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June
21, 2002, 8:45 a.m.
For Whom the Bill Tolls
Proposed
congressional spending has hit a decade-high mark.
By
Eric V. Schlecht
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 e
all know Congress spends a lot of money. About $2 trillion in fiscal
year 2002 alone. But not many Americans are aware of how much money Congress
would spend if it were left to its own devices. A recent study by the
National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) analyzes every bill introduced
in Congress and tallies up the costs. The numbers are staggering. For
instance, if every bill introduced in the Senate last year had passed,
spending would have increased by a whopping $1 trillion a year. Not to
be outdone, the House would have increased spending by nearly $2 trillion
a year.
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The study, aptly
named BillTally and authored by NTUF senior policy analyst Tom McClusky,
uses a unique cost-accounting system that computes the "net annual
agenda cost" for each member of Congress, based upon individual sponsorships
and cosponsoships of pending legislation. This often-overlooked aspect
of fiscal behavior is important because it represents each lawmaker's
individual spending priorities, free from the influence of committees,
party leaders, and rules surrounding floor votes. The study confirms what
many outside Washington suspect: politicians are not to be trusted with
our money.
NTUF has conducted
BillTally for ten years and this year's results are the worst. While many
lawmakers in Washington may be talking about fiscal discipline in the
wake of September 11, actions speak louder than words — and congressional
actions suggest something other than fiscal discipline. Here a just a
few of the study's more interesting, yet disturbing, findings:
House bills that
proposed to increase spending outnumbered spending reduction bills by
nearly 18 to 1; on the Senate side, the ratio of increases to cuts was
30 to 1.
The average House
Democrat had a net legislative agenda that would raise federal spending
by $262.4 billion annually (an increase of 13% over current outlays,
and an 800% jump from their average agenda in the last Congress). House
Republicans posted a net overall agenda of $19.8 billion — a disappointing
reversal from last year's average that proposed to cut spending by $4.6
billion.
Senate Democrats
boosted their agendas six-fold, to $88.2 billion, while Republicans
reversed course from a $0.3 billion average-cut agenda in the last Congress
to an $18.7 billion increase in 2001.
Finally, only 31
lawmakers out of 534 studied had net-total agendas that would cut federal
spending. This marked two firsts in the history of BillTally —
just one of the 31 would-be cutters served in the Senate, and that lawmaker
was a Democrat (Russ Feingold of Wisconsin).
So insatiable is
the congressional desire to spend, it seems that only a scarcity of revenues
may stop them — providing yet another example of how the Bush tax
cut was so important to the country and our economy.
But all this proposed
spending could seriously jeopardize many of the tax cuts included in last
year's tax bill that have yet to take effect (in other words, most of
them). After all, if the average agenda of House members with a pro-spending
agenda were enacted, outlays would increase by approximately $1,185 a
year per taxpayer. Does anyone doubt for a second that if faced with the
choice between doling out more dollars in government spending or following
through on last year's tax cut, Congress will choose the former?
As McClusky recently
noted, "Americans were rewarded early last year with a tax cut that
would begin to return their hard-earned money, but unless Congress begins
to tighten the belt of the federal budget's bulging waistline, further
cuts will not be realized."
While many Americans
believe congressional actions don't affect them directly, BillTally is
an important reminder that they can and often do. The money needed to
pay for all of those proposed spending bills has to come from somewhere,
and that somewhere is our wallets. So remember, every time a member of
Congress introduces another bill to increase spending — that bill
tolls for all of us.
—
Eric V. Schlecht is director of congressional relations for the National
Taxpayers Union.
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