Congress Should Stop Funding Agencies That Ignore the Law

Why Does Federal Spending Keep Outpacing Accountability?

The federal government spent $6.8 trillion in fiscal year 2025, yet the Government Accountability Office reported that twenty-one agencies still could not produce clean financial statements by the statutory deadline. The national debt crossed $37 trillion in May 2026, and interest payments now consume more revenue than the entire defense budget. Congress holds the power of the purse, but lawmakers treat that power like a ceremonial title rather than a weapon. The result is a bureaucracy that grows whether it performs or not.

The scale is easy to miss because the numbers are so large. The Department of Health and Human Services alone accounts for roughly $1.8 trillion in outlays, while the Pentagon manages a budget above $850 billion. Yet oversight hearings rarely focus on whether those dollars produced the promised outcomes. They focus on whether next year's appropriation should be slightly larger. The question of competence never comes up.

This pattern is not new. The GAO has published its high-risk list since 1990, flagging programs vulnerable to fraud, waste, and mismanagement. In 2025, that list contained thirty-seven programs across the federal government, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense Department contract management. Congress knows where the problems are. It simply chooses not to fix them.

What Would Real Oversight Look Like?

Real oversight starts with zero-based review of every discretionary program at least once every four years. Under zero-based review, an agency must justify its entire budget from scratch rather than assuming last year's spending is the floor. The Office of Management and Budget experimented with a lighter version of this approach during the Reagan administration, and the concept has resurfaced in state legislatures from Florida to Texas. The federal government should adopt it for every program above $1 billion.

Congress should also refuse to fund agencies that ignore subpoenas and inspector general recommendations. In 2024, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general identified $1.4 billion in questionable grants, yet the department implemented only a fraction of the recommended reforms before the next appropriation passed. A family that ignored its auditor would face consequences. A federal agency gets a raise.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in February 2026 that improper payments across federal programs totaled roughly $236 billion in the prior fiscal year. That is not a rounding error. It is more than the entire annual budget of the Department of Justice, the Department of State, and the Environmental Protection Agency combined. A private firm with that kind of leakage would fire executives, change systems, and notify shareholders. Washington changes the subject.

The power of the purse includes the power to say no. Lawmakers should attach program-specific performance metrics to every major appropriation, with automatic rescission for programs that fail to meet them. The Congressional Budget Office already scores legislation. It could also score results. If a workforce training program places fewer than half its participants in jobs after two years, it should lose funding. The current system rewards persistence, not performance.

Bureaucrats will object that such metrics are unfair because social problems are hard to measure. That objection is itself a confession. If a program cannot demonstrate results, it should not receive billions in borrowed money. The taxpayer is not a venture capitalist funding experiments with unlimited patience. The taxpayer is a creditor who deserves a return.

How Voters Can Force the Issue

Congress will not change its habits until voters make spending a voting issue rather than a talking point. Incumbents of both parties campaign against waste and then vote for omnibus bills written in secret, often without reading the final text. The 2025 omnibus exceeded 1,500 pages and was released seventy-two hours before the floor vote. No member read it. Most did not pretend to.

Voters can demand single-subject appropriations and recorded votes on each major program. They can support candidates who pledge to vote against any bill that funds an agency currently ignoring a subpoena or inspector general recommendation. They can also insist that their representatives publish a personal spending scorecard explaining every major vote. Sunlight is cheaper than a new inspector general, and it works faster.

The national debt is not an abstraction. It is a mortgage on the future signed by politicians who will not live to pay it. In 2025, interest on the debt cost roughly $870 billion, a sum larger than the entire Medicaid program. Every dollar spent servicing debt is a dollar not spent on defense, research, or the courts. Waste is not a victimless offense. It steals from the next generation.

Conservatives and libertarians have argued for decades that the federal government is too large. The more urgent point is that it is too unaccountable. Size can be managed if performance is measured. Growth can be controlled if failure is punished. Congress already has every tool it needs. What it lacks is the will. Voters should supply it.