With Congressman Dingell (D-MI) becoming the longest serving Member in the House of Representatives, I thought it would be interesting to put his career in context. He has served since 1955 and was elected to his 29th term in office this year. Through those 57 years, he supported a lot of legislation that would change how the government spends tax dollars. However, it's hard to put an overall career number of how much he would spend or save if his legislation was all enacted. As a Congressman for 57 years, he predates NTUF's BillTally project (and for that matter the National Taxpayers Union and Foundation) but I pulled together the totals that he has supported in the last 20 years. Note: NTUF has data from the 107th to the 112th Congresses online.
Proposed Spending Agendas of Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) (in millions of dollars) | |||
Congress | Increase | Decrease | Net |
102 | $84,786 | ($1,589) | $83,197 |
103 | $539,660 | ($95) | $539,565 |
104 | $538,451 | ($66) | $538,385 |
105 | $557,479 | $0 | $557,479 |
106 | $606,877 | ($8) | $606,869 |
$626,931 | ($854) | $626,077 | |
$647,529 | ($3) | $647,526 | |
$651,110 | ($508) | $650,116 | |
$607,283 | ($662) | $606,621 | |
$937,076 | ($7,441) | $929,635 | |
$77,810 | ($13,731) | $64,079 | |
102-112 Average | $534,090 | ($2,269) | $531,777 |
| Source: NTUF BillTally System | |||