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House reduces pool of money available for IT modernization

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Agencies looking for extra funding for IT modernization projects in fiscal 2026 may have a harder time finding it.

House lawmakers reduced funding in the traditional accounts used to bolster IT modernization efforts across the board in its version of the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill.

House appropriators zeroed out the Technology Modernization Fund for the third straight year with the passage of the 2026 FSGG bill on Sept. 3. Legislators cut the Federal Citizen Services Fund and reduced the amount of money available in the IT Oversight Reform (ITOR) fund.

“The advancement of this bill is a sign that we are one step closer to fiscal discipline and common sense within our own federal government. It caps federal spending to ensure responsible use of taxpayer dollars, modernizes technology infrastructure to increase efficiency and effectiveness, and strengthens national security by preventing bad actors from taking advantage of our financial system,” said Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee Chairman Dave Joyce (R-OH) in a release.

The House appropriations approved the bill 35 to 28.

Here is a breakdown of the cyber and IT funding highlights from the bill.

Federal Citizen Services Fund

  • 2025: $75 million
  • 2026 request: $70 million
  • House 2026 bill: $55 million, of which $5 million should be used for hiring employees to support the implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018

“The committee welcomes efforts to increase federal agencies’ access to secure cloud computing products and services. To that end, the committee appreciates efforts to improve the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), including the recently announced FedRAMP 20x effort. However, the Committee remains concerned about a lack of detail from GSA. Therefore, the committee directs the General Services Administration to provide a briefing to the House and Senate appropriations committees on the implementation plan for FedRAMP 20x within 90 days of enactment of this act.”

Technology Modernization Fund

  • 2025: $0
  • 2026 request: $0
  • House 2026 bill: $0

The House bill didn’t include any explanation of why it zeroed out the TMF. The Senate has not yet moved on its version of the FSGG bill.

The additional rationale for not giving the TMF any new money, besides the appropriators disdain for these types of funding mechanisms, can be found in GSA’s 2026 budget justification.

GSA wants to make it a revolving or working capital fund of sorts.

The legislative proposal would let “GSA, with the approval of OMB, to collect funding from other agencies and bring that funding into the TMF,” GSA wrote in its budget justification document. “This would allow agencies to transfer resources to the TMF using funds that are otherwise no longer available to them for obligation. This provision is essential to providing the TMF with the necessary funds to help the federal government address critical technology challenges by modernizing high-priority systems, improving AI adoption and supporting cross-government collaboration and scalable services.”

GSA wants to be able to collect up to $100 million a year in otherwise expired funding. The TMF funding would be no-year money as well.

The TMF only has made one new award to agencies in 2025 and is estimated to have over $220 million in available funding.

IT Oversight Reform Fund

  • 2025: $8 million
  • 2026 request:$19.6 million
  • House 2026 bill: $10 million

“The committee recommends $10 million for ITOR, of which $5 million is provided to the Office of the Chief Information Officer and $5 million to the United States DOGE Service (DOGE). The committee further directs the administrator of DOGE to submit quarterly reports to the House and Senate committees on appropriations on the number of hires for DOGE, including the use of detailees and transfers to and from an agency for personnel.”

The House is cutting the among of money the Federal CIO’s office has to support certain IT modernization and cybersecurity efforts like establishing the child tax credit website and strategy and modernizing the Department of Agriculture’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children program.

ITOR also has the ability to carry over funding from previous years. According to USASpending.gov, OMB has more than $55 million left for 2025. It started out with over $85 million, $30.7 million of which carried over from previous years.

Source: USASpending website, August 2025.

In many cases over the years, the Office of Management and Budget uses money from all three funds to support governmentwide modernization programs.

In OMB’s 2022 IT operating plan, former Federal CIO Clare Martorana wrote, “The funds have different and complementary strengths that stem from their inherent purposes and variations in the operating models of the implementing organizations.”

Treasury’s Cybersecurity Enhancement Account

  • 2025 appropriation: $36.5 million
  • 2026 request: $59 million
  • House 2026 bill: $99 million

“The committee recommends $99 million for the CEA. The recommendation includes an increase for zero trust architecture implementation, low code application development and cloud enterprise cybersecurity enhancements.”

The committee is asking Treasury for quarterly plans to the appropriations committees detailing how it plans to spending the money for each CEA investment. The first one would be due 60 days after the bill becomes law.

“The committee is concerned by the infiltration of Chinese hackers into the department’s information technology systems, which resulted from vulnerabilities associated with the department’s third-party service provider,” the House report stated. “The plan shall include prior year unobligated balances and identify planned obligations by source year of appropriation. The plan shall also include anticipated unobligated balances at the close of the fiscal year and the planned obligation of carryover in future years by quarter until all funds are obligated. The department is directed to submit quarterly updates on the status of implementing this plan. The plan shall also identify any agreement or areas of cooperation with members of the intelligence community to strengthen its cybersecurity platform.”

Office of the National Cyber Director

  • 2025 appropriation: $21.7 million
  • 2026 request: $20 million
  • House 2026 bill: $18.1 million

The committee didn’t offer much insight into why it reduced ONCD’s budget for 2026. It did, however, tell ONCD that it should spend more time on securing federal data.

“A significant portion of today’s cybersecurity vulnerabilities occur outside of traditional legacy and enterprise investments made for localized agency network protections when data is in transit, due to various automated routing and switching protocols via systems and infrastructure potentially controlled or subject to manipulation by adversarial threats. The ONCD is encouraged to work with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency to ensure best practices are followed with lessons learned from the Department of Defense’s mapping methodology and data format.”

The post House reduces pool of money available for IT modernization first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Politics

WATCH: Trashy Rep. Jasmine Crockett Says She’s Not ‘Necessarily’ Encouraging Her Supporters to Hurt Republicans in Wake of Charlie Kirk Assassination, White House Responds

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2 hours ago

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September 14, 2025

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Trashy Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett is doubling down on her inflammatory rhetoric against President Donald Trump, claiming that calling him a “wannabe Hitler” doesn’t “necessarily” mean she wants her supporters to go out and hurt Republicans.

This outrageous statement came during a discussion on Friday’s episode of “The Breakfast Club” regarding the assassination of conservative powerhouse Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, who was gunned down on Wednesday during an event at Utah Valley University.

Crockett dismissed any notion that far-left demonization of conservatives, like her own repeated Hitler comparisons, played a role in Kirk’s murder.

Instead, she shamelessly accused Trump of promoting a “culture of violence” with past comments like saying he could “shoot somebody in the middle of the street” and still win elections, or allegedly telling rally-goers to “beat them up.”

“Even if it came from someone on our side of the aisle, let’s assume the worst, OK, so let’s talk about it,” Crockett said. “Let’s talk about what ‘radicalized’ him.”

The Texas politician continued, “So, we’ve got to talk about like what it means when you’re running for president, or you’re running for one of these higher offices, and you go out there and you talk about beating people up, you go out there and you say things like, ‘I could shoot somebody in the middle of the street in New York and I could still win.’”

“We got to talk about, like that, that is next level,” she stated. “Me disagreeing with you, me calling you, you know, ‘wannabe Hitler,’ all those things are like, not necessarily saying, ‘Go out and hurt somebody.’ But when you’re literally telling people at rallies, ‘Yeah, beat them up’ and that kind of stuff, you are promoting a culture of violence.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded to the alarming comments in a statement to the New York Post.

“What on earth did Jasmine Crockett mean when she said she wasn’t ‘necessarily’ encouraging her supporters to hurt Republicans? It sure sounds like she’s justifying political violence,” Jackson said. “She needs to clarify this immediately. Her comments are not only deeply troubling, but they only serve to further divide and radicalize her left-wing supporters – and it’s despicable that she would try and point fingers at President Trump for the assassination of his dear friend, Charlie Kirk.”

Family and friends of the accused assassin described Robinson as “full of hate” before the shooting, according to law enforcement.

WATCH:

The post WATCH: Trashy Rep. Jasmine Crockett Says She’s Not ‘Necessarily’ Encouraging Her Supporters to Hurt Republicans in Wake of Charlie Kirk Assassination, White House Responds appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Victor Reacts: The Left Is Using an Example of Violence Against Conservatives to Disarm Conservatives (VIDEO)

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3 hours ago

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September 14, 2025

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The left is attempting to use the assassination of Charlie Kirk as a justification to violate the Second Amendment.

Like clockwork they cannot help but to shamelessly weaponize every tragedy.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seemed to blame Kirk and other republicans for defending gun rights.

Think about the insanity of that. Using a horrific example of political violence against a conservative as a way to disarm conservatives.

Democrats are doing everything in their power to blame anyone but themselves. They refuse to accept that years of dehumanizing and vilifying conservatives as fascists, nazis, threats to democracy, and more has radicalized their followers.

The Gateway Pundit reported,

It was the fault of a killer who decided to take a life.

To use his murder as evidence that America should disarm is to ignore both reality and history.

Tyranny thrives when citizens are defenseless. Kirk himself often reminded young audiences that the right to bear arms is what ensures all of our other freedoms. Taking that away would not make America safer—it would make us weaker.

Instead of exploiting this loss, we should be asking how to honor Kirk’s legacy. He believed in equipping young people to think critically, to defend their values, and to stand strong in the face of opposition.

This example of horrible violence is a reason for Americans to stand strong in defense of the Second Amendment to protect themselves from those who would harm them for their political opinions.

The post Victor Reacts: The Left Is Using an Example of Violence Against Conservatives to Disarm Conservatives (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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President Trump Called Utah Governor Cox After His Grandstanding When Announcing Charlie Kirk’s Assassin

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3 hours ago

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September 14, 2025

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President Trump called Utah Governor Cox immediately after the presser took place in Utah where the capture of the Charlie Kirk assassin was announced. 

On Friday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox made himself the most important person in the room as he announced that “We Got Him”.

Governor Cox decided he would answer questions on the assassin’s surrender rather that the Head of the FBI Kash Patel, and then he messed that up saying later that day that the killer worked alone. Cox should have stayed out of it as he now looks like a fool in many ways.

This is not unexpected.  We knew Cox had a terrible record, even Charlie Kirk himself called for Cox’s resigning. Then as we reported changed GOP rules and inserted himself back into the governor’s mansion in 2024 anyways.

SHAME: Utah’s GOP Governor Cox Used Friday Morning’s National Broadcast to Grandstand and Promote Himself

Bannon called out Governor Cox as well.

The Atlantic reported that immediately after the presser where Governor Cox exclaimed “We Got Him!”, Governor Cox received a call from the President of the United States.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) received a phone call from none other than President Donald Trump moments after the governor spoke to reporters about the arrest of a suspect in the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

The President apparently shared per far-left Atlantic that these people are killers.

“You know, the type of person who would do something like that to Charlie Kirk would love to do it to us,” Cox says Trump told him. Trump went on to recite statistics suggesting that the presidency was “one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet.” Fifteen percent of the men who’d held his office had been shot; 8 percent had been killed.

Governor Cox tried to push peace after the radical, violent, and murderous left just assassinated American great Charlie Kirk.

America and Trump want justice and then we can talk about civility with all of America. 

The post President Trump Called Utah Governor Cox After His Grandstanding When Announcing Charlie Kirk’s Assassin appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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