MAKE CENTS Act

Making Americans Know about Excessive spending through Commonsense Efforts to Notice and Target Shenanigans Act or the MAKE CENTS Act

This bill modifies the federal budget process to add reporting requirements, limit spending at the end of a fiscal year, and impose penalties on Congress for failing to approve a budget resolution or the annual appropriations bills on a timely basis.

Among other changes, the bill

• requires federal agencies to report annually to Congress regarding federally funded projects that are more than five years behind schedule or have expenditures that are at least $1 billion more than the original cost estimate for the project;
• requires recipients of federal funding to disclose specified details regarding the cost to the federal government and nongovernmental sources;
• prohibits an executive agency from spending more in the last 2 months of a fiscal year than the agency's average monthly spending for the previous 10 months;
• prohibits Members of Congress from being paid in a fiscal year until both chambers approve the budget resolution and pass all of the regular appropriations bills for that fiscal year; and
• limits congressional recesses, adjournments, and travel if Congress has not completed work on a budget resolution and the annual appropriations bills by certain deadlines.