Policy Paper

For a more thorough discussion of the VoteTally methodology, please see Appendix C.

II. Analysis

This study uses 125 House votes and 99 Senate votes cast during the 1^st Session of the 109^th Congress. Several Members have been excluded from the data set used for analysis due to resignation, a low vote total, or because they did not serve the entire Session.[3] Appendix A lists Members alphabetically and Appendix B lists Members by state delegation.

A. Data Highlights

• While Members did pass a budget reconciliation bill that slowed the growth of some mandatory programs, Congress's approach to reining in spending appears to have been more rhetorical than reality. Once again, no Member of the House or Senate had a net voting record that would have reduced outlays, even after excluding the growth in mandatory spending programs. The 1^st Session of the 109^th Congress (2005) marks the fifth year in a row where no Member of Congress had a negative net spending agenda. In the 2^nd Session of the 104^th Congress (1996), 512 Members voted for spending cuts in excess of the spending increases that they supported. Since that time, support for spending reductions has fallen dramatically. See Chart 1 for additional data.

• The average House Member supported $182.2 billion in new spending, compared to $231.7 billion during the 108^th Congress (2003), a decline of 21 percent. Proposed spending increases have jumped 509 percent since the 1^st Session of 105^th Congress (1997) and are up just 51 percent over the levels in the 107^th Congress (2001).

• The average Senator voted for $202.9 billion in new spending during the 1^st Session of the 109^th Congress – a 33 percent reduction from the previous Congress. However, spending is still up compared to the 105^th Congress (556 percent), 106^th Congress (194 percent), and the 107^th Congress (69 percent).

• Eight years ago, both the average House Democrat and Republican compiled voting agendas that would have reduced total annual outlays, excluding mandatory spending. Since then, both parties have built net spending hike-agendas: $178.1 billion for Democrats and $168.3 billion for Republicans. The 109^th Congress is the fourth Congress in a row where House Republicans, on average, have backed a larger amount of new spending than have House Democrats. In the 106^th and 109^th Congresses, Republicans ended with lower net agendas because they tended to vote for more reductions than did their Democratic colleagues.

• Despite expansive spending agendas in the House, that chamber continues to be the more fiscally conservative of the two chambers. The average Democratic Senator supported $217.0 billion in new net spending, a decline of 42 percent compared to the previous Congress. That level is still 4,982 percent above spending in the 105^th Congress and 211 percent above that of the 106^th Congress. Senate Republicans, on average, have seen their net voting agenda rise by almost as much over the years. Even though their net spending total fell 11 percent when comparing the 109^th and 108^th Congresses, spending from last year is still 4,476 percent above 1997 levels and 199 percent above what it was in 1999.

• The 108^th Congress considered more spending cut amendments (both in number and total savings) than did the 107^th Congress. This trend did not continue into the 109^th Congress. In 2005, the House voted on 12 spending cuts that totaled $3.7 billion, down from 16 cut proposals worth $13.8 billion during the previous Congress. The Senate voted on four amendments that would have cut spending by $1 million or more during the 109^th Congress, including an amendment to forgo their cost of living adjustment. Those four cuts totaled $1.3 billion, a significant drop from the 108^th Congress when the Senate debated six amendments that totaled $40.3 billion in reductions. In contrast to the House, the Senate was able to pass several such amendments (three out of the four).

• Through the budget reconciliation process, the average Member of the House voted to reduce mandatory spending by $4.1 billion. The average Senator voted for $3.8 billion in mandatory savings.

• Discretionary spending cuts are a small fraction of the spending increases proposed in each chamber. The average Representative supported 5 cents in spending reductions for every dollar in spending increases. The average Senator voted for just 2 cents in spending reductions for every dollar in spending increases.

B. The Rhetoric

Rhetoricians might argue that DeLay's comments were intended to create or shape a reality rather than reflect one. Regardless of his intent, an electronic search of the Congressional Record shows that the former Majority Leader was not alone in discussing fiscal policy. Table 1 highlights the rhetorical record of the last three opening sessions. Whether critics of the nation's current fiscal path have sharpened their attacks or whether supporters have attempted mollify fiscal conservatives (or perhaps both) it is clear that Members have increasingly used words rather than deeds in their sparring over the federal budget.

C. The Reality

It's one thing to declare victory. It's quite another to achieve it. Did the 109^th Congress succeed in curtailing the growth of the federal government, despite suggestions to the contrary? DeLay told The Times "after 11 years of Republican majority we've pared [the federal government] down pretty good."[4] Were DeLay's comments just empty boasting or did he succeed without anyone else noticing?

The Foundation analyzed 125 House votes and 99 Senate votes cast during the 1^st Session of the 109^th Congress that could increase or decrease federal spending by $1 million or more on an annual basis. Mr. DeLay might be surprised to find that the average House Member supported $182.2 billion in new discretionary spending increases, while "paring" only $9.3 billion from discretionary programs. This left the average Member of the House with a net voting agenda of $172.9 billion – again, this is new, additional spending. If Republicans were cutting the federal government down to size during the 109^th Congress, they were not doing it through the amendment process.

During the 1^st Session of the 107^th Congress, the House of Representatives voted on 13 spending cut amendments totaling $9.3 billion in estimated savings. The number and value of spending cuts increased during 108^th Congress, as the House voted on 16 spending cut amendments worth an estimated $13.8 billion in annual savings. However, this trend, which many taxpayers would view positively, did not carry over to the 109^th Congress. During the 1^st Session of this Congress, the House considered 12 amendments that would cut spending by $1 million or more on an annual basis. While the number of votes is not significantly different from the last two Congresses, the dollar value of the cuts certainly is. The 12 spending cuts that the House voted on totaled just $3.7 billion, with the largest being a 1 percent reduction in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. While the House was able to pass one cut in 2003, it was unable to pass any of the 12 amendments in 2005. Table 2 contains the measures considered by the House.

Perhaps Mr. DeLay was thinking of the Senate, where lawmakers voted on four amendments worth $1.3 billion in savings and were able to pass three of them – including an amendment to forgo their cost of living adjustment, something that the House was not willing to do. Table 3 provides data on the Senate's spending cut amendments.

Despite these numbers, DeLay can take some solace on three fronts. First, as Table 4 shows, the average House Member supported a lower level of spending increases in the 109^th Congress ($172.9 billion) when compared to the 108^th Congress ($231.7 billion), a drop of 21.4 percent. Support for spending cuts nearly doubled over the same period ($9 billion during the 1^st Session of this Congress, up from $5.5 billion during the last Congress). To be clear, these numbers do not show an absolute reduction in spending. Instead, they represent a chamber that voted only to increase spending more slowly than it had in the past, while voting to cut a little more than it did previously. Net agenda averages that would actually reverse overall spending have not been seen in Congress for eight years.

Second, House Republicans had a lower net discretionary spending agenda than did House Democrats ($168.3 billion compared to $178.1 billion) even though Republicans supported $0.7 billion more in raw increases than did their opponents across the aisle. As a whole, however, Republicans were more than four times as likely to support spending cuts ($14.2 billion versus $3.7 billion). Table 3 shows that during the 105^th Congress both parties supported more in spending cuts than they did in increases, leading to negative net spending agendas. Since the 106^th Congress, however, the spending-vote patterns for both parties have changed significantly. The Democrat's net spending agenda is up 275.8 percent from that period, while the Republican agenda is up 283.3 percent. Table 5 contains a comparison of spending averages by party.

Third, while DeLay can take comfort in the fact that the House remains the more fiscally conservative chamber, this is only true in relative rather than absolute terms. The average Senator voted for $202.9 billion in new spending during the first year of the current Congress. Senators, on average, voted for $4.7 billion in spending cuts. Thus, the average Senatorial net spending agenda for the 1^st Session of the 109^th Congress is 14 percent larger than that of the average Representative, even though lawmakers in both chambers still voted to boost the budget.

As in the House, the average net spending agenda in the Senate is lower than that of the 108^th Congress. And, just as in the House, Senators did not finish the session with a negative net spending agenda, but only managed to increase spending more slowly than the previous Congress. The average Senator's net spending total is nearly 5,000 percent above of that of the 105^th Congress and 205 percent larger than that of the 106^th Congress. Table 6 contains data on Senate averages over time.

Perhaps of less interest to DeLay is that Republicans in the Senate, on average, had lower net spending agendas than did their Democratic counterparts ($190.4 billion compared to $218.3 billion, respectively). Even so, Members of both parties pursued vastly smaller agendas for the 105^th Congress ($3.7 billion for Democrats and $4.0 billion for Republicans) than for this Congress. Table 7 contains 1^st Session averages by party.

Averages in both the House and Senate would have been lower, and DeLay's comments might have generated less press, had Congress eliminated low-priority programs to offset the spending associated with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the hurricane response bills. To determine the fiscal impact of these items, NTUF created a database that excluded votes on several pieces of legislation that dealt with funding the global war on terrorism or hurricane cleanup. If the entire cost of these bills had been offset, the average Representative's net voting agenda would have dropped nearly 20 percent from $172.9 billion to $139.3 billion. The average Senator's net spending agenda would have declined from $198.2 billion to $158.2 billion (nearly 25 percent). The excluded bills and their average annual costs are contained in Table 8.

With the failure to offset these spending provisions, it's not surprising that net spending agendas in both chambers remained substantial. The 1^st Session of the 109^th Congress is the fifth such instance in a row where no Member of Congress was able to offset all of his or her proposed spending increases with spending cuts. Chart 1 shows a steep decline in the number of Members over the past ten years whose votes would reduce overall discretionary spending, from 512 in 1996 to zero in 2001. Taxpayers will have to wait until the end of the 2^nd Session to see if the firestorm surrounding DeLay's comments will cause Congress to recover from this precipitous fall.

D. Where to Pare?

In 2005, lawmakers turned to a familiar target when it attempted to pare spending: entitlements. The 104^th Congress passed welfare reform. The 105^th Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which slowed the rate of growth in Medicare and other federal entitlements. The 109^th Congress passed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bulk of the expected $35 billion reduction in budget authority over the next 10 years is derived from changes to:

• The federal student loan program;
• Medicare and Medicaid, including the State Children's Health Insurance Program;
• The process for auctioning the electromagnetic spectrum, and
• The federal pension insurance program.[5]

Since the 105^th Congress, NTUF has observed the inability of Congress to either control discretionary spending or to reform rather than tweak mandatory programs. An easy target for paring should be personally directed spending or "earmarks" inserted into legislation by Members of Congress.[6] The number of earmarks has risen dramatically since 1995 when Members stuffed just 1,400 requests into the budget. Now, there are more than 14,000.[7] Yet, DeLay even justified these parochial requests by saying, "We are an equal branch of government – why should we let a bureaucrat decide?"[8]

Rather than excusing Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere," federally-funded parking garages for an art museum in Omaha, and other questionable projects, Congress should be working to eliminate earmarks. Then it can turn its attention to overhauling America's creaking entitlement system.

III. Conclusion

Pundits continue to debate whether or not the departure of Tom DeLay from Congress will help to reduce the high level of partisanship that permeates Capitol Hill. It is unlikely, however, that one person's exit will dramatically change how Congress addresses fiscal policy. Over the past decade, Members of Congress have continued to vote for more and more discretionary spending, while occasionally voting to slow the growth of entitlement programs – without making the necessary reforms to keep them from overwhelming taxpayers in the future. Congress as a whole remains thoroughly addicted to pork barrel spending. Until there is Presidential leadership from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and threatened vetoes become real, Congress will continue to wrap itself in its own rhetorical shroud – one that cannot conceal the hollow "victory" over bigger government that some lawmakers claim to have won.

Jeff Dircksen
Director of Congressional Analysis