An agreement reached by lawmakers over the weekend to suspend the United States’ debt ceiling would rescind appropriated funds for IT at the General Services Administration and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency if it passes into law.
Language included in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 would cut unobligated funds made available to the Federal Citizen Services Fund at the General Services Administration and would also cut unobligated funds made available to Department of Homeland Security sub-agency CISA.
In addition, the provisional agreement in its current form would permanently rescind certain unobligated funds made available to the Office of the Chief Information Officer at the Department of Justice.
Precise figures for the amount of funds at each agency set to be rescinded were not immediately available.
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Commenting on the cuts, former Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Senior Adviser Matt Cornelius said: “These short-sighted decisions to GSA and CISA will almost surely have long-term impacts that degrade the ability of federal agencies to provide high-functioning digital services and protect taxpayer information.”
“Raising the debt ceiling while lowering the ability of agencies to deploy effective, secure digital services that taxpayers deserve is simply myopic and unhelpful,” Cornelius said.
Leaders on both sides of the aisle must now sell the debt ceiling agreement to their respective colleagues. Rules in the House of Representatives require that lawmakers have 72 hours to read the bill, meaning that Wednesday is the earliest a vote can be taken.
The House of Representatives Rules Committee is due to consider the 99-page bill at 3 p.m.
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