Corrections Officer Blake Schwarz Suicide Prevention Act of 2025
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Rep. Miller-Meeks, Mariannette [R-IA-1]
ID: M001215
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
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2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the 119th Congress. The Corrections Officer Blake Schwarz Suicide Prevention Act of 2025 is a perfect example of how politicians love to grandstand while pretending to care about actual problems.
Let's dissect this farce:
**Total funding amounts and budget allocations:** A whopping $50 million over five years. That's roughly $10 million per year, or enough to fund a few dozen mental health professionals for a year. Peanuts compared to the billions wasted on other "essential" government programs.
**Key programs and agencies receiving funds:** The Bureau of Prisons, States, and localities will receive grants to implement mental health screenings and referrals for corrections officers. Because, you know, that's exactly what they need – more bureaucracy and paperwork.
**Notable increases or decreases from previous years:** This is a new program, so there's no comparison to previous years. But I'm sure the politicians will tout this as a "major investment" in mental health, while ignoring the fact that it's a drop in the bucket compared to overall government spending.
**Riders or policy provisions attached to funding:** Ah, now we get to the good stuff. The bill establishes an Advisory Board to oversee the grant program, because what every government program needs is more oversight and red tape. And, of course, there are provisions for "technical assistance" and "best practices" – code words for "we'll hire some consultants to tell us how to do our job."
**Fiscal impact and deficit implications:** This bill will add a negligible amount to the national debt, but who's counting? It's not like we have more pressing fiscal issues to worry about. The politicians will just pat themselves on the back for "doing something" about mental health, while ignoring the fact that this program is a tiny Band-Aid on a much larger problem.
Diagnosis: This bill is a classic case of "Legislative Theater-itis," where politicians pretend to address a serious issue while actually doing nothing meaningful. The symptoms include:
* Grandiose language and titles * Minuscule funding amounts compared to overall government spending * Excessive bureaucracy and red tape * Politicians taking credit for "doing something" while ignoring the larger problem
Treatment: A healthy dose of skepticism, a strong stomach, and a willingness to call out politicians on their nonsense.
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Rep. Miller-Meeks, Mariannette [R-IA-1]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 193 — Department of State the supply of federal dollars to the WHO and other health-focused international organizations pending adjustment of their policies. The United States must return to treating international organizations as vehi- cles for promoting American interests—or take steps to extract itself from those organizations. SHAPING THE FUTURE Development of a grand foreign policy strategy is key to the next Administra- tion’s success, but without addressing structural and related issues of the State Department, this strategy will be at risk. The Hart–Rudman Commission called for a significant restructuring of the State Department specifically and foreign assis- tance programs generally, stating that funding increases could only be justified if there was greater confidence that institutions would use their funding effectively.22 Sadly, the exact opposite has occurred. The State Department has metastasized in structure and resources, but neither the function of the department nor the use of taxpayer dollars has improved. The next Administration can take steps to remedy these deficiencies. The State Department’s greatest problem is certainly not an absence of resources. As noted, the department boasts tens of thousands of employees and billions of dollars of funding—including significant amounts of discretionary fund- ing. It also exists among a broader array of federal agencies that are duplicative, particularly when it comes to the provision of direct and indirect foreign assistance. Realistically, meaningful reform of the State Department will require significant streamlining. Below are some key structural and operational recommendations that will be essential for the next Administration’s success, and which will lay crucial founda- tions for other necessary reforms. l Develop a reorganization strategy. Despite periodic attempts by previous Administrations (including the Trump Administration) to make more than cosmetic changes to the State Department, its structure has remained largely unchanged since the 20th century.23 The State Department will better serve future Administrations, regardless of party, if it were to be meaningfully streamlined. The next Administration should develop a complete hypothetical reorganization of the department—one which would tighten accountability to political leadership, reduce overhead, eliminate redundancy, waste fewer taxpayer resources, and recommend additional personnel-related changes for improvement of function. Such reorganization could be creative, but also carefully review specific structure-related problems that have been documented over the years. This reorganization effort would necessarily assess what office closures — 194 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise can be carried out with and without congressional approval. Timelines for action on these fronts should be developed accordingly, but speed should be a priority. l Consolidate foreign assistance authorities. Foreign assistance is a critical foreign policy tool that is too often disconnected from the federal government’s practice of foreign policy. Bureaucrats spend significant energy resisting the use of non-emergency foreign assistance to leverage positive results for the United States, even though it is a perfectly reasonable proposition. The coordination of foreign assistance dollars is also difficult because the foreign assistance budget and foreign loan issuance authorities are divided across numerous Cabinet departments, smaller agencies, and other offices. The next Administration should take steps to ensure that future foreign assistance clearly and unambiguously supports the President’s foreign policy agenda. For example, the next administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is technically subordinate to the State Department, should be authorized to take on the additional role of Director of Foreign Assistance with the rank of Deputy Secretary and oversee all foreign assistance. This role—which existed briefly during the George W. Bush Administration before it was eliminated by the Obama Administration—would empower the dual-hatted official to better align and coordinate with the manifold foreign assistance programs across the federal government. The next Administration should also evaluate whether these multiple sources of foreign assistance are in the national interest and, if not, develop a plan to consolidate foreign assistance authorities. l Make public diplomacy and international broadcasting serve American interests. A key part of U.S. foreign policy is the ability to communicate with not only governments but with the peoples of the world. Indeed, in some ways, communicating directly with the public is more important than communicating with governments, particularly in times of governmental conflict or disagreement. Public diplomacy has historically been, and remains, vital to American foreign policy success. Unfortunately, U.S. public diplomacy, which largely relies on taxpayer-funded international broadcasting outlets, has been deeply ineffective in recent years. The U.S. government’s first foray into international broadcasting started with the Voice of America radio broadcast in 1942, which was intended as
Introduction
— 193 — Department of State the supply of federal dollars to the WHO and other health-focused international organizations pending adjustment of their policies. The United States must return to treating international organizations as vehi- cles for promoting American interests—or take steps to extract itself from those organizations. SHAPING THE FUTURE Development of a grand foreign policy strategy is key to the next Administra- tion’s success, but without addressing structural and related issues of the State Department, this strategy will be at risk. The Hart–Rudman Commission called for a significant restructuring of the State Department specifically and foreign assis- tance programs generally, stating that funding increases could only be justified if there was greater confidence that institutions would use their funding effectively.22 Sadly, the exact opposite has occurred. The State Department has metastasized in structure and resources, but neither the function of the department nor the use of taxpayer dollars has improved. The next Administration can take steps to remedy these deficiencies. The State Department’s greatest problem is certainly not an absence of resources. As noted, the department boasts tens of thousands of employees and billions of dollars of funding—including significant amounts of discretionary fund- ing. It also exists among a broader array of federal agencies that are duplicative, particularly when it comes to the provision of direct and indirect foreign assistance. Realistically, meaningful reform of the State Department will require significant streamlining. Below are some key structural and operational recommendations that will be essential for the next Administration’s success, and which will lay crucial founda- tions for other necessary reforms. l Develop a reorganization strategy. Despite periodic attempts by previous Administrations (including the Trump Administration) to make more than cosmetic changes to the State Department, its structure has remained largely unchanged since the 20th century.23 The State Department will better serve future Administrations, regardless of party, if it were to be meaningfully streamlined. The next Administration should develop a complete hypothetical reorganization of the department—one which would tighten accountability to political leadership, reduce overhead, eliminate redundancy, waste fewer taxpayer resources, and recommend additional personnel-related changes for improvement of function. Such reorganization could be creative, but also carefully review specific structure-related problems that have been documented over the years. This reorganization effort would necessarily assess what office closures
Introduction
— 566 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Consistent with appropriations from Congress, the OJP dispenses approxi- mately $7 billion in various grants. Block grants are given to a state to be awarded pursuant to federal regulations. Some funds to support law enforcement and victims of crime are awarded pursuant to block grants. But most OJP funds are awarded through discretionary grants—specific programs written into the budget by Congress. Although Congress dictates the way in which many grant awards are to be made, federal staff enjoy a tremendous amount of discretion in adding “conditions” and “priority points.” Grants operate with a carrot and a stick. To receive grant funding, a recipient must agree to certain conditions, which in many instances include the President’s priorities. For instance, under an anti–human trafficking grant during the Obama Administration (approximately $110 million in 2020), an awardee had to show a partnership with an LGBTQ organization and always have an interpreter on site. These conditions worked to change culture and overlayed President Obama’s priorities: support for the LGBTQ community and for more of the funding to go to areas with large immigrant populations. During the Trump Administration, a condition added to grants stated that an awardee had to comply with all federal law (stock language), including federal law regarding the exchange of information between federal and local authorities about an individual’s immigration status. This condition prevented law enforcement in “sanctuary cities” from receiving grant awards. While the Trump Administra- tion suffered a series of setbacks from several hostile courts, it obtained from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals a decision upholding the department’s authority to impose these conditions.92 To ensure that taxpayer-funded grants are prioritized and distributed properly, the next conservative Administration should: l Conduct an immediate, comprehensive review of all federal grant disbursals to ensure not only that the programs are being properly administered by the department, but also that the grant funding is being received and used properly by recipients. l Order an overhaul of the DOJ grant application process, to include more rigorous vetting of state, local, and private grant applicants and inclusion of more pre-application criteria to ensure baseline fitness and eligibility for federal grant dollars. This long-overdue enhancement of the grant application and issuance process will ensure that hard-earned taxpayer dollars are going only to lawful actors who support federal law enforcement and demonstrate the ability and willingness to engage in lawful activities.
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.