(PCC)Nothing tastes sweeter than a big fat check in the mail made out to you! How about an hors d’oeuvre of $1 billion dollars followed with the main course of up to $4.3 billion dollars, and we’re not even talking about the dessert, which is still in the oven!
In what’s being hailed as a massive win for American taxpayers, the U.S. Department of Labor just dropped a fiscal bombshell: over $1 billion in unused COVID-era unemployment funds are heading back to the Treasury, with a whopping $4.3 billion in total on the line. The move, backed by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), marks a major milestone in the fight against waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.
Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced Monday that $1.4 billion in unspent relief money will be returned immediately to taxpayers, while her team works to recover the remaining $2.9 billion that was either misallocated or improperly accessed by state programs after the pandemic.
The funding originated from the CARES Act of March 2020, designed to support millions of Americans thrown out of work by the pandemic. But a 2023 audit by the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General uncovered multiple states continued to draw from the fund long after they no longer qualified, racking up over $100 million in questionable spending.
“There’s no reason leftover COVID unemployment funds should still be collecting dust,” Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “We are delivering on our promise to guard Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.”
DOGE, headed by Elon Musk, is an agency initiative spearheaded under Trump and was designed to sniff out bureaucratic bloat and return power (and dollars) back to the American people. This latest effort is perhaps the boldest yet. And it’s not just symbolic; real checks will be sent back to the Treasury and then distributed to you. 😁
Chavez-DeRemer took the helm at the Labor Department just last month, and she wasted no time aligning with Trump’s mission to root out inefficiency. In her first memo to employees, she emphasized fiscal responsibility and challenged her department to “actively engage” in identifying wasteful programs and expenditures.
“Under the leadership of President Trump, our focus remains on promoting job creation, enhancing workforce development, and ensuring safe working conditions, wages, and pensions so that every American has the opportunity to succeed,” she wrote.
Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling echoed the sentiment: “In a huge win for the American taxpayer, we’ve clawed back these unused funds and will keep working to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Meanwhile, FOX News host Laura Ingraham spotlighted the DOGE effort on The Ingraham Angle, calling it a “stunning discovery” while slamming what she described as the Left’s “phony campaign” against tech innovators like Tesla. Ingraham praised the Labor Department’s work as a “real-world example of conservative leadership making government work for the people again.”
The Labor Department has promised complete transparency in the processing and redistribution of the reclaimed funds. While some of the returned funds will head back to the U.S. Treasury’s General Fund, others could find their way into future taxpayer benefits or deficit reduction initiatives.
One thing’s clear: this achievement is a massive win for taxpayers and proof that government, when streamlined and held accountable, can actually deliver.
Final Word: The first thing America needs to do is send a big ‘Thank You’ to President Trump, Elon Musk, and the DOGE team, then ask only one question: Where’s the rest?!
https://patriotcommandcenter.org/forum/jackpot-billions-back-to-taxpayers
