Speaking to Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham in a stunning interview regarding the sort of monumental waste, fraud, and abuse that the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is finding, DOGE Deputy Sam Corcos exposed how contractors are seemingly pilfering billions of dollars from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
That interview occurred on Ingraham’s show on FNC, “The Ingraham Angle,” on Thursday, March 20. During it, Mr. Corcos, who now serves as a special adviser to the U.S. Treasury Department as part of DOGE’s war on waste and fraud, explained how a massive number of contractors and similar special interests are siphoning off the $3.5 billion annual IRS budget.
Mr. Corcos’s comments on the matter came as he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried explaining to the FNC host how deeply entrenched around the agency and its budget those special interests and contractors are, with Bessant agreeing and saying that they are “like boa constrictors” in terms of how tightly they are wrapped around the IRS and its massive budget.
Explaining as much, Corcos told Ingraham that he investigated the IRS as part of DOGE’s efforts to root out waste, and found that the tax agency’s attempts to modernize have been stymied by waste that has put the program three decades behind schedule and $15 billion over budget. He said, “I have been brought in to look at the IRS’ modernization program, in particular, as well as the operations and maintenance budget. I really care a lot about this country, and this is a huge program that is currently 30 years behind schedule and it’s already $15 billion over budget.”
Building on that, Mr. Corcos explained that the program is likely more than three decades behind schedule, as the agency perpetually says its completion is just “five years away.” He explained, “We’re now 35 years into this program. If you ask them now, it’s five years away, and it’s been five years away since 1990. It was supposed to be delivered in 1996, and it’s still five years away.”
That’s when Mr. Bessent chimed in and attempted to explain the scope and scale of the special interest problem that is sucking the financial blood out of the agency. He said that “one of the biggest surprises for me is just seeing how these entrenched interests, they just keep constricting themselves around the power, around the money, around the systems, and nobody cares.”
Building on that, Mr. Bessent used the boa constrictor analogy to explain how tightly wrapped around the IRS and its budget they are. Doing so, he said, “Many of the employees are fantastic. It’s this consultant group. They’re like a boa constrictor. They’re like a python. They’ve constricted themselves around our government, and the costs are unbelievable. They’re being passed on to the American taxpayer.”
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Additionally, Bessent told Ingraham that the massive money-spending apparatus is the opposite of efficiency in government spending, saying, “The entrenched interests, the consultants, the Democrats, mainstream media, they just want to blow this project out of the water. This is the opposite of government efficiency, not elimination, not extinction. Sam and his crew are making it more efficient to work for the American people. So what’s wrong with it working better, cheaper, faster, and with more privacy?”
Watch Mr. Bessent and Corcos explain the problem here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video