Washington has a spending problem, and the American people are stuck with the bill.
While families across the country sit around kitchen tables balancing their budgets, cutting costs, and making tough financial decisions, the federal government continues to operate with far too little accountability when projects fail. Costs spiral into the billions. Deadlines slip by years. And too often, taxpayers are left footing the bill without knowing what went wrong.
That is unacceptable.
Our national debt has now soared past $40 trillion. Since 2003, federal agencies have racked up nearly $2.7 trillion in improper payments.
These numbers represent hard-earned taxpayer dollars that deserve the same care and responsibility American families expect when managing their own finances.
Consider just a few examples.
California’s high-speed rail project was originally estimated at $33 billion. Today, that cost has since increased by nearly $231 billion, one of the most expensive rail projects in our nation’s history. After years of delays and billions in spending, a single track hasn’t been laid.
A roughly six-mile extension to the San Francisco subway has ballooned to nearly $13 billion, which is more than the entire annual budget for the state of Iowa.
In Honolulu, the rail project was originally estimated to cost far less than what taxpayers are now facing. The current estimated cost of the remaining project is roughly $10.1 billion, with the project having faced years of delays and significant cost increases.
These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a system that too often allows massive cost overruns and yearslong delays to continue without enough transparency or accountability.
That is why we introduced the Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act.
Our bipartisan legislation is simple and rooted in common sense: If a federal project goes more than $1 billion over budget or falls more than five years behind schedule, the American people deserve to know.
Those projects should not be hidden in bureaucratic reports or buried beneath layers of red tape. They should be publicly identified so Congress and taxpayers can see where their money is going and demand answers.
Because in Washington, sunlight is accountability.
The House and Senate have both passed the Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act, and the legislation is now headed to President Donald Trump’s desk.
Signing this legislation into law will make it much harder for Washington to hide the most egregious failures from the people paying the bills.
Taxpayers should not have to discover years later that a project is billions over budget or decades behind schedule.
If a project is failing, the public deserves to know.
If a project is wasting money, Congress deserves to know.
And if a project is going off the rails, those responsible should be held accountable.
The American people do not expect perfection from their government. They expect responsibility.
They expect that when billions of dollars are spent, there is a plan. They expect deadlines to be taken seriously. And they expect Washington to treat their hard-earned money with the same care they use to manage their own.
When costs increase for families, as they have over the past five years, tough decisions must be made to live within a budget. When costs increase for government projects, Washington just taxes or borrows more.
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The Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act is an important step toward restoring that accountability. It is time to end the era of blank checks and backroom excuses.
It is time to bring transparency to Washington and put a stop to billion-dollar boondoggles.
Joni Ernst is a U.S. senator representing the people of Iowa. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks represents Iowa’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.