Rep. Ron Estes
To provide congressional lawmakers with precise information on federal spending, U.S. Rep. Ron Estes (R-KS) this week sponsored legislation that would include certain executive and judicial actions in the baseline calculation of spending made by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
“In just the last three and a half years alone, the Biden-Harris administration has issued more than 130 executive actions that have cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion – not to mention additional judicial and administration actions in that time – demonstrating just how costly non-legislative actions can be,” Rep. Estes said on Monday.
If enacted, the Executive Action Cost Transparency Act, H.R. 9751, would mandate that the CBO provide a comprehensive and centralized list of final administrative actions in order to increase transparency and streamline information flow, according to a bill summary provided by Rep. Estes’ staff. This list would include proposed rules, final rules, executive orders, memorandum, and judicial actions issued since the last baseline.
H.R. 9751 also would require the CBO to provide updated estimates for scores that meet a threshold of $50 billion over 10 years, the summary says.
“Our nation is now more than $35 trillion in debt, and we need to do everything we can to change course on this growing crisis,” said Rep. Estes. “Improving the information that CBO provides to Congress and the public is one crucial step that will help ensure we know the true cost of D.C. spending.”
H.R. 9751 is part of a package of six CBO reform bills being marked up this week by the U.S. House Budget Committee.