WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mark Warner (D-VA) applauded the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for passing U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann’s (R-TN) H.R. 2532, the Bonuses for Cost-Cutters Act.  

The legislation mirrors S. 1378, which Senators Paul and Warner introduced in May 2015 and passed the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by a bipartisan vote of 12-5 in May 2016. 

“I thank Rep. Fleischmann for his leadership in advancing this important legislation in the House, as well as the committee for moving it to the floor,” said Sen. Paul. “Today’s victory is especially timely, with the end of the government’s fiscal year just around the corner. While ‘use it or lose it’ spenders have splurged with taxpayer funds to beat the clock in the past, the full House and Senate can now take a major step toward incentivizing saving and ending business as usual by passing this reform.”

“Congress’ appropriations process can sometimes nonsensically encourage federal agencies to spend down the money they have been allocated as the end of the fiscal year approaches, regardless of whether the spending is needed or even wise. We need to discourage this ‘use it or lose it’ mentality, and instead incentivize federal agencies to be better stewards of taxpayers’ dollars by spending thoughtfully or returning unused funds to the Treasury at the end of the year,” said Sen. Warner. “I applaud the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for following its Senate counterpart to approve this money-saving legislation, and hope we can move soon to pass this commonsense approach to government efficiency and federal spending into law.”

Federal law allows an agency’s Inspector General to pay bonuses up to $10,000 of savings realized when a federal employee identifies waste, fraud, or mismanagement of funds. The Bonuses for Cost-Cutters Act would expand these categories to include surplus or unneeded funds. Additionally, S. 1378 would ensure that 90% of the savings be automatically directed towards deficit reduction. 

Click HERE to read the text of S. 1378.

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