Passing the Ego Act
On March 14th, the Eliminating Government-funded Oil-Painting Act was approved in Congress. The bill has been sent to President Trump for his signature.
To provide context for this legislation, the original Senate report referred to this bill as the Ego Act. Perhaps someone in Congress viewed the practice of having portraits painted at government expense as more appropriate for royalty than officials of the American federal government and wanted to make a point.
In the final analysis, the version that passed in Congress still contains a reference to egos by noting that “This Act may be cited as the Eliminating Government-funded Oil-painting Act or the EGO Act.”
What This Act of Congress Provides
This Act of Congress is short—only two pages long. It states:
No funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Federal Government may be used to pay for the painting of a portrait of an officer or employee of the Federal Government, including the President, the Vice President, a Member of Congress, the head of an executive agency, or the head of an office of the legislative branch.
Anyone who walks through government buildings will sometimes notice a painting capturing a favorable likeness of the agency’s leader. Congress has now declared the practice is not worth the government’s money and wants to make that money available for other programs.
What triggered the legislation was a report that since 2010, agencies had spent more than $400,000 on portraits that are displayed within agency buildings. The paintings were sometimes placed in secure locations that are not open to the public.
Which Agencies Are Cited for Spending Money on Portraits?
In recent years, agencies authorized spending between $19,000 to $50,000 for each portrait.
Examples include $38,250 by the Environmental Protection Agency for a portrait of former Administrator Lisa Jackson; $22,500 by the Department of Commerce for a portrait of John Bryson, who was the head of the agency for eight months; $46,790 by the Department of Defense for a portrait of the former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, his second official portrait; and $25,000 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for a portrait of former Administrator Daniel Goldin.
