Sponsors
The bill tightens definitions and reporting to curb wasteful federal 'swag' spending and increase transparency, but it raises administrative costs and risks restricting or complicating legitimate outreach—potentially offsetting some savings.
Taxpayers: Reduces federal spending on promotional 'swag' and mascots, potentially lowering wasteful expenditures.
Federal agencies and managers: Establishes clearer definitions for what counts as advertising and for 'swag', making it easier to track, justify, and limit PR merchandise purchases.
Federal agencies and taxpayers: Increases transparency by requiring agencies to report prior-year public relations and advertising spending in annual budget justifications, improving oversight.
Federal employees and agencies (and taxpayers indirectly): Imposes additional administrative and reporting burdens—classifying communications and items, conducting ROI analyses, and adding PR spending detail to budgets—which will consume staff time and resources.
State and local outreach programs, small federal programs, and public‑education efforts: Could unintentionally restrict legitimate mission-driven outreach that relies on modest promotional items, reducing public engagement or delaying outreach.
Taxpayers: Some anticipated savings may be offset because agencies will need to spend resources to comply with new rules (ROI analyses, tracking, reporting), reducing net fiscal benefit.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 28, 2025 by Michael Cloud · Last progress January 28, 2025
Stops federal agencies from spending federal funds to purchase or distribute free promotional items (“swag”) or to create/use mascots to promote an agency, program, or agenda, while allowing limited exceptions (mission-driven items with a positive return on investment, military and federal recruitment, and census items). Agencies must add a line in their annual budget justification describing the prior year’s public relations and advertising spending (and may include estimated return on investment). The Office of Management and Budget must issue implementing rules within 180 days of enactment. The law defines key terms (what counts as advertising, swag, mascot, return on investment, and agency), lists examples and some explicit exclusions for swag, and sets out the exceptions for use of swag or mascots so agencies can continue recruitment and certain statutorily authorized items.