Our growing government needs better oversight 

In just three years President Biden’s administration has pushed America’s fiscal standing from bad to worse through partisan bills and executive actions. 

Due to White House policies, supported by Democrats in Congress, we are now looking at record debt, deficits and interest payments.

President Biden has driven us to the budgetary brink. And while the fiscal state of our union is dire, it is not unfixable. But we need to get to work.

As chairman of the House Budget Committee’s Oversight Task Force, I am determined to bring transparency to the American people and begin to reverse the curse of our massive spending problem.

It starts with better oversight.

One of the first places to look are some of the costly legislative measures crafted by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Biden. Better oversight will ask: Is this money being spent wisely?

When the $1.9 trillion partisan American Rescue Plan passed early in 2021, there was still over $1 trillion remaining in unspent COVID-19 funds that were previously passed on a bipartisan basis. 

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act increased spending over the ten-year budget window by $1.1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) baseline released after the bill was enacted. How is all this money being spent?

The Inflation Reduction Act supercharged the Internal Revenue Service by $80 billion and expanded Green New Deal policies at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by billions of dollars. The legislation contributed to the EPA’s ten-year outlays growing by 163.9 percent since President Biden took office, according to the non-partisan CBO. 

Simply put, in just a few years, legislation signed by President Biden has increased spending by $6 trillion with little oversight, accountability, or transparency. 

Executive actions also should not be overlooked. 

For instance, in August 2021, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) unilaterally increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by 23 percent, costing up to $300 billion over ten years, according to CBO. The Government Accountability Office reported that by doing so, USDA lacked any clear peer-review process and violated the Congressional Review Act. 

Just to put this in more perspective, CBO’s February 2021 baseline projected ten-year spending for SNAP at $766 billion; the most recent CBO baseline from May 2023 projects SNAP will spend over $1.2 trillion over the next decade. 

These initiatives have undeniable consequences and major fiscal implications. 

Since President Biden took office, government-wide projected ten-year outlays have increased from $61.2 trillion to over $80 trillion or by 30.8 percent, marking a 10 percent jump in outlays as a percentage of GDP. 

Debt has increased by $6 trillion or 21.6 percent since January 2021 and projected ten-year deficits are up by $8 trillion or 65.6 percent. 2023’s deficit was initially projected to be $963 billion when President Biden took office. After the enactment of his policies this figure ended up at $2 trillion after adjusting for the student loan executive action.

As a result of this massive run-up in debt and deficits, combined with the recent surge in interest rates, the cost to finance the debt has increased by $6 trillion, or by 131.9 percent over the next decade.

Some will argue that America has a revenue problem. This is an utterly false assumption. Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 has been on the books, the country’s revenues are up by almost 34 percent. Moreover, federal revenues are higher than what was initially projected before President Biden took office, according to CBO. 

It is very clear, America has a spending problem, and the current administration has only made this problem worse.

Washington must be more responsible with taxpayers’ hard-earned money. It begins with acknowledging the magnitude of our spending problem and providing the American people with the perspective and transparency they are entitled to. More aggressive oversight, like that which we plan to do at the House Budget Committee, is the first step to do just that.

Jack Bergman is the chairman of the House Republican Budget Committee Task Force on Oversight.  

The Task Force has published a formal Request for Information in addition to a whistleblower portal to encourage federal employees and U.S. citizens to bring forth any budgetary malfeasance.