Congress, by right, raises federal revenue and appropriates the dollars for spending. The executive branch, by overreach, inertia, and congressional inaction, has been taking over this role by creating slush funds that sit outside of congressional control.
It’s time to end this.
The Senate ought to quickly consider and pass a bill introduced by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to ensure that Congress, not bureaucrats, decide how public fines and fees are spent by the federal government.
Almost identical to a bill of the same name introduced in the House by Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., the Agency Accountability Act would direct that, with exceptions for the Postal Service and a few others, “an agency that receives a fee, fine, penalty, or proceeds from a settlement shall deposit such amount in the general fund of the Treasury,” rather than spending those proceeds on administrators’ own authority.
This is important. The Constitution wisely gives the power of the purse to Congress. As the delegates directly elected to represent the people’s will, members of Congress must answer every two years (or six, for senators) to the people for how it spends monies taken from the people. For years, though, Congress has allowed most agencies to just keep fines and fees they assess, or payments from legal settlements, as long as the agencies assert the money is being used in furtherance of their missions.
With a government as large as ours, though, oversight of that spending can be lax indeed. Sometimes, even midlevel managers with civil service job protections determine how to use the funds. They certainly don’t answer to the public at large for their job status; they answer to superiors who answer to further superiors who are bound by federal union contracts.
At issue isn’t mere chump change. The number of internal agency “accounts” allowing these collections to be respent internally rose from 294 in 1994 to 538 in 2015. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the amount of money at issue grew from $186 billion to $421 billion.
Nobody suggests that anywhere near the whole $421 billion is spent improperly. There aren’t a lot of dramatic stories of abuses such as bureaucrats taking money from some office jar for use in a Hawaiian vacation. On the other hand, when accountability lacks, so does carefulness. By reclaiming more direct authority over the $421 billion each year, Congress may be able to force at least a little belt-tightening around administrative bloat.
“By forcing government agencies to get approval from Congress before spending government money,” Lee said, “the Agency Accountability Act is an essential element of any effort to rein in executive branch overreach.”
While Congress is at it, it also should look into other forms for what Palmer calls “backdoor spending,” which also include the contracting authority enjoyed by five departments whereby they can obligate funds without advance congressional approval.
The overall task of reining in federal deficits and debts is gargantuan. That’s all the more reason to start the job somewhere. It makes sense to start on a matter where the Constitution’s intent is clear: Congress, not a hired civil servant, should decide where the public’s money goes.
