ms. royal for her opening statement. >> good morning, chairwoman greene, ranking member and committee members. my name is dawn royal. i am a certified welfare fraud investigator, two term past president and current director of the united council on welfare fraud. united council on welfare fraud is a national professional organization dedicated to protecting the integrity in our nation's public assistance programs. the only national organization singularly focused on detection, prevention and prosecution of welfare fraud. for too long agency bureaucrats have pitted citizens access to welfare programs against the integrity of those programs. access versus integrity should never be an either/or di cot me. we agree access to public assistance is crucial. american citizens should tea be hungry or deprived of medical care because of their inability to pay. making sure vulnerable citizens have access to welfare programs should not mean we simply turn a blind eye to integrity. we do not pursue the prev

ms. royal, your testimony states many programs operate under essentially an honest system that applicants need not verify their identity, income, residency, or other key eligibility factors. you call this a trust everyone instead of a trust by verify approach. does this mean the federal government in some states is giving out billions of dollars to individuals without verifying who they are or whether they meet program eligibility requirements? ms. royal: yes ma'am. that's correct. chair greene: that's outrageous. do states have enough incentives to prevent fraud and recover improper payments? ms. royal: no. in fact, states are hesitant to spend state dollars to protect federal dollars. chair greene: what greater investment in program integrity efforts yield a positive return for taxpayers? ms. royal: yes. it could easily be self funding. chair greene: both the biden and obama administrations issued rules and credits that made it harder for states to verify eligibility for medicaid. he said rep

ms. royal do you know how much the average person in this country who survives on social security. about how much they have to survive on a day? >> i do not. >> $6five a day. >> we're not looking into musk 8 million a day. this subcommittee chaired by house republicans is looking into your grandmother's $6five a day. let me be clear. i think we would all support taxpayer savings, look into money we might needlessly send to billionaires and big corporations, find taxpayer savings and send it back to your hard working family. instead what house republicans and the trump/musk administration want to do is to look into your kids' lunch money, teachers salary, into your grand parents' social security. they want to take that money and give it out in billionaire tax cuts and they are talking about that in committee tomorrow in budget committee tomorrow. they just released their plan. let me be clear. when republicans talk about government efficiency in this congress, they are not looking into billionaires who don't pay taxes, not looking into billionaires who get rich off government contra