Congressman Lankford’s Office
Congressman James Lankford applauded today’s House passage of his bipartisan Taxpayers Right to Know Act (H.R. 1423). The bill seeks to provide the American people with a better understanding of how their tax dollars are spent. It passed the House in a voice vote and now awaits further action in the Senate.
“I’m grateful to my colleagues in the House for supporting this legislation and allowing it to proceed to the Senate for consideration,” said Lankford.
“The Taxpayers Right to Know Act continues our work on legislation that specifically focuses on fixing broken processes in Washington, identifying government waste and improving federal accountability. My bill requires the federal government to tell Americans where, when, why, how, and on what it spends our hard-earned tax dollars; American taxpayers deserve that. Wasteful federal programs hide in massive agency budgets, but this bill shines a light on the details, costs and performance metrics of every program. Congress cannot fix what it cannot see. If the duplication is hidden by the Administration in broad categories of spending, the Taxpayers Right to Know Act will make sure those details come to light.
“Duplicative administrative costs siphon away federal funds from the very people they are designed to serve. Taxpayers and federal accountability organizations need this legislation in place to ensure that the government is efficiently and productively using tax dollars on only the programs we must fund as a nation. The ability to track and evaluate program and agency costs will enable us to streamline duplicative, outdated and unnecessary programs while simultaneously improving services and outcomes.
“The passage of this bipartisan bill in the House shows the American people Congress can get serious about solutions to eliminating waste and duplication inherent in the federal government. I hope our colleagues in the Senate will take a cue from Dr. Coburn and join us in the fight to protect American taxpayers and actually do something about federal waste,” concluded Lankford.
“I applaud the House’s passage of the Taxpayers Right to Know Act,” said U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “This is precisely the kind of leadership the American people want to see from their elected representatives. Duplication across the federal government is a mother lode of potential savings. Each year, we waste at least $200 billion that would be much better spent by free people in free markets. Even worse, many agencies don’t even know how many programs they administer. I look forward to introducing a Senate companion to this bill in the near future and urge Senate Majority Leader Reid to not block consideration of this common sense measure,” concluded Dr. Coburn.
Under current federal law, the Office of Management and Budget is required to post an inventory of all federal programs on a centralized website. H.R. 1423 builds upon this requirement, and directs the OMB to post:
- total administrative cost for the program during the previous fiscal year;
- total expenditures for the previous fiscal year;
- number of beneficiaries served during the previous fiscal year;
- an estimate of the number of full-time federal and contract employees who administered the program;
- an identification of the specific statute that authorizes the program, including whether such authorization is expired;
- any finding of duplication or overlap identified by internal review, an Inspector General, the GAO, or other report; and
- program performance reviews.
Moreover, this legislation requires the Director of the OMB to publish the total amount of undisbursed grant funding remaining in grant accounts.
Finally, the GAO is directed to maintain and provide regular (not less than annually) updates on a publicly-available website that tracks the status of responses to recommendations by the Comptroller General for identifying duplicative programs. H.R. 1423 specifies that nothing in the Act shall be construed to require the disclosure of classified information.
To view GAO’s work on duplication, click here.
