registered to vote nationwide. He noted that this figure is likely an undercount as blue states refuse to cooperate with his administration’s anti-fraud efforts.

While Democrats are encouraging fraud, Republicans are rooting it out. Just this month, I joined several of myRepublican colleagues in launching the Senate Anti-Fraud Task Force, which will work hand-in-hand with the administration to examine waste, fraud, and abuse across federal programs. I also introduced the Fraud Accountability Act to make clear that fraud counts as a deportable offense under the Immigration and Nationality Act and that any deportable offense can lead to denaturalization.

Republicans are also continuing to fight for the passage of the SAVE AMERICA Act, which would require individuals to present an ID to cast a ballot and proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, while also requiring states to remove noncitizens from their voter rolls. If we need to break apart this legislation piece by piece to get these provisions across the finish line, that’s exactly what we must do. For example, my Election Security Partnership Act, which I led alongside Senator Graham, would incentivize states to submit their voter registration lists to DHS to identify ineligible voters, including noncitizens.

Make no mistake: The era of rampant fraud is over. Republicans are delivering accountability.