Growing up, my dad always reached for the pliers in his pocket. It seemed he could fix anything on the farm that needed fixing with this indispensable tool. Workers in every profession reach for must-have tools of the trade to help get the job done.
When I’m working at home on our family farm, I keep the pliers handy, too. As Iowa’s senior U.S. Senator, I champion an indispensable legal tool in Washington that protects taxpayers, discourages wrongdoers and keeps the federal government accountable.
In 1986, I re-tooled a Civil War-era fraud-fighting tool originally signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. My whistleblower amendments to the False Claims Act created incentives for private individuals to file suit against those who defraud the federal government. By empowering ordinary Americans to act as the eyes and ears within the vast federal bureaucracy, I whet the whistle for law-abiding citizens to blow the whistle on wrongdoers.
My bipartisan legislative improvements to the False Claims Act helped turn the 19th century law into the taxpayer’s best friend in the 21st century.
Just consider in the last 20 years, the updated False Claims Act has recovered $20 billion tax dollars. And it is widely agreed the law helps deter untold billions more from being lost to waste, fraud and abuse.
So how does it work? A private citizen, called a relator, files suit on the government’s behalf against those who fraudulently claimed federal funds. If successful in court, they keep up to 25 percent and the rest of the recovery goes back to the government.
Don’t forget. Whistleblowers come forward with considerable risk. Despite my ongoing efforts and past legislative victories to protect whistleblowers, coming forward with information may be a career-limiting move that jeopardizes one’s livelihood and personal and professional relationships. Essentially, whistleblowers are about as welcome as a skunk at the company picnic.
Fleecing Uncle Sam is, unfortunately, a long-running problem in which sophisticated schemers and unconscionable wrongdoers seek to skim tax dollars out of federal health, defense, agriculture and veterans programs, including loans, grants and subsidies.
In March I testified at a congressional hearing examining efforts to expose waste, fraud and abuse during the Iraq reconstruction. Taxpayers want their hard-earned money spent to equip U.S. troops, not squandered by corrupt contractors. The same goes for Iraqi dollars administered by the U.S. government to finance the reconstruction effort. I find war profiteering as unconscionable as Honest Abe did 144 years ago. In my testimony, I identified recent action by the federal judiciary that undermines the scope of the False Claims Act. Basically, decisions handed down by the federal courts hamper the ability of the government and well-intentioned whistleblowers to recover tax dollars lost to fraud. Closing loopholes resulting from these court decisions will help recover even more money from being lost to waste, fraud and abuse.
That’s why I’m advancing a legislative remedy to prevent the courts from weakening the False Claims Act. My bipartisan bill would remove a requirement that false claims be presented to a government employee; correct legal shortcomings that restrict the ability of whistleblowers from a share of a recovery; and, protect third-party funds administered by the U.S. government by making them actionable under the False Claims Act.
By keeping the government’s #1 anti-fraud tool supple and sharp, the False Claims Act will continue to catch those who betray the public trust. Wrongdoers beware. I’m not about to loosen my pliers-tight grip of my Constitutional oversight duties. What’s more, I’ll continue to whet the whistles for law-abiding citizens to better enable them to holler foul play when they see it.