Papers

II. Analysis of Findings

A. Fewer Proposals Overall …

During the opening months of the 109^th Congress, demand for new spending initiatives by Representatives and Senators decreased from the record levels sought during the kickoff of the 108^th Congress. In the House, there were 613 increase bills, a 10 percent drop from the last Congress, and in the Senate there were 406 increase bills, a nearly 25 percent drop (see Table 1, below).

In fact, the beginning of last year marked the first time since the 104^th Congress that the number of spending bills introduced by Representatives and Senators decreased from the total authored in the previous Congress. The 104^th Congress opened with the fewest spending bills (405 in the House and Senate combined) and the most savings bills (275 combined) in the course of the BillTally tracking project. In contrast, lawmakers proposed 1,223 spending increase bills and 48 cut bills in the beginning of the 108^th Congress. Despite the downturn in the 109^th from the level reached in the 108^th, Members introduced over twice as many spending bills than there were at this point in the first year of the Republican-majority rule of Congress.

In the initial months of the current Congress, Members also introduced fewer bills to reduce spending – fewer than during any previously tracked Congress. Ten years ago, Representatives offered 185 proposals to cut spending; in the opening of the 109^th they proposed 29 savings bills. The total number of cut bills offered in the Senate dropped from 90 to 11 over that same period.

2005 marked the first time in ten years that the ratio of spending increase bills to decrease bills fell in the House as compared to the previous Congress. Representatives introduced 21 increase bills for each of the cut bills, down from a ratio of 22.7:1 during the 108^th. At this rate of decline, it would take 50 years before the House returned to the 1.4:1 ratio level of the 104^th Congress.

In the Senate, the scarcity of cut bills compared to the 108^th was more acute than the pullback of increase bills, making the bias toward higher outlays even heavier. For every bill to cut spending there were 36.9 bills to increase spending, up from 30.1:1 in the 108^th. This ratio has increased in each Congress since the 104^th, when there were 1.7 increase bills for each savings bill.

The 29 savings bills in the House combined would, if enacted into law, pare back spending by $17.9 billion; the 613 increase bills would add $4.217 trillion in new spending. For each dollar cut, spending is increased by $236.10 (including overlapping proposals). All of the bills in the House combined would increase spending by $107,736.10 per household. In the Senate, the 11 savings bills amount to a $109.5 billion reduction and the 406 spending bills would boost outlays by $329.9 billion – $3.01 for each dollar cut. The sum of all of the Senate bills would add $5,652.64 in new spending per household.

B. … Add Up to (Mostly) Smaller Spending Agendas

The decline (discussed above) in the number of spending proposals led to a corresponding decrease in the net spending agendas (based on the cost and, where applicable, savings of all the bills a Member sponsored or cosponsored) of the average House Republican, and the average Senator of either party. This marks the first time since the beginning of the 106^th Congress that an average Member of any party proposed a lower level of spending than he or she called for in the previous Congress.

From the 103^rd to the 106^th Congress, the average House Republican proposed a mix of legislation whose net effect would decrease spending. During the opening of the 109^th Congress, the average House Republican's net spending agenda ($11 billion) was half as much as it was in the beginning of the 108^th ($24.4 billion). Much of this drop can be attributed to the absence of large-scale spending initiatives such as the Medicare prescription drug bill, legislation that passed in the previous Congress. During the 107^th and 108^th Congresses, the spending agendas of many Republicans rose as they sponsored bills along the lines of President Bush's initial drug benefit plan (which had a price tag of $400 billion over 10 years). Now that the program has become law, proposed spending increases are smaller. The typical House Republican's level of proposed savings would offset 18.4 percent of his or her spending initiatives. For every dollar the average Republican proposed to save, there were $5.43 worth of increases.

While other Members of Congress, on average, proposed a lower level of spending than in the previous Congress, the average Democrat in the House was the notable exception. Not only did the typical House Democrat propose more spending in the 109^th than in the 108^th, he or she proposed more spending ($444.8 billion) and fewer savings ($152 million) than in any of the past seven Congresses. For every dollar cut, the typical House Democrat proposed $2,926 worth of increases.

Despite proposing fewer savings, the average Republican and Democratic Senator significantly decreased their respective net spending agendas compared to the previous two Congresses (see Table 3, above). The average Democrat proposed to cut spending by $67 million, offsetting 0.2 percent of $34.4 billion in spending hikes. Not since the opening of the 104^th Congress has the average Democrat produced an overall agenda that would reduce spending. Across the aisle, the average Republican Senator sponsored bills to reduce spending by $2.1 billion, which would offset 28.8 percent of the sponsored increases in outlays. At the same point in the 104^th Congress, a typical GOP Member in the upper Chamber proposed a net agenda to cut the size of government by $13.1 billion.

C. The Outliers

As Table 4 (below) illustrates, the number of Representatives with net agendas to reduce the size of government more than tripled from 10 to 34 since the last Congress. Meanwhile, the number remained flat at five in the Senate. There were also fewer "major spenders" – members with net agendas to increase spending by greater than $100 billion annually.

In the House, 18.7 percent of Members did not sponsor any of the 29 savings bills – 42 Democrats (20.4 percent of the party) and 40 Republicans (17.3 percent of the party) (see Figure 3, below). 145 Members of the House (33 percent of all Members) signed onto or wrote just a single bill to reduce spending. Among the Democrats, Representative Barney Frank (MA) sponsored the most savings bills (six) and Representative Roscoe Bartlett (MD), with nine cut bills, sponsored the most among Republicans. Meanwhile, there were 75 Senators without any savings bills on their legislative wish list (see Figure 4, below). Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), with four bills to reduce spending, was the only person in the upper Chamber to sponsor or cosponsor more than two cut bills through the first seven months of the 109^th Congress.

D. Length of Service

As Table 5 (below) shows, the net spending agenda of the average Democratic freshman was smaller than that of the returning Democrat, while the opposite proved strangely true for Republicans, in both the House and the Senate. Among Democrats these results occurred because freshmen in either Chamber sponsored both fewer spending increases and more savings than their returning colleagues. Tenure made the greatest difference among House Democrats: the average Democratic freshman sponsored nine times as many savings and less than half the new spending called for by the typical re-elected Democrat.

The net agenda of House freshmen Republicans was $5.6 billion higher than returning Republicans. Although the freshmen called for more budget savings than did re-elected Republicans, they also proposed $6.3 billion more in spending. The typical Senate freshman Republican called for $522 million more net spending because they failed to match their senior colleagues in spending cuts ($340 million versus $2.3 billion).

E. House Member Organizations

Once elected to Congress, a Representative has the option to join any of several Member caucuses that organize around a particular issue area and/or political philosophy. In these caucuses, Members can share ideas and coordinate strategies to promote or oppose particular legislation. Two such caucuses, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) and the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition (BDC), both espouse fiscal discipline for their respective parties. The RSC states that it "organized for the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda in the House of Representatives."[5] On its website, the BDC states that one of its top priorities in the 109^th Congress "… will be to refocus Congress on balancing the budget and ridding taxpayers of the burden the debt places on them."[6] A related third caucus, the Republican Main Street Partnership (RMSP)[7], states it is comprised of "fiscally conservative deficit hawks" who take a "pragmatic approach to governance."[8]

In a finding that some taxpayers may consider contradictory to the principles of fiscal discipline, net agendas among these caucuses would increase spending. Nonetheless, the totals for RSC and BDC members did display constraint relative to their respective political parties; the typical RSC Member proposed less spending and more savings than the average non-RSC Republican, and the same holds true when Blue Dogs are compared to other Democrats.

On the other hand, the self-identified "fiscally conservative deficit hawks" in the Republican Main Street Partnership compiled an average net agenda to increase spending by $18.5 billion – over twice as much as the average net of the RSC ($7.5 billion) and even higher than Republicans not openly-affiliated with either caucus. RMSP members also called for the lowest level of spending cuts among the Republicans – $891 million compared to $3.5 billion for the RSC and $2.4 billion for the rest of the GOP.

If being "fiscally conservative" means that a Representative or Senator has a smaller net spending agenda than his or her peers and having a larger agenda is "fiscally liberal," then the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) – all of whom are Democrats – compiled some of the most "fiscally liberal" net spending agendas within their party. The typical CBC Democrat had a net annual spending agenda ($920.3 billion) that was over twice as large as the average Democrat ($444.7 billion).[9] Meanwhile, the typical Representative in the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, which is comprised of Members from both parties, had a net spending agenda of $292.6 billion.[10]

F. Red vs. Blue

The Presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 were closely fought races that each came down to a handful of battleground states. In examining the state-by-state results, analysts divided the nation into "red" states that supported President Bush and were deemed to lean conservative, and "blue" states that voted for the Democratic challenger in 2004 (Senator John Kerry (MA)) and were deemed to lean liberal. An examination of the net spending agendas in the opening of the 109^th Congress provides some validity to this political designation as a bellwether for fiscal attitudes as well.

All Democrats and House Republicans from the blue states called for more new federal spending than those from red states (see Figures 5 and 6 below). Blue state House Democrats proposed to increase spending nearly twice as high as red state House Democrats, while blue state Republicans serving in the House proposed $5.5 billion more in spending than those from red states. Blue state Democratic Senators called for $11 billion more in spending than their red state colleagues.

Yet, the results for Senate Republicans break the trend; there, red state Republicans called for roughly $700 million more spending than blue state Republicans. Senator Arlen Specter (PA) was one of the net cutters and helped to bring down the average for the blue staters. Five of the 34 net cutters in the House were from blue states; three of four in the Senate hailed from blue states. Eight of the 10 Senators (and seven of the 10 Republicans in the upper Chamber) with the highest overall agendas represented blue states.

III. Conclusion

With regard to reducing spending, most Representatives and Senators got off to a slower start in the 109^th Congress than they did in recent years, and they are laps behind the pace set by many Members in the first year of the Republican takeover. The hurricanes that struck during the August recess of 2005 changed the atmosphere in Washington. In response to the disaster, tens of billions of dollars were promised for relief, yet at the same time, coalitions in Congress emerged calling for offsets in the budget to pay for the new spending. Additionally, outrage over corruption and "bridges to nowhere" have sparked calls for earmark reform and heightened oversight of the appropriations process. These efforts may result in reforms to rein in spending, but as the data in this study show, Members have their work cut out for them if they want to balance their overall spending agendas.

Demian Brady
Senior Policy Analyst

Research information was compiled with the assistance of Policy Analyst Elizabeth Terrell, and Associate Policy Analysts Kyle Colvin, Lacey Holmes, Ryan Kool, Matt Schultz, Ashley Theodore, and Michael Villard.

End Notes