WASHINGTON – Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, praised the Obama Administration's continued efforts to crack down on waste and fraud across the federal government. In an announcement today, the Administration launched the 'Do Not Pay' tool, an online portal that enables the federal government to access information across multiple data sources to prevent the waste of taxpayer dollars on improper payments, which are payments made in error, like ones to the wrong person or in the wrong amount. Ensuring that this tool is maintained permanently by the federal government is a major component of legislation authored by Sen. Carper along with Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.), the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act of 2011, which would build upon the earlier improper payments law passed in 2010. The portal brings together multiple government databases into one simple check point and deploys advanced data matching and analytics to identify and stop wasteful errors before they happen.

"The Obama Administration's announcement today that they are launching a 'Do Not Pay' online tool for federal agencies is another major step in our ongoing fight against wasteful and fraudulent improper payments by the government," said Sen. Carper. "As a part of the Administration's 'Campaign to Cut Waste,' all agencies are being asked to employ this useful tool to reduce the number of improper payments they make, helping our government become more efficient and a better steward of taxpayer dollars. However, despite our successes in cracking down on waste and fraud, much work remains to be done. Improper payments are still estimated to total $115 billion annually, and some agencies have been slow to comply with the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act, which I authored and President Obama signed into law in 2010. I look forward to working with the Administration and my colleagues in Congress to strengthen efforts to transition our federal government from a 'culture of spendthrift' to a 'culture of thrift.' "

As part of the Administration's ongoing Campaign to Cut Waste, the President has made it a priority to reduce improper payments. In 2010, he signed into law legislation authored by Sen. Carper and former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act. As a result of the law and the Administration's continued efforts to work with Congressional leaders to eliminate wasteful spending, the government-wide improper payment rate decreased to 4.7 percent last year, a sharp drop from the 2009 error rate of 5.4 percent. Without such a steep decline in the error rate, the government would have made an additional $20 billion in improper payments in 2010 and 2011 combined.

In addition, the Administration announced today that agencies have already exceeded the goal the President set in 2010 to recapture $2 billion in overpayments to contractors by the end of this fiscal year. This success is due in large part to hundreds of millions of dollars in recoveries from the Medicare Fee-for-Service Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program, which Sen. Carper worked to expand throughout all of Medicare and Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act.

To read more information on the Administration's announcement, please visit www.whitehouse.gov.

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