Ernst Bipartisan Bills Exposing Boondoggles and Secret Spending Advance out of Committee Unanimously

WASHINGTON – A pair of U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) bills to expose billion dollar boondoggles and secret spending in Washington advanced unanimously out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

“Today is a great day for taxpayers and a horrific day for waste and shady bureaucrats,” said Ernst. “We are $37 trillion in debt and cannot afford to waste more than $160 billion or lose track of billions of dollars. We are now one step closer to protecting the American people from being forced to write blank checks to failed and runaway projects.”

Watch Senator Ernst’s full remarks here.

Ernst’s Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act requires that any taxpayer-funded project more than $1 billion over budget or more than five years behind schedule is made public and scrutinized. The advancement of the bill comes after she released a groundbreaking report showing that cost overruns from just 13 boondoggles are costing taxpayers $160 billion more than promised.

Her Stop Secret Spending Act will boost transparency in Washington by requiring all spending to be publicly disclosed. Currently, billions of dollars in spending is hidden from public disclosure by bureaucrats labeling it as an “Other Transactions Agreement,” including more than $18 billion last year.

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