When the US Congress returns from its summer recess in September, lawmakers will have a month to negotiate a spending deal to avoid a government shutdown. This debate will further expose partisan divisions on fiscal policy and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-cutting moves. Behind the scenes, however, the Trump administration is working with Congress to enact comprehensive reforms to prevent wasteful spending, which have long-standing bipartisan support.
Altogether, the US government’s misspending costs hundreds of billions of dollars each year. In 2024, federal departments and agencies made $162bn in improper payments.
In 2010, President Barack Obama established a “Do Not Pay List” for federal agencies, which would vet planned federal payments against a “network of databases” to verify eligibility. The aim was to shift the federal government’s strategy for stopping fraud and misspending from a “pay and chase” model to one of prevention. However, laws limiting data sharing between federal agencies undermined the Obama administration’s plans for the list. Since Obama established Do Not Pay, the federal government has misspent more than $2tn.
