Make Federal Architecture Beautiful Again Act
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Rep. Burchett, Tim [R-TN-2]
ID: B001309
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2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
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5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
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7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the esteemed members of Congress. The "Make Federal Architecture Beautiful Again Act" - because what this country really needs is a dose of aesthetic excellence in government infrastructure. How quaint.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's primary objective is to promote classical and traditional architectural styles in federal public buildings, allegedly to enhance civic pride, reflect national heritage, and ensure aesthetic excellence. In reality, it's a thinly veiled attempt to impose a nostalgic, retrograde vision on the nation's architecture.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill defines "classical architecture" with all the precision of a Wikipedia article written by a high school student. It also establishes a Byzantine system of definitions and exceptions, because who needs clarity when you're trying to impose your artistic vision on the nation? The bill requires that applicable federal public buildings adhere to this preferred architectural style, unless "exceptional factors" dictate otherwise - a loophole big enough to drive a truck through.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are affected: architects, engineers, contractors, and the general public (defined as anyone who isn't an artist, architect, or member of the building industry). But let's be real, this bill is primarily designed to appease the nostalgic sensibilities of a select few - namely, the politicians and lobbyists who drafted it.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill will have all the impact of a feather in a hurricane. It's a symbolic gesture, meant to placate the cultural conservatives who think that "beauty" is synonymous with "classical architecture." In reality, it will lead to:
* Increased costs and bureaucratic red tape for federal construction projects * Stifling innovation and creativity in architectural design * A homogenization of national architecture, erasing regional and cultural diversity
But hey, who needs progress or diversity when you can have a bunch of cookie-cutter neoclassical buildings that would make a Soviet-era apparatchik proud?
In conclusion, this bill is a perfect example of legislative malpractice - a self-serving exercise in nostalgia and aesthetic posturing. It's a disease masquerading as a cure, and the only thing it will "cure" is the nation's appetite for progress and innovation.
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Burchett, Tim [R-TN-2]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 620 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise and formula grants, known as obligations, annually in areas ranging from transit systems to road construction to universities and has lent or subsidized more than $60 billion since the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program,3 now managed by the Build America Bureau, was created in 1998. This evolved role as a major, and often primary, funding and financing source is far from the department’s original policy framework. It also removes incentives for state and local officials to ensure that investments are worthwhile, because federal money removes the need to get public buy-in to build and maintain infrastructure projects as funding becomes “someone else’s money.” Despite the department’s tremendous resources, congressional mandates and funding priorities have made it difficult for DOT to focus on the pressing trans- portation challenges that most directly affect average Americans, such as the high cost of personal automobiles, especially in an era of high inflation; unpredictable and expensive commercial shipping by rail, air, and sea; and infrastructure spend- ing that does not match the types of transportation that most Americans prefer. Transforming the department to address the varied needs of all Americans more effectively remains a central challenge. DOT is particularly difficult to manage because its 11 major components—nine modal administrations, the Office of the Secretary, and the Office of the Inspector General—all have their own sets of personnel including administrators, deputy administrators, chiefs of staff, and general counsels. Most grants flow through the modes, such as the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administra- tion, and Federal Aviation Administration. The Office of the Secretary contains its own grantmaking operation that funds research and some special grants, as well as a major lending operation, the Build America Bureau, that functions as an infrastructure bank. The Office of the Sec- retary has department-wide offices for such functions as Budget and Financial Management, the General Counsel, Policy, the Office of Research and Technology, Government Affairs, Administration, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, Public Affairs, Drug and Alcohol Policy and Compliance, and Civil Rights. The modal administrations include the: l Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); l Federal Highway Administration (FHWA); l Federal Railroad Administration (FRA); l National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA); l Federal Transit Administration (FTA); — 621 — Department of Transportation l Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (GLS); l Maritime Administration (MARAD); l Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA); and l Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). DOT’s fundamental problem is that instead of being able to focus on providing Americans with affordable and abundant transportation, it has become saddled with congressional requirements that reduce the department to a de facto grant- making organization. Yet there is little need for much of this grantmaking, for two reasons: l New technology enables private companies to charge for transportation in many areas, which could transform how innovation is financed. It is vital to consider the role of user fees and other pricing innovations with regard to transportation infrastructure. Airport landing fees for aircraft, toll charges on roads and bridges, and per-gallon taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel are all examples of user charges that affect the decisions of transportation system users. These changes could shift our nation’s transportation away from being a top–down system that is misaligned with the needs of so many Americans. Increasing private-sector financing could revolutionize travel and increase everyday mobility to its greatest potential in a way that Americans prefer. Doing so would keep transportation decisions out of the hands of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., who are far removed from local problems and preferences. l If funding must be federal, it would be more efficient for the U.S. Congress to send transportation grants to each of the 50 states and allow each state to purchase the transportation services that it thinks are best. Such an approach would enable states to prioritize different types of transportation according to the needs of their citizens. States that rely more on automotive transportation, for example, could use their funding to meet those needs. Meanwhile, many Americans continue to confront serious challenges with their day-to-day transportation, including costs that have increased dramati- cally in recent years. DOT in its current form is insufficiently equipped to address those problems. DOT’s discretionary grant-making processes should be abol- ished, and funding should be focused on formulaic distributions to the states, which know best their transportation needs and are incentivized to think of the
Introduction
— 7 — Foreword Instead, party leaders negotiate one multitrillion-dollar spending bill—several thousand pages long—and then vote on it before anyone, literally, has had a chance to read it. Debate time is restricted. Amendments are prohibited. And all of this is backed up against a midnight deadline when the previous “omnibus” spending bill will run out and the federal government “shuts down.” This process is not designed to empower 330 million American citizens and their elected representatives, but rather to empower the party elites secretly nego- tiating without any public scrutiny or oversight. In the end, congressional leaders’ behavior and incentives here are no differ- ent from those of global elites insulating policy decisions—over the climate, trade, public health, you name it—from the sovereignty of national electorates. Public scrutiny and democratic accountability make life harder for policymakers—so they skirt it. It’s not dysfunction; it’s corruption. And despite its gaudy price tag, the federal budget is not even close to the worst example of this corruption. That distinction belongs to the “Administrative State,” the dismantling of which must a top priority for the next conservative President. The term Administrative State refers to the policymaking work done by the bureaucracies of all the federal government’s departments, agencies, and millions of employees. Under Article I of the Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” That is, federal law is enacted only by elected legislators in both houses of Congress. This exclusive authority was part of the Framers’ doctrine of “separated powers.” They not only split the federal government’s legislative, executive, and judicial powers into different branches. They also gave each branch checks over the others. Under our Constitution, the legislative branch—Congress—is far and away the most powerful and, correspondingly, the most accountable to the people. In recent decades, members of the House and Senate discovered that if they give away that power to the Article II branch of government, they can also deny responsi- bility for its actions. So today in Washington, most policy is no longer set by Congress at all, but by the Administrative State. Given the choice between being powerful but vulnerable or irrelevant but famous, most Members of Congress have chosen the latter. Congress passes intentionally vague laws that delegate decision-making over a given issue to a federal agency. That agency’s bureaucrats—not just unelected but seemingly un-fireable—then leap at the chance to fill the vacuum created by Congress’s preening cowardice. The federal government is growing larger and less constitutionally accountable—even to the President—every year. l A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes; — 8 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity; l Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms; l Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists; l Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training” seminars about “white privilege”; and l Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion.3 Unaccountable federal spending is the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening. Nearly every power center held by the Left is funded or supported, one way or another, through the bureaucracy by Congress. Colleges and school districts are funded by tax dollars. The Administrative State holds 100 percent of its power at the sufferance of Congress, and its insulation from presidential discipline is an unconstitutional fairy tale spun by the Washington Establishment to protect its turf. Members of Congress shield themselves from constitutional accountability often when the White House allows them to get away with it. Cultural institutions like public libraries and public health agencies are only as “independent” from public accountability as elected officials and voters permit. Let’s be clear: The most egregious regulations promulgated by the current Administration come from one place: the Oval Office. The President cannot hide behind the agencies; as his many executive orders make clear, his is the respon- sibility for the regulations that threaten American communities, schools, and families. A conservative President must move swiftly to do away with these vast abuses of presidential power and remove the career and political bureaucrats who fuel it. Properly considered, restoring fiscal limits and constitutional accountability to the federal government is a continuation of restoring national sovereignty to the American people. In foreign affairs, global strategy, federal budgeting and pol- icymaking, the same pattern emerges again and again. Ruling elites slash and tear at restrictions and accountability placed on them. They centralize power up and away from the American people: to supra-national treaties and organizations, to left-wing “experts,” to sight-unseen all-or-nothing legislating, to the unelected career bureaucrats of the Administrative State.
Introduction
— 7 — Foreword Instead, party leaders negotiate one multitrillion-dollar spending bill—several thousand pages long—and then vote on it before anyone, literally, has had a chance to read it. Debate time is restricted. Amendments are prohibited. And all of this is backed up against a midnight deadline when the previous “omnibus” spending bill will run out and the federal government “shuts down.” This process is not designed to empower 330 million American citizens and their elected representatives, but rather to empower the party elites secretly nego- tiating without any public scrutiny or oversight. In the end, congressional leaders’ behavior and incentives here are no differ- ent from those of global elites insulating policy decisions—over the climate, trade, public health, you name it—from the sovereignty of national electorates. Public scrutiny and democratic accountability make life harder for policymakers—so they skirt it. It’s not dysfunction; it’s corruption. And despite its gaudy price tag, the federal budget is not even close to the worst example of this corruption. That distinction belongs to the “Administrative State,” the dismantling of which must a top priority for the next conservative President. The term Administrative State refers to the policymaking work done by the bureaucracies of all the federal government’s departments, agencies, and millions of employees. Under Article I of the Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” That is, federal law is enacted only by elected legislators in both houses of Congress. This exclusive authority was part of the Framers’ doctrine of “separated powers.” They not only split the federal government’s legislative, executive, and judicial powers into different branches. They also gave each branch checks over the others. Under our Constitution, the legislative branch—Congress—is far and away the most powerful and, correspondingly, the most accountable to the people. In recent decades, members of the House and Senate discovered that if they give away that power to the Article II branch of government, they can also deny responsi- bility for its actions. So today in Washington, most policy is no longer set by Congress at all, but by the Administrative State. Given the choice between being powerful but vulnerable or irrelevant but famous, most Members of Congress have chosen the latter. Congress passes intentionally vague laws that delegate decision-making over a given issue to a federal agency. That agency’s bureaucrats—not just unelected but seemingly un-fireable—then leap at the chance to fill the vacuum created by Congress’s preening cowardice. The federal government is growing larger and less constitutionally accountable—even to the President—every year. l A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes;
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.