SUE Act Bans Federal Funds for Wall Street Journal Subscriptions Starting in 2025

The newly introduced Stop Unnecessary Expenditures Act, or SUE Act, is a short, targeted piece of legislation focused on administrative spending within Congress. Specifically, it bans the use of federal funds to purchase subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for any Member of Congress’s office or any congressional committee. This prohibition takes effect starting with the fiscal year 2025 and applies every year thereafter (Sec. 2).

The $50 Question: What Does This Actually Change?

This bill is about as specific as it gets: no taxpayer money for one particular newspaper subscription in one particular branch of government. If you’re juggling rising costs, this likely won't change your grocery bill, but it’s a symbolic move aimed at curbing minor administrative expenses. Think of it as your office manager deciding that instead of paying for a premium coffee service, they’ll just stick to the basic drip machine—it saves a little cash, but the core work still gets done. The intended benefit is a slight reduction in federal overhead, signaling fiscal restraint, even if the total savings are negligible in the context of the federal budget.

Who Feels the Pinch (And Who Doesn't)

For the vast majority of people, this bill has zero direct impact. Your access to news isn't changing, and neither are your taxes in any measurable way. The people who will notice are congressional staffers and committee members who currently rely on a federally funded WSJ subscription. They will have to find alternative ways to access that specific publication, perhaps by using non-federal funds (like campaign accounts or personal money) or by relying on other news sources. The Wall Street Journal itself will also lose a small, steady stream of institutional revenue from Congress (Sec. 2).

Why Such a Specific Ban?

In policy, highly specific bans often point to a previous administrative decision or a symbolic gesture. The SUE Act doesn't restrict subscriptions to other expensive publications, nor does it ban the use of federal funds for general news services. It singles out the WSJ. This means that while the goal is to cut “unnecessary expenditures,” the scope is extremely narrow. It’s a very clean, low-vagueness bill—it says exactly what it means and doesn't leave much room for interpretation. If the intent was to broadly curb administrative spending on periodicals, the bill would have likely set a spending cap or required competitive bidding, but the SUE Act sticks strictly to banning one specific item.