Ranking Member Espaillat Denounces House Republicans Bill to Further Trump Administration Corruption

WASHINGTON - Today, House Appropriations Committee Republicans released their 2027 Legislative Branch funding bill, which weakens government oversight and aids and abets President Trump in continuing to steal money promised to the middle class, working class, and vulnerable Americans.

For 2027, the bill includes a total of $5.4 billion, a decrease of $125 million or 2 percent, below 2026. This total excludes the Senate items. The legislation:

• Opens the door to more corruption within the Trump administration by weakening government oversight, slashing funding for the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) and eliminating over 1,000 jobs critical to eliminating waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
• Allows President Trump to continue to steal money promised to the American taxpayer by weakening checks on the unlawful withholding of funds.
• Does nothing to allow Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to work in the Legislative Branch.

"Investing in our legislative branch is investing in the foundation of our democracy. Unfortunately, this funding bill makes a devastating cut to the Government Accountability Office, a vital information-gathering agency that Members rely on and guardian of taxpayer dollars," Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Adriano Espaillat (D-NY-13) said. "This bill also does nothing to reaffirm Congress' power of the purse in the wake of continued executive overreach. I hope that through the markup process, we can put together a bill that adequately responds to the needs of the legislative branch agencies that keep Congress, and democracy, afloat."

"With their bill to fund the Legislative Branch, House Republicans have once again chosen to allow President Trump to steal money promised to communities across the country," Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) said. "The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is one of our most valuable tools to improve efficiency and effectiveness across the government. It is astonishing that, for all the talk about finding and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, that House Republicans would cut resources for the watchdog that is tasked with precisely that role. Their bill would eliminate over 1,000 GAO jobs and prevent it from fully protecting Congress's power of the purse. Their bill also does nothing to allow Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to work in the Legislative Branch despite bipartisan efforts to change this restrictive policy. Republicans need to reconsider their strategy and join Democrats to support the work the American people elected us to do."

A summary of House Republicans' 2027 Legislative Branch funding bill is here. The full text of the bill is here.

In keeping with longstanding practice whereby each chamber of Congress determines its own housekeeping requirements and the other concurs without intervention, the bill does not include funds for the Senate or Senate office buildings.

The subcommittee markup will be webcast live and linked from the House Committee on Appropriations website.

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Representative Espaillat is the first Dominican American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and his congressional district includes Harlem, East Harlem, West Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, Inwood, Marble Hill and the north-west Bronx. First elected to Congress in 2016, Representative Espaillat is serving his fifth term in Congress. Representative Espaillat currently serves as a member of the influential U.S. House Committee on Appropriations responsible for funding the federal government's vital activities and serves as Ranking Member of the Legislative Branch Subcommittee of the committee during the 119th Congress. He is Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), and serves as a Senior Whip of the Democratic Caucus. To find out more about Rep. Espaillat, visit online at https://espaillat.house.gov/.

Media inquiries: Candace Person at [email protected]