According to explosive new findings from Open The Books, the federal bureaucracy has ballooned into a sprawling, expensive, and increasingly secretive empire costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion per day. And for hundreds of thousands of federal workers, Americans aren’t even allowed to know who’s cashing the checks.
Enter Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who is sounding the alarm—and introducing legislation designed to rip the curtain down.
In a move first reported by Fox News Digital, Ernst unveiled the Where’s the Workforce At Listed by Duties and Office (Where’s WALDO) Act, a bill that would force the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to create a public, searchable directory of federal employees and contractors, including their names, job titles, duties, locations, start dates, and full compensation.
The bill comes on the heels of Open The Books’ jaw-dropping “Mapping the Swamp” report, which analyzed federal payroll data for fiscal year 2024 and found that Washington’s workforce isn’t just growing—it’s cashing in big time.
“Besides raking in massive paychecks, including close to 800,000 non-War Department employees who make $100,000 or more per year, hundreds of thousands of government workers’ names and information were redacted from the information Open The Books was able to obtain for it’s ‘Mapping The Swamp’ report,” Ernst said.
Let that sink in: 383,000 federal employees across 56 agencies had their identities hidden—shielding $38.3 billion in taxpayer-funded pay from public scrutiny.
Ernst didn’t mince words.
“Like a twisted game of reverse Secret Santa, taxpayers are gifting paychecks to bureaucrats who remain anonymous,” she said.
And she made clear who she’s fighting for.
“The American people should not be forced to play ‘Where’s Waldo’ when it comes to figuring out where federal workers are during the workday. I will be embracing the Christmas spirit by creating a list, that anyone can check twice, to clearly state where every federal employee is and how much they are being paid.”
The numbers behind Ernst’s push are staggering.
Open The Books found 2.9 million civil service employees pulling in a combined $270 billion in payroll, plus another 30% in benefits. Since 2020, the federal workforce has grown just 5%, but payroll spending has surged nearly five times that rate.
The result? A bureaucracy costing taxpayers:
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$673,000 per minute
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$40.4 million per hour
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Just under $1 billion per day
Even more shocking, the report found:
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Nearly 1,000 federal employees earn more than the president’s $400,000 salary
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31,452 non-War Department workers make more than every governor in all 50 states
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793,537 federal workers earn $100,000 or more
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Salaries of $300,000+ jumped 84% since 2020
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Salaries of $200,000+ rose 82% over the same period
John Hart, CEO of Open The Books, says this moment is a turning point.
“The Trump administration has a historic opportunity to bring transparency to the administrative state,” Hart told Fox News Digital. “While federal employees don’t add as much to the debt as safety net programs or defense spending, they do cost us a billion dollars per day.”
He warned that secrecy is killing accountability.
“Accountability for taxpayers is impossible without real-time transparency. Making these disclosures a routine responsibility of OPM is an excellent step toward the real-time transparency our founders would have written into the Constitution had they been alive today.”
Even OPM agrees.
An agency spokesperson told Fox News Digital it “is proud to support” Ernst’s bill and called its provisions “common sense.”
“Transparency and accountability in the federal workforce are essential to maintaining public trust,” the spokesperson said. “Providing the public with clear, standardized information about federal positions, duties and compensation while appropriately protecting employee privacy is an important part of good government.”
If passed, the Where’s WALDO Act would give OPM 18 months to roll out the directory, covering both federal employees and contractors—finally giving taxpayers a clear answer to a simple question:
Who’s working for us—and what are we paying them?
Ernst’s bill is long overdue—and a direct challenge to a bloated, faceless bureaucracy that’s grown far too comfortable spending other people’s money.
