As the federal government’s wasteful spending continues to run rampant, one group is hoping to curb the federal government’s spending and protect taxpayers’ money.
Bankrupting America — part of the fiscal watchdog group Public Notice — launched a campaign Wednesday called “Stop Spend It or Lose It” in an effort to encourage government agencies to stop wasting taxpayers’ money as the end of the fiscal year comes to a close. Often times, agencies will rush to spend their remaining funds for fear that less money will be appropriated the following fiscal year.
This practice, though, leads to increasing government waste and a misuse of taxpayer dollars, said Gretchen Hamel, executive director of Bankrupting America.
“It shows no respect to the taxpayers, the responsibility the government has to those taxpayers or those dollars they take,” Hamel told Red Alert Politics.
Instead, Hamel is encouraging lawmakers and agency heads to curb this wasteful practice and focus on transparency, accountability and increased oversight. And as the fourth quarter of each fiscal year nears on Sept. 30, she hopes lawmakers will advocate for a roll-over of funds as opposed to unused money being spent on unnecessary things.
“We’re asking for increased oversight and transparency,” Hamel said. “But we’re asking for that rollover so that these agencies don’t feel like they have to burn through all their funds in the last few weeks. It really is a mentality shift in Washington that would have to occur.”
Recent examples of the “Spend It or Lose It” practice, Hamel said, are revelations about the IRS’ spending on lavish conferences and a Defense Department agency memo urging colleagues to spend “100 percent of our available resources this fiscal year,” The Washington Post reported.
Taxpayers feel the pain from this practice as the national debt continues to rise — to more than $16 trillion — and the economy continues to weaken, with the future of tax rates remaining uncertain.
“These consequences are not so immediate,” Hamel said. “…the American dream is becoming less and less affordable to people.”
Bankrupting America’s campaign, in addition to urging elected officials in Congress to abandon this practice, includes a petition that has already garnered more than 1,000 signatures. In the future, the group plans to unveil a social media campaign, with supporters of the pledge given the ability to tweet at their congressmen, encouraging them to abandon the “spend it or lose it” mentality.
Hamel is optimistic there will be bipartisan support for the initiative, but said a rollover of funds hasn’t been proposed in the past because it “doesn’t match the incentives of a government that continues to grow and spend money,” she said.
“Their budgets are going to be smaller so the incentives aren’t there to spend money and spend wisely,” she said. “The incentive is to grow the budget.”
However, one Democratic congresswoman seems to be on board with eliminating the “spend it or lose it” practice.
“The IRS is just one example of what’s going on in every agency in the country in the federal government when they’ve got money at the end of a fiscal year and they don’t want to lose it, so you use it,” Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said, according to Bankrupting America’s website.
