Q: What’s your take on the budgeting process in Washington?

A: It’s broken. As a taxpayer watchdog and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, I continuously look for ways to protect taxpayer dollars and ensure the government is working effectively for the American people. As Congress approaches the end of the fiscal year, lawmakers are chewing over annual spending bills that fund government operations - including federal agencies, the military, and the judiciary – and a number of federal programs. This funding is referred to as discretionary spending because it must be approved by Congress each year. That pot of money accounts for less than one-third of the federal pie. Roughly 10 percent is eaten up by net interest to service the national debt and the rest is mandatory as it is spent without congressional action pursuant to previously enacted laws. Mandatory spending consists of some of the largest government programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment. All told, the annual federal budget has grown to over $6 trillion, up nearly $2 trillion since 2019.

As I’ve said many times and most recently on the Senate floor, the federal budgeting process is broken. Indeed, Congress has failed to pass the 12 appropriations bills on time or stay within budget for decades. For the past two years, Congress has failed to complete action on a single individual appropriations bill. This lack of fiscal discipline is wrong and puts the American taxpayer on the hook for reckless budgeting decisions that bundle trillions of dollars together into one massive, must-pass spending bill that shields wasteful spending from proper scrutiny. The annual spending cliffhangers bring unnecessary uncertainty to the economy and impacts services for the American people. At my county meetings, Iowans share their frustrations about the lack of accountability and the lack of fiscal discipline that’s racked up an unprecedented $33 trillion national debt. I’m not giving up my fight for fiscal responsibility and government accountability on behalf of hardworking Iowans who have to stick to a budget to pay their taxes, pay their bills and make ends meet.

Q: What are some of your most recent efforts to hold the line on government spending?

A: In my work to get the most bang for the buck on behalf of taxpayers, I leave no stone unturned to root out mismanagement and wasteful spending from the federal bureaucracy. Transparency brings accountability. The taxpaying public deserves to know where its hard-earned money is going. Sunshine laws like the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) help expose government waste, fraud and abuse that might otherwise go untraced. In 2019, Congress enacted reforms to create a better process for the federal government to proactively release data in formats that enable the public to comb through information. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was tasked with implementing the OPEN Government Data Act and reporting on compliance by federal agencies. OMB has yet to do so. Implementing the law can help transform how agencies’ data is reported and used to foster a more efficient government that better manages taxpayer dollars. I recently wrote the Biden administration’s head of OMB asking for an accounting for the four-year delay and to report on its progress towards implementing the transparency law.

I’m also riding herd on the General Services Administration (GSA), the federal agency that manages government buildings, including more than 9,000 properties in all 50 states, five U.S. territories and Washington, D.C.  It manages federal agency leases that total $5 billion in annual rental costs. Although the public health emergency ended on May 11, 2023, an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 17 of the 24 federal agencies that occupy 98 percent of all federal real estate property only used an estimated one-fourth or less of their headquarters building capacity during a three-month period in 2023. Earlier this year, I joined with Sen. Roger Wicker to drill down on this wasteful use of public resources. What’s more, we want to know why federal employees continue to work from home, as millions of Americans have returned to the office, or never had the benefit of working from home in the first place. We called upon the Biden administration to return the federal workforce to its taxpayer-funded offices or to get rid of unused office space that lies vacant. In a follow-up letter, we’re asking the GSA to come clean with a list of each GSA-managed federal building and disclose how many federal employees show up for work, as well as the annual rental, operation and maintenance costs for each of the past five years for the 24 federal agency headquarters examined in the July 2023 GAO report. Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill to pay for heating and air conditioning, replace lightbulbs, and shell out rent for empty office buildings. As a taxpayer watchdog, I work to hold a tight-fisted grip on the purse strings in Congress through my legislative and oversight work. With Uncle Sam’s spending appetite, every red cent counts.