The national conversation about government fraud has focused heavily on what has gone wrong in states like California and Minnesota. That is appropriate — the scale of the failure demands scrutiny. But conservatives should also be telling the other side of the story: what goes right when government is properly structured, properly overseen, and properly accountable.

There is a model. It works. And the Trump administration’s DOGE initiative is bringing it to the federal level.

What the DOGE Approach Has Achieved Federally

Since taking office, the Trump administration has reduced federal civilian employment to its lowest level since 1966. DOGE has targeted waste, fraud, and duplication across federal agencies, recovering billions and eliminating programs that had no measurable outcomes.

The results are real: the federal deficit for fiscal year 2025 was lower than projected, driven in part by the aggressive spending controls the administration implemented. Strong individual tax revenue and reduced agency spending have created at least the beginning of a more sustainable fiscal path — even as the national debt remains a long-term challenge.

The administration’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, led by Vice President Vance, is now applying the same scrutiny to federal grant recipients and state Medicaid programs. The mechanism is straightforward: identify anomalous spending patterns, demand documentation, withhold funds until accountability is demonstrated, and prosecute where fraud is confirmed.

This is not radical. It is what government management is supposed to look like.

What Red States Do Differently

The contrast between how Republican-governed and Democrat-governed states manage public funds is striking when examined empirically.

Indiana has repeatedly been cited as a model for Medicaid management. The state implemented robust eligibility verification, regular audits, and an inspector general’s office with genuine enforcement authority. Its Medicaid improper payment rates are among the lowest in the nation.

Texas has deployed aggressive fraud prosecution through its Office of Inspector General, recovering over $900 million in Medicaid fraud recoveries in recent years. The state uses data analytics to identify suspicious billing patterns before payments are made — prevention rather than post-mortem.

Florida requires regular eligibility redeterminations for benefit programs and has implemented identity verification systems that have significantly reduced improper payments. Governor DeSantis has made government accountability a structural priority, not a political talking point.

The common thread: these states have competitive political environments, divided government at times, and structural incentives to catch fraud because their leaders know that failure has electoral consequences.

Why Competition Matters

This is the deeper conservative insight: accountability in government, like accountability in markets, requires competition and consequences.

A company that commits fraud faces lawsuits, regulatory action, and market punishment from consumers who take their business elsewhere. A government that commits fraud in a one-party state faces — nothing. There is no competition. There is no consumer choice. There is no opposition party with the power to force reform.

This is why conservatives believe in federalism, in divided government, in strong oversight institutions, and in electoral accountability. Not because they are cynical about public servants, but because they understand that institutions without accountability mechanisms inevitably drift toward abuse.

California’s 16 years of uninterrupted Democratic supermajority government did not produce fraud because Democrats are uniquely corrupt. It produced fraud because any government — of any party — without genuine accountability will trend toward waste and abuse over time. That is not a partisan claim. It is human nature.

The Path Forward

CAL DOGE — the California accountability initiative launched by gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and controller candidate Herb Morgan — is attempting to bring the federal DOGE model to the state level. They are right to try. The same principles apply: identify waste, expose fraud, demand transparency, put every public transaction on a searchable public record.

The federal government’s current pressure on California, Minnesota, and other states is not punitive. It is corrective — the kind of external accountability that should have been applied years ago, and that the states’ own political leadership failed to provide.

Government fraud is not inevitable. It is the predictable result of systems designed without adequate checks. Build better systems — with real oversight, real competition, and real consequences — and you get better outcomes.

That is the conservative case for government accountability. It is not about hating government. It is about making government work.