Washington has had the anti-fraud blueprint since 1983: Tie it to emergency aid

On April 29, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced nine anti-fraud bills, most with bipartisan support. Two of them get close to the structural reform federal emergency programs have needed for decades. Neither gets all the way there. 

I worked on the Paycheck Protection Program at the Small Business Administration as a loan specialist. By the time problematic loans came into focus, the money was already out the door. The government’s task was forgiveness review and integrity work on loans that had already been disbursed. I spent years on that reconstruction. 

After my first article on emergency loan reform was published, I was asked if I had ever heard of the “Green Book.” I had not. When I looked it up, I found that the reforms I had identified from working in the program aligned with an internal control framework I did not know existed.

It turns out that my work had taught me to pursue what the framework already formally requires.

The Government Accountability Office first issued its Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government in 1983, commonly known as the “Green Book.” The framework is built........

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