Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, told Newsmax on Tuesday that it's time to turn the tables on COVID-era fraudsters by paying whistleblowers to help track down billions in missing federal funds.
Williams said on "National Report" that he is sponsoring the "Put America on Commission Act of 2026," legislation aimed at incentivizing whistleblowers to provide information that helps track down billions of dollars.
The bill would encourage individuals to identify misuse of Small Business Administration pandemic relief programs, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, by offering financial rewards for information that leads to recovered taxpayer funds.
"We put this bill together to actually bring whistleblowers in," Williams said. "If they can show us where the fraud has gone, where the money is, they would get a commission to do that. It's pretty simple.
"America itself is on commission. Why shouldn't we put the fraudsters on notice that we're going to pay commission to find out where the money is?"
According to Williams, the scale of missing funds is staggering.
He pointed to more than $220 billion in PPP money that remains unaccounted for, along with $78 billion in EIDL funding. Williams said the Biden administration was prepared to quietly move on from the losses.
"They wanted to just push this under the rug and actually write it off," he said. "When I became chairman of the [House Small Business] committee, I said, 'We're not going to write it off. That's the people's money. We need to find it.'"
He added: "People know where it is. We know money went to foreign nationals. It's just all over the place."
Under the proposed legislation, whistleblowers who help locate stolen or misspent funds would be compensated for their efforts, similar to a commission-based recovery model used in the private sector.
Williams said he has worked closely with SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler on the issue.
"The money belongs to the taxpayers," Williams said. "We don't write this kind of money off just to adhere to the fraudsters."
Williams also floated the idea of treating uncollected EIDL funds like business receivables — potentially selling them at a discount to private institutions to recover at least part of the money.
"You take the $78 billion that's missing out of EIDL funding — that's a receivable due from the government to Americans," he said. "Why shouldn't we put that out to the private sector? At least get that much money in the bank for Main Street America."
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