The DOGE operation may have faded from the daily churn of Donald Trump’s second term, but the damage it inflicted on federal operations remains. Republicans who eagerly embraced its crusade against government spending could now face an electoral reckoning in the midterms.

At the center of that threat is the Unauthorized Spending Accountability Act, legislation built around a DOGE talking point. The bill would place about $500 billion in annual federal spending at risk by automatically ending funding for programs whose specific authorizations have expired.

Those programs have continued receiving money through congressional appropriations. The Congressional Budget Office identified thousands of them worth $500 billion as of fiscal year 2025, all funded through appropriations committees and signed into law.

The endangered spending includes more than $100 billion for veterans’ health care, $48 billion for basic disease research, more than $40 billion across housing programs, $35 billion to combat violence against women and $29 billion for education.

Another $9 billion for workforce development and $7 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration would also be threatened. Altogether, the spending represents nearly one third of the federal government’s annual nondefense discretionary spending.

The USA Act would give affected programs three years before their funding automatically ended. Although Congress could theoretically pass individual authorization bills, critics argue that congressional paralysis and demands from lawmakers seeking cuts would leave many programs stranded.

The Congressional Budget Office scored the legislation as producing no savings because overall appropriations levels were already established. Still, the measure would eliminate current spending over time if Congress failed to pass the necessary authorization bills.

Elon Musk promoted the issue of unauthorized spending early in his DOGE tenure. The USA Act effectively translates that argument into legislation, offering another route to slash federal spending after DOGE cut workers and dismantled agencies without limiting or mitigating federal deficits.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities warned in 2016 that such proposals “would mostly create more hurdles to enacting appropriations,” by creating more “funding cliffs” that could be used “as leverage to force action on other matters … that may generally lead to more brinkmanship and impasses.”

The USA Act passed the House Oversight Committee last December by a 25 to 19 vote, though the House departed ahead of the elections without holding a floor vote. Every Republican on the committee except former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia supported it.

Supporters included Reps. Mike Turner of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Eli Crane of Arizona, all of whom face contested races this fall. Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Byron Donalds of Florida, who are running for governor in their respective states, also voted for it.

Rep. Tom Barrett of Michigan later became one of three additional Republicans to sign on as a cosponsor. Barrett is running in a tossup district around Lansing, where the bill’s potential consequences for veterans’ health care have become a central source of criticism.

The affected Veterans’ Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996 finances primary and specialty care, mental health services and operations at VA hospitals for nine million enrolled veterans. Barrett, a former Army officer, has defended his support through constituent emails, town halls and local media.

“It doesn’t mean these programs don’t have merit,” Barrett told WLNS News. “It just means we ought to be doing the job we’re elected to do, to look at these programs and make sure they’re being done in the way that we would all expect.”

William Lawrence, the Democrat challenging Barrett, rejected that defense. “It makes just as much sense as DOGE made, which is to say none at all,” Lawrence said. “It’s a completely ideological move based in a desire to cut public programs for the sake of it, without any regard for the people impacted or worthiness of the program.”

Lawrence held a veterans roundtable in the district on Wednesday, where patients and provider staff discussed pressure on the VA system amid persistent privatization efforts by the Trump administration. One worker at an understaffed VA facility said they were fired by email, then asked to return two weeks later without receiving an apology.

The bill also threatens workforce development programs, including apprenticeships and classroom training. Barrett has voted against legislation to accelerate first contracts, supported a Trump executive order stripping collective bargaining rights from federal employees and backed right to work laws while serving in the Michigan legislature.

Polling in the district has remained extremely tight. Lawrence recently joined the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Red to Blue list, while House Majority PAC released a television advertisement highlighting Barrett’s receipt of $2 million from corporate PACs and special interests.

The advertisement has $500,000 behind it for the next week. Before that investment, Lawrence faced a $1.6 million disadvantage in outside super PAC spending, but Barrett’s DOGE era votes have handed Democrats a potent argument about who pays when Republicans turn ideological talking points into policy.