Schakowsky introduced the bill after a General Accounting Office (GAO) report she had requested found that the federal government is overpaying vendors by hundreds of millions of dollars because agencies have failed to use their bargaining power to obtain discounts.

The bill would require federal agencies that use a “Governmentwide commercial purchase card,” or in other words, a government issued credit card, to negotiate discounts with their vendors.  In addition, the bill calls on agency heads to use contracts instead of purchase cards, whenever possible, in order to lock in long term savings.  

The GAO report will be released tomorrow during a scheduled hearing of the Senate Government Affairs Committee.    The Chair of the Committee, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), is a co-requester of the report with Schakowsky.

Schakowsky, as the former ranking Democrat on the Government Efficiency Subcommittee, had called on GAO to investigate this and other issues dealing with financial mismanagement and wasteful spending by the federal government.

“How many more hearing must Congress have on GAO reports before taking real action to bring about financial accountability in the federal government?  Taxpayers will continue to be bilked out of billions of dollars until we act.   This is commonsense legislation that will bring measured savings to taxpayers,” Schakowsky said.