Ernst: Track down every last penny

Washington is borrowing money from China to pay for pointless projects in China.

You read that right!

Since 2017, more than $1.3 billion U.S. tax dollars have been sent to our adversaries, Russia and China. It’s a scary thought, but this sum likely doesn’t reflect the total amount because federal agencies do not follow the trail of tax dollars to their final destination.

What we do know is your tax dollars have left the country and gone straight into adversarial countries. Just a few of the pointless projects that we can track down include: $770,000 to fund researchers in Russia to put cats on treadmills; $650,000 purchased puppy parts at wet markets in China; and $216,000 went to a study for transgenic mice, again, in China.

Accountability is not a strong-suit of Washington, D.C. but I haven’t backed down from this fight before.

I’m leading the Tracking Receipts to Adversarial Countries for Knowledge of Spending (TRACKS) Act to require every penny from a government grant, paid to organizations in China and Russia, be tracked and publicly disclosed for you to review. After all, taxpayers deserve to know exactly where their dollars are headed!

Washington’s continued spending is so out of hand it is losing track of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars, but I am creating accountability for every penny. I’m exposing this reckless spending so bureaucrats can no longer cover up their tracks and hardworking folks can know exactly what their dollars are funding.

Folks, this is just the tip of the iceberg. My work continues and I remain committed to shining light on the darkness of federal spending, and holding Washington, D.C. accountable.

Republican Joni Ernst has represented Iowa in the U.S. Senate since 2015.