Congress claws back unspent federal money to reduce deficit
H.R. 3785 — Forgotten Funds Act · Filed by David Schweikert (R-AZ) · Introduced Jun 5, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill permanently cancels unspent federal money from fiscal year 2021 and earlier—money that agencies never obligated (committed to spend). Those cancelled funds are then deposited into the Treasury's general fund and designated for deficit reduction. In effect, the bill claws back old appropriations that were never used and applies them to reduce the federal deficit.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is to recover unspent appropriations and apply them to deficit reduction. It is a straightforward fiscal measure with no hidden provisions or narrow beneficiaries.
What the text implies
- Rescission of unobligated balances may affect agency planning and carryover authority for multi-year projects; agencies relying on prior-year funds for FY2025+ work may face disruption.
- The bill does not specify whether rescission applies to mandatory-spending carryovers or only discretionary; ambiguity on scope could affect implementation.
- Deficit reduction designation is non-binding on future appropriations; Congress retains power to spend the recovered funds, so the deficit-reduction effect depends on future legislative discipline.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill recovers unused taxpayer money and applies it to deficit reduction, which is a fiscal discipline measure that could theoretically benefit long-term fiscal health. However, the bill does not specify how deficit reduction translates to citizen benefit—it may simply reduce future borrowing costs (a diffuse public good) or it may be used to justify future spending cuts or tax changes that harm citizens. The immediate effect is neutral to citizens; the downstream effect depends on how the de
Named in the bill
U.S. Treasury, House Committee on Appropriations, Federal agencies (all)
Where it stands
- Jun 5, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jun 5, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Appropriations · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Appropriations”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (464 characters) on Sep 7, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,398 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-23.
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