Representative Kat Cammack's (R-FL) Unauthorized Spending Accountability (USA) Act has passed out of the House Oversight Committee, which she calls "commonsense."
The bill, which Rep. Cammack introduced shortly after taking office in the new Congressional session in January, puts all unauthorized programs on a pathway to sunset in 3 years and requires any new authorizations or reauthorizations to include a sunset clause, meaning funding must always end once a program is unauthorized.
Additionally, Congress is required to review these authorizations every 3 years, ensuring that programs that were supposed to end years ago do not continue receiving funding.
After all, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found in July that 1,264 authorizations were set to expire at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2025, yet 451 of those programs received $500 billion in continued funding.
"I'm grateful to Chairman Comer and my colleagues for advancing this critical bill," Rep. Cammack said in a statement. "For too long, Washington has allowed billions of taxpayer dollars to flow to programs that haven't been reviewed or reauthorized in years—sometimes decades."
Moreover, the Florida Congresswoman emphasized, "The USA Act restores accountability by forcing Congress to do its job: examine these programs every three years, determine whether they are effective, and ensure that federal funds are being used responsibly." "This is a commonsense, necessary step to rein in wasteful spending and return real oversight to the American people," she added.
House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) said, "It is not too much to ask that Congress provide the appropriate level of scrutiny over the federal programs it has established and find the time every three years to ensure that federal funds are being used responsibly and effectively."
"The timeframe under the USA Act forces that to happen. Ensuring that every federal program is properly authorized gives Congress the oversight and budgetary tools to increase government efficiency, improve the effectiveness of federal agency programs and missions, and help reduce government spending," Rep. Comer added.
