TWITTER_ARTICLE

The author alleges Deloitte has received about $30 billion in federal contracts…

2026-01-19 · 21:44 UTC ·beaverd ·5 min read

Brief

Beaverd's January 2026 Twitter article is an investigative critique of Deloitte's role in U.S. government IT contracting, especially for benefits and case-management systems. Drawing on a self-described 600 million-row database plus invoices, audits, lawsuits, and contract records, the author claims Deloitte collected roughly $40 billion in federal and state contracts over two decades while contributing to much larger downstream losses through failed implementations, fraud exposure, and canceled projects. The article's strongest examples are California's unemployment system, which the author says paid out more than $31 billion in fraudulent claims during COVID; Tennessee's 2023 Medicaid eligibility failures that allegedly removed 250,000 children from coverage; and California's CCMS court platform, which rose from a $260 million budget to $1.9 billion before cancellation. The piece frames the pattern as systemic rather than illegal corruption, emphasizing lobbying spend, campaign contributions, and a revolving door between Deloitte and government agencies as the mechanisms that keep contracts flowing despite repeated failures.

Why it matters

The author alleges Deloitte has received about $30 billion in federal contracts and at least $10 billion from states over the past two decades, then estimates an additional $34 billion in direct losses from failed systems, fraud, and overruns for a claimed total of $74 billion in taxpayer waste.

Key details

  • The piece cites several state failures tied to Deloitte-built systems: California's unemployment insurance platform allegedly enabled more than $31 billion in fraudulent COVID-era claims, Tennessee's 2023 Medicaid redetermination system wrongly cut off over 250,000 children, and California's CCMS court software grew from a $260 million budget in 2004 to $1.9 billion by 2012 before being canceled after 102 change orders.
  • According to the author, Deloitte has had significant system failures in all 25 states where it provided these government IT services, including Medicaid enrollment, unemployment insurance, child welfare case management, and food assistance eligibility systems.
  • The article argues Deloitte's continued contract wins are sustained less by direct bribery than by lobbying and a revolving door: Deloitte reportedly spends about $1.35 million per year on federal lobbying, its PAC gave $3.6 million in the last election cycle split across both parties, and former officials such as Seema Verma, Mary Mayhew, Jennifer Ungru, and Tom McCullion are presented as examples of overlapping public-sector and Deloitte-linked roles.
  • The underlying research is based on the author's review of federal and state contracts, audits, lawsuits, invoices, and a 600-million-row somaliscan database, with downloadable state-by-state datasets and timelines published at somaliscan.com/investigations/deloitte.
Source evidence

title: @beaverd: Consulting fees...
author: beaverd
contenttype: twitterarticle
published: 2026-01-19T21:44:33+00:00
source_url: https://x.com/beaverd/status/2013366996180574446

word_count: 1032

Consulting fees

Consulting fees

You were never meant to hear the name "Deloitte" and you were never meant to know that the government has wasted $74 billion by working with them. Quietly, Deloitte is one of the largest contractors "building" American government IT systems. Medicaid enrollment, unemployment insurance, child welfare case management, food assistance eligibility. When you interact with a state benefits system, theres a decent chance Deloitte built it.

In building the 600m row (and growing) database for somaliscan, I sorted through literally millions of invoices, and once name continued to appear; Deloitte. California's unemployment fraud disaster that cost the state $32 billion? Built by Deloitte. Tennessee kicking 250,000 children off Medicaid? Built by Deloitte. The billion dollar software project in California that got cancelled after spending the budget? Ding ding ding, DELOITTE.

I decided to dig into federal contracts, state contracts, documented failures, lawsuits, audits, etc. I found a huge $40 billion tax payer farm.

The numbers

Over the past two decades, Deloitte has received roughly $30 billion in federal contracts and at least $10 billion more from states. This massive number wouldn't be an issue if Deloitte wasn't doing an irredeemably terrible job at providing the government with services. In every single state they've provided service (25) they had significant system failures. Wrongful benefit denials affecting hundreds of thousands, fraud vulnerabilities that cost the taxpayer BILLIONS, projects that ran 5x over budget before getting cancelled.

AND THEY KEEP GETTING HIRED BY THE GOVERNMENT.

California: Deloitte built the EDD system that processed unemployment claims. When COVID hit, the system couldn't handle the volume and also had no built in fraud detection. The state paid out over $31 billion in fraudulent claims. Auditors warned about the vulnerabilities for years, nothing was done. And after COVID, California RE-HIRED DELOITTE to FIX THE PROBLEMS.

Tennessee: After COVID in 2023, states had to re-check whether everyone on Medicaid was still eligible. TN's system, built by Deloitte, malfunctioned to a failure point and over 250,000 children lost coverage because the system processed them incorrectly.

CCMS (CA courts): In 2004, California hired Deloitte to build a unified court case management system. Budget was $260 million. By 2012, they'd spent $1.9 BILLION AND PROCESSED 102 CHANGE ORDERS. The state killed the project.

And the stories just keep adding up, across every single state contract Deloitte took, there are one or more catastrophic failures.

The Usual Suspects

I expected to find more obvious corruption when I started this. Bags of cash, quid pro quos, expose after expose. What I found is probably worse.

Deloitte spends about $1.35 million/year on federal lobbying. Their PAC gave $3.6m in the last election cycle, split evenly between parties. Theres a few million more in state-level contributions. These aren't huge numbers by DC standards, not enough to buy outcomes directly. Its honestly conservative in terms of spending.

The issue is the revolving door of government employees that move between Deloitte and the government agencies that award contracts. State health directors leave the government and join Deloitte, managers from Deloitte take up state IT departments. Hill staffers that worked on healthcare policy show up at Deloitte.

Forgive me as I dive into specific personnel to paint the picture:

Seema Verma ran a consulting company called SVC Inc. in Indiana. Gov Pence paid her $6.6 million to help design IN's medicaid expansion. When Trump/Pence won in 2016, Pence brought Verma to Washington as the CMS administrator controlling federal medicaid funds, CMS. CMS pays 90% of the cost when states build new Medicaid IT systems. Verma hired Mary Mayhew who lasted 3 months at CMS before becoming Florida's AHCA Sec. under Desantis. Mayhew oversay a $135 million Medicaid contract to Deloitte, the same company that built FL's unemployment system that was so broken it collapsed when covid hit. Deloitte got fined $8m for that, and was then rewarded a $135m contract. Mayhew left AHCA weeks after the contract was awarded to be the CEO of the Florida Hospital Association. The hospitals she would now lobby for are paid largely by...... MEDICAID. Seema Verma was also responsible for $200m in contracts going to Deloitte. Jennifer Ungru was AHCA's COS, left to run Desantis's healthcare transition team, then became... a lobbyist for Deloitte. Tom McCullion was DEO project manager who selected Deloitte for CONNECT (the reason for the $8m fine). He called the system poor and unstable. In 2019, AHCA hired McCullion as a $155/hour contractor to advise on medicaid contract bidding. He left and 5 months later, Deloitte won the $135m contract.

Theres a hundred stories just like those I covered, you get the point. To be clear, this is NOT illegal. Thats the problem. Deloitte is objectively terrible at doing whatever the government pays them way too much money to do. I cannot comprehend how you would spend $100 million building a medicaid management software or $1 billion on a court case management software that doesn't work, its inconceivable.

$74 billion comes from the $40 billion in contracts and my estimated $34 billion in direct losses, not including administrative costs, healthcare costs, fraud, IRS modernization, Texas energy fund failure, the real number of waste is probably significantly higher.

The rabbit hole goes much deeper than what I divulged in this article. Deloitte will fight very hard to maintain their government contracts and continue leeching off of the American taxpayer. I spent a long time trying to figure out why nothing changes, and the answer was almost depressing. Deloitte's systems are just baked into everything, a cancer metastasized into the bloodstream that feeds on tax dollars instead of glucose. I have a bit of evidence that might suggest payoffs, quidproquo, etc, but the truth is more difficult. Nobody in the government wants to fix it because the tax dollars keep flowing in.

The data

I've put everything I collected on https://www.somaliscan.com/investigations/deloitte - State by state breakdowns, federal contracts by agency and year, timeline of failures, political contributions, revolving door, etc etc all on the web.

CSV's all available for download, all data is exportable. I dont know how to fix this but I know more people need to pay attention because nobody is and the contracts keep getting signed.

Posted: 2026-01-19T21:44:33.000Z

Engagement: 38062 likes, 9347 retweets, 2454 replies