In addition to providing pensions to disabled Civil War veterans (regardless of the cause of their disability), the Act depleted some of the troublesome federal budget surplus. Pension expenditures reached $135 million under Harrison (equivalent to $4.1 billion in 2021), the largest expenditure of its kind to that point in American history, a problem exacerbated by Pension Bureau commissioner James R. Tanner's expansive interpretation of the pension laws.[120] An investigation into the Pension Bureau by Harrison's Secretary of Interior John Willock Noble found evidence of lavish and illegal handouts under Tanner.[121] Harrison, who privately believed that appointing Tanner had been a mistake, due to his apparent loose management style and tongue, asked Tanner to resign and replaced him with Green B. Raum.[122] Raum was also accused of accepting loan payments in return for expediting pension cases. Harrison, having accepted a dissenting congressional Republican investigation report that exonerated Raum, kept him in office for the rest of his administration.[123]
One of the first appointments Harrison was forced to reverse was that of James S. Clarkson as an assistant postmaster. 