This morning the Senate voted on cloture to move forward the sequester-busting budget deal the House passed last week. The deal is proof-positive that Congress can’t keep spending in line with modest budget caps, even when those caps are The. Law.
Before Senators vote on final passage tomorrow, they should consider Senator Coburn’s (R-OK) “Wastebook 2013,” released just a few hours ago. This year’s Wastebook highlights nearly $30 billion in “questionable and lower-priority spending.” Sen. Coburn goes on to note that this is just “a small fraction of the more than $200 billion we throw away every year through fraud, waste, duplication and mismanagement.”
Some of the outrageous highlights of this year’s Wastebook include:
- More than 100,000 federal employees being paid a salary of at least $100,000 were furloughed as non-essential. Each of these were paid $4,000 for the time off of work during the shutdown. [emphasis added]
- $297 million on a blimp for the Army that flew once, for 90 minutes, over Lakehurst, NJ.
- $65 million in Hurricane Sandy “Emergency” Funds spent on TV ads
- $325,525 on a National Institute of Health study that found wives should calm down faster during arguments with their husbands
Go here to read the whole list.
Only a few months ago, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) proclaimed, “The cupboard is bare. There’s no more cuts to make.” However, as Senator Coburn’s annual Wastebook so ably demonstrates, the cupboard is far from bare.
Congress shouldn’t be resorting to accounting gimmicks and promised cuts in the future to pay for more spending now. We often say that Congress needs to make tough decisions on spending, and they do, but as the Wastebook and NTU’s own report with our friends at U.S. PIRG prove – there are still a lot of easy decisions Congress is leaving on the table.
Senator Coburn goes on to point out, “There is more than enough stupidity and incompetence in government to allow us to live well below the budget caps. What’s lacking is the common sense and courage in Washington to make those choices – and passage of fiscally-responsible spending bills – possible.”
Click here to call your Senator now and urge them to keep the caps and oppose the budget deal.