Creating a Catalogue of All Federal Programs and How They Spend Your Tax Dollars (H.R. 598)

What is H.R. 598?

(Updated June 13, 2019)

This bill would require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to publish a list of federal programs on its website every year. The lists would include whether each of those programs has an application process, awards funding on a competitive basis, and which activities are identified in budget requests.

For each federal program on the list, the OMB must list:

• The law that authorizes the program and its regulations;

• An estimate of the number of people served by the program through grants or other financial assistance;

• The number of full-time employees who administer the program;

• Links to evaluations, assessments, and/or program performance reviews by the agency, an Inspector General, or the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from the last five years;

• All financial information that must be reported under federal transparency laws.

The OMB would have to post the total number of un-disbursed grant funding in grant accounts that have expired, and prescribe other regulations needed to implement this Act.

Argument in favor

Taxpayers deserve to know how federal agencies spend their money. These reports would give the public more insight into how federal programs are run

Argument opposed

Increasing federal agency reporting requirements will burden them with more work and take resources away from administering the programs they report on.

Impact

The general public, federal program administrators, federal agencies, their employees, the people they serve, and the OMB.

Cost of H.R. 598

The CBO estimates that this bill would cost $82 million over the 2016-2020 period.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sponsoring Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) introduced this bill to give taxpayers a more insight into how the federal government spends their money — and increase accountability for federal agencies:

"The American people deserve to know how their hard-earned tax dollars are spent, and the federal government should be accountable for its spending. It's no secret the federal government is cluttered with wasteful and duplicative programs, and this bipartisan bill will help identify the outdated programs that should be streamlined or eliminated to save taxpayer money."

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee passed this bill by voice vote, and the legislation currently has 10 cosponsors including two Democrats and eight Republicans. A previous version of this legislation passed the House in February 2014, but did not receive a vote in the Senate.

Media:

• Sponsoring Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) Press Release
• CBO Cost Estimate
• Daily Caller
• Government Executive
• The Hill