Cleaning Up Washington's Budget Mess

Cleaning Up Washington's Budget Mess

02/08/06

One of the most important, and difficult jobs, that Congress has is determining how taxpayer money should be spent and what it should be spent on. Folks familiar with my views know that I am convinced Congress spends far too much of your money, and that much of what Congress spends is wasteful. Addressing this problem has never been easy, but in the last few weeks real progress has been made.

Already this year, Congress passed the Deficit Reduction Act to trim $40 billion of deficit spending. These savings bring us closer to achieving a balanced budget and represent an important step in bringing fiscal sanity to Washington.

Next, Republicans in the House elected a new Majority Leader, John Boehner, who expressly rejects pork-barrel politics. In seeking the position, Congressman Boehner said "federal spending is on a path that directly imperils the future of our children and our nation. But we've learned all too well that both the current process and the Washington culture are stacked against fiscal discipline." Having a leader who recognizes the problem and is committed to doing something about it offers real hope for future budgets.

Addressing the problem of earmarks, pet-projects for individual members of Congress that skirt the normal budget process, is another challenge finally getting the attention it deserves. The $286 billion highway bill that passed last year was bloated with 6,371 special projects. Citizens Against Government Waste has reported that there were almost 14,000 total earmarks last year. From money for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio to an indoor rainforest in Iowa, we have heard all the horror stories of waste of taxpayer money, but how do we fix the problem?

I believe the best way to fix it is to shed light on the practice by attributing earmarks to the members of Congress who sponsor them. This week, I cosponsored legislation, H. Res. 662, to modify the Rules of the House of Representatives to show the public exactly what Congress spends on individual projects in each district, attribute each earmark to its sponsoring Member of Congress, and require a demonstration that the funding has gone through a normal vetting process. Moreover, for those wasteful projects that still slip through, I support reinstating the line-item veto to give Presidents the power to eliminate wasteful projects one-by-one.

President Bush this week submitted his 2007 budget to Congress. With the President's commitment to restraining spending and the renewed emphasis on this issue in Congress, I am hopeful that real fiscal progress can be made this year.

http://www.house.gov/sensenbrenner/wc20060208.html