Read original article at TheNationalDesk.com

WASHINGTON (TND) — Two lawmakers on Capitol Hill are leading the charge to account for every hard-earned taxpayer dollar sent to China and Russia.

Sen. Joni Ernst, Rep. Mike Gallagher and Open The Books have tracked more than $1.3 billion taxpayer dollars that have been sent in the past five years.

CEO of Open The Books Adam Andrzejewski joined The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat Friday to discuss the story.

“Well, here's the principle that our federal agencies should live by, we should not be borrowing money from China to pay China but that's exactly what we found at Open The Books. Up to half a billion dollars over the course of the past five years. And some of these payments were troubling. For example, $1.4 million that was supposed to go to domestic and producers to put commodities in our National School Lunch Program actually went to Chinese agricultural exporters,” he said.

Sen. Ernst and Rep. Gallagher introduced a bill requiring full transparency over taxpayer dollars sent to China and Russia. The bill would require every penny spent by any organization in China and Russia to be tracked and publicly disclosed.

“In Russia, the amounts are two times larger. Nearly a billion dollars over the course of the past year. In the past five years 900 million. We found troubling payments like free Russian contractors actually transport our intelligence and diplomatic competence pouch. We found $24 million spent with a local security firm to secure and guard our embassy in Moscow, including upgrading the security system on that embassy, and we found that we've subsidized. We've been going to space with the Russians since at least 2005. We've subsidized the Russian space program to the tune of over $4 billion," Andrzejewski said.