Let's Get Real About Spending

Statement

Let's Get Real About Spending

Tax season is upon us - the time of year when working Americans learn how many of their hard-earned dollars will go to Uncle Sam.

Do you know what happens to your tax dollars once they get to Washington?

More than half - about 53 cents of every dollar - goes to entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and welfare spending. Another 22 cents goes to national defense and the War on Terror. About nine cents goes to pay interest on the national debt (and growing).

The rest - about 16 cents - is what is called non-defense discretionary spending for America's many needs, including transportation, law enforcement, education, science, agriculture, housing, and economic development.

While some folks don't want to admit it, most discretionary money gets earmarked, the question is by whom.

Despite our Constitutional "power of the purse" only a tiny fraction of non-defense discretionary spending - less than 2 percent - is "earmarked" by Congress for a specific purpose. In other words - roughly 2 percent of 16 percent.

The term "earmark" has become a dirty word, symbolizing wasteful spending such as the proposed "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska, or the Hippie Museum in Woodstock, New York, and Thanks to some alert Members of Congress, watchdog groups and the media, these projects were eliminated before they became law.

But the term "earmark" is also mistakenly used to denigrate any project included in any appropriations bill by any Member of Congress, no matter how worthy.

Now, some politicians may trust only bureaucrats to do all the earmarking. They may not trust themselves or local citizens to set priorities, but I sure do.

I have been proud to support many projects recommended by local and community leaders in Missouri to improve health care, protect children from lead poisoning, protect communities from floods, fight meth, rebuild our infrastructure, conduct scientific research, and foster economic development.

These projects do not squander taxpayer dollars; on the contrary they serve a compelling state or local need that would not otherwise be funded and contribute to future growth of our economy and public safety.

If elected officials don't have a say, all federal spending decisions will be made by Washington bureaucrats - and some of those are bad decisions. Here are just three of many decisions made by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats that affect our state:

* The Army Corps of Engineers repeatedly refused to make flood control projects like the St. Louis Floodwall a priority in the budget - even after much of the city was under water in 1993. The protection of our state's largest city from future flooding will only come as a result of a well-spent earmark.

· Bureaucrats at the Department of Transportation decided that out of $850 million in discretionary funding, Missouri deserved none; instead the money was made available to a handful of cities, some of whom couldn't even use the money.

* Bureaucrats at the Department of Defense wanted to send the French a $40 billion earmark for the Air Force's Tanker in a process that the Government Accountability Office found full of significant errors instead of having Americans build it here at home.

Americans are fed up - and rightly so - with Washington spending too much money and spending it poorly. There is no question, a bad earmark, no matter who does it, is bad, and should be eliminated but not all earmarks are created equal.

The debate over earmarks too often masks the larger issues of Washington's out-of-control spending. Those who are training their guns on earmarks as a source of wasteful spending are too often missing the significant target.

Of far more concern is the massive, trillion-dollar "stimulus" bill Congress passed last month over my strong opposition. What was supposed to be an emergency bill to stimulate the economy became a down payment on liberal policy priorities. Once in place, these programs will be nearly impossible to cut or eliminate.

And of course, the real threat to the budget in the long-term is runaway entitlement spending, set to explode in the decades ahead on programs like Social Security and Medicare.

It is this part of the federal budget that truly needs reform for the long-term financial health of the American people. The Social Security and Medicare Trustees have repeatedly warned Congress that these programs are headed for bankruptcy.

Every dollar of taxpayer funds sent to Washington should be spent wisely, and I pledge to work with anyone - regardless of party - who wants to get real about federal spending.

But I won't go along with plans that put more trust in Washington bureaucrats than local leaders in Missouri.

Source