Warner, Paul applaud House action on cost-cutters legislation

U.S. Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) applauded the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for passing U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann’s (R-TN) H.R. 2532, the Bonuses for Cost-Cutters Act. The legislation mirrors S. 1378, which Sens. Warner and Paul introduced in May 2015 and passed the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by a bipartisan vote of 12-5 in May 2016.

The legislation would empower federal workers and allow federal agencies to give bonuses of up to $10,000 to federal employees who save taxpayer money by finding and reporting unnecessary federal spending.

“Congress’ appropriations process can sometimes nonsensically encourage federal agencies to spend down the money they have been allocated as the end of the fiscal year approaches, regardless of whether the spending is needed or even wise. We need to discourage this ‘use it or lose it’ mentality, and instead incentivize federal agencies to be better stewards of taxpayers’ dollars by spending thoughtfully or returning unused funds to the Treasury at the end of the year,” said Sen. Warner. “I applaud the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for following its Senate counterpart to approve this money-saving legislation, and hope we can move soon to pass this commonsense approach to government efficiency and federal spending into law.”

“I thank Rep. Fleischmann for his leadership in advancing this important legislation in the House, as well as the committee for moving it to the floor,” said Sen. Paul. “Today’s victory is especially timely, with the end of the government’s fiscal year just around the corner. While ‘use it or lose it’ spenders have splurged with taxpayer funds to beat the clock in the past, the full House and Senate can now take a major step toward incentivizing saving and ending business as usual by passing this reform.”

The bill expands an existing program that allows U.S. government inspectors general to reward federal employees with a bonus for finding and reporting wasteful or fraudulent spending. Under the Warner-Paul proposal, that program would be expanded to include spending “unneeded or surplus” end-of-year funds.

Spending at federal agencies in the last week of the fiscal year is 4.9 times higher than the weekly average the rest of the year but research shows that the quality of spending is lower than the rest of the year. Under the Bonuses for Cost-Cutters Act, federal employees on the front lines of government spending will have a personal incentive to save taxpayer money and counter the current end-of-year rush to exhaust all funds.