Ernst: Bringing Light to Washington’s Secret Spending

Happy Sunshine Week, folks!

It’s the time of the year when we celebrate more sunshine in our lives…and in our government.

But while we may be getting a little more sunlight every day, Washington seems to be lost in the dark.

The government demands to know exactly how much money you earn, so it can tax every single cent. Once Washington gets its hands on your money, however, it’s anyone’s guess where it is even going.

For the past two decades, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act has required government expenditures to be publicly available on a searchable website, USAspending.gov, but tens of billions of dollars are intentionally being omitted every year.

Another law passed 15 years ago requires Washington to make an annual list of programs, describing the cost, purpose, and results of each one. Turns out, government agencies don’t know how many programs they are running or even if they are accomplishing their stated goals. More than 2,600 programs have been identified to date, but that number doesn’t include foreign aid and defense programs, which haven’t been tallied yet.

Folks, without transparency, there is no accountability.

That is why I’ve authored a number of laws to shine more light on Washington spending.

As a result, agencies from the Small Business Administration to the Pentagon must put public price tags on projects paid for with your tax dollars.

The public must also be provided with lists of infrastructure projects supported by the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Army Corps of Engineers that are behind schedule or over budget.

This information would allow taxpayers to decide for themselves if the price is right.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration allowed the bureaucracy, which exists to carry out acts of Congress, to ignore every single one of these laws.

Well, folks, I’m not about to stand by while unelected deep state bureaucrats steal our sunshine.

At my urging, Secretary Duffy released DOT’s first annual list of billion dollar boondoggles as required by my law. I now know why the list was being hidden. Five transportation projects on the list are over a decade behind schedule, and five are more than a billion dollars over budget!

The Trump administration already pulled the plug on the worst offender, California’s high-speed rail project. This gravy train is now projected to cost $100 billion more than the original price estimate. That’s not a rounding error, folks, that’s a financial train wreck! The $4 billion Washington was paying for this gravy train is nearly the same amount Iowa is budgeting for allhighways and bridges statewide over the next five years.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler quickly got her agency under compliance and now taxpayers’ financial contributions are being displayed on projects supported by her agency.

The Pentagon’s Inspector General recently notified me that his office will begin reviewing why research and development projects funded with defense dollars are not disclosing the costs to taxpayers as required by law.

Folks, we shouldn’t have to drag bureaucrats, kicking and screaming, into following these laws.

That’s why I am giving my March 2026 Squeal Award to the Biden bureaucrats who tried to keep taxpayers in the dark.

The good news is, Washington is finally starting to see the light.

This week, a committee in the House of Representatives passed my Billion Dollar Boondoggle bill, to disclose every government project that is a billion dollars over budget or behind schedule, and the Stop Secret Spending Act, to add tens of billions of dollars of contracts into USAspending.gov that are currently left out.

I am also introducing the Cost Openness and Spending Transparency (COST) Act to put a public price tag on all projects funded with your tax dollars by every government agency.

As I always say, if you can’t find waste in Washington, there can only be one reason: you didn’t look. And it will be impossible to miss with the COST Act shining a spotlight on it.

Joni Ernst, a native of Red Oak and a combat veteran, represents Iowa in the United States Senate.

Click here for an official portrait of Senator Ernst.

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