HINSON: Can you define for the committee today what an improper payment is, and some examples of what you're seeing — and why these procedures were not already in place before, Mr. Secretary?

BESSENT: Well...it's a bit mystifying why they weren't in place. And what we are seeing is that there was a very complacent upper level of management in many departments...across the entire government. What I can say at Treasury is that of the 1.5 billion payments...we send out every year, they are required to have something called a TAS — the Treasury Account Symbol. We discovered that more than one-third — one-third — of those payments did not have a TAS number. So, as the Appropriations Committee, you should be shocked by that because: How can a payment be tracked back to an appropriation? Only through the TAS number. So there was no accountability. So that is why the 450 organizations that sit above Treasury, where Treasury acts as the paymaster, are unable to pass an audit. So, we have cracked down on that. Every payment now requires a TAS number — very simple.