Trend to Spend: How Appropriations Committee Members Measure Up (and Down) with Taxpayers

I. Introduction

Amid rising public concern over a Congressional Budget Office projection of a $422 billion federal deficit, and the explosion of pork-barrel expenditures in this year's budget, the national government is in need of fiscal restraint now more than ever. Regrettably, however, it seems that few elected officials can, over time, maintain their zeal against frivolous spending measures that benefit special interests and punish taxpayers. One way to test this notion is to examine the fiscal records of Members of the Appropriations Committee – arguably the most coveted and most powerful Committee in the Senate. By analyzing National Taxpayers Union (NTU) Ratings of self-described "fiscal conservatives" on the Appropriations Committee, it is clear that once a Senator earns this plum committee assignment, his or her record on fiscal restraint can suffer significantly. As both political parties in Congress parcel out committee assignments for 2005, these findings are not encouraging for taxpayers seeking a change in the tax-and-spend Washington mentality that has plagued American government for decades.

II. Methodology

NTU has conducted ratings of Members of Congress since its founding in 1969. In 1979, however, NTU combined its then-recent practice of tracking every vote in Congress that significantly affected federal spending, tax relief, and regulation with a new feature: categorizing assessments of performance on that basis. Thus, 1979 serves as the benchmark for this study.

Votes in the NTU Rating are weighted to reflect their relative impact on fiscal policy, and are then compared to actual voting records to produce "Taxpayer Scores" that reflect each lawmaker's commitment to reducing or controlling the burden of government. This study focuses on the relative ranks for each Taxpayer Score (i.e., a rank of "1" has the highest, or best Taxpayer Score), and Taxpayer Grades (A, B, C, D, F).

NTU ranks in the Senate were examined for Members of the Appropriations Committee from their freshman year in the Senate and then compared to the average rank of their first two-year term (both Congressional sessions) on the Appropriations Committee. Results for the most recent (2003) NTU ranks were also studied to track whether Members improved from their freshman year in the Senate.

Members who took office before 1979,[1] or who were on the Appropriations Committee before that date, were excluded from the results. Additionally, Members who were awarded an Appropriations Committee seat their freshman year as Senator,[2] were not included in the study. If a Member of the Committee originally took office during the middle of a term, the NTU Rating was taken for his or her first full year in the Senate.

III. Results

As the following chart indicates, only one Republican Appropriations Committee Member among the 12 studied (Mitch McConnell, R-KY) improved from their initial NTU rank to their first two-year term on the Committee, while 10 slid backward (Kay Bailey Hutchison's (R-TX) ranking did not change). On average, for Republican Members the first two years on the Appropriations Committee were associated with a slippage in rank of 8.42 places, versus the first year in the Senate. The chart below tracks the initial NTU rank with the Senators' first stint on the Appropriations Committee.[3]

	Brownback	DeWine	Hutchison	Craig	Bennett	Gregg	Burns	McConnell	Bond	Domenici	Specter	Cochran
Freshman year as Senator	7	32	19	9	24	44	23	33	24	24	65	21
Freshman term as Appropriator	29	34	19	19	39	16	26	28	30	28	72	44

In order to determine whether a difference of 8.42 was statistically significant to warrant further review, a paired t-test of statistical variance was performed on the entry rank for freshman Senators and then again once they became freshman Appropriations Committee Members. The two-tailed P value equals 0.0062; a P value of less than or equal to 0.01 is considered significant. With a 95 percent confidence, there is a statistical difference between the entry rank of Republican Members and their first term on the Committee.

The average Republican Appropriations Committee Member entered the Senate with a ranking of 23.5, placing them just slightly better than the average Republican Member. Once Senators took their place on the Appropriations Committee, however, their ranking fell to 32, and in the case of some (Senator Arlen Specter, with a rank of 72), their first year on the Committee rivaled that of an average Democrat, rather than an average Republican.

With the exception of Senator Hutchison, whose status was unchanged, all but one Republican Senator included in the study worsened in rank from the two periods in question. Senator McConnell, who arrived in Congress after the landslide election of 1984, had the 33^rd-best Taxpayer Score, according to NTU rankings. Upon his ascension onto the coveted Appropriations Committee, he improved his ranking to 28, better than any of his colleagues fared once they were given the opportunity to control federal largesse.

On the other hand, Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) saw his ranking erode from 21 to 44. During the Second Session of the 108^th Congress, Senator Cochran ranked 37, making it difficult to determine whether his Taxpayer Score will improve after taking the reins of the Committee.

Despite having some early slippage of his ranking (see note 3 for details), Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) is the only Member of the Committee who received an "A" grade in 2003, and has done so on more occasions than any other Senator on the panel. In fact, Senator Gregg has received eight "A" grades during his 11 years of service. Thus, it appears that Senator Gregg's tenure on the Appropriations Committee has not significantly affected his record.

Senator Gregg's individual performance aside, the overall data prompts a political question: would lawmakers on the other side of the aisle serve as more responsible stewards of our tax dollars? Here again, an analysis of NTU's Rating provides an answer. While Democrats saw an average erosion of their rankings (9.00) that was only slightly worse than their Republican colleagues (8.42), overall Democratic Members on the Appropriations panel fared much worse. The average initial rank for the Democratic freshman Senators included in this study was 66.4, versus the Republican average rank of 23.5. Furthermore, every Minority Member of the Appropriations Committee received an "F" grade from NTU for the second session of the 108^th Congress. The highest NTU-ranked Democrat on the Appropriations Committee for 2003 was now-retired South Carolina Senator Ernest Hollings (57). Other Members on the Committee received rankings as poor as 96 (Richard Durbin, D-IL), 98 (Barbara Mikulski, D-MD), 99 (Daniel Inouye, D-HI), and 100 (Byron Dorgan, D-ND).

The chart below tracks the initial NTU rank with the Democratic Senators' first stint on the Appropriations Committee.

The data indicates that every Democratic Member of the Appropriations Committee studied worsened in rank when comparing their freshman year as Senator to their freshman term as Appropriator. Senator Dorgan dropped in rank from a somewhat respectable 61, to 88 at the end of his first term appropriating federal money. Although this decrease in fiscal discipline is significant, it pales in comparison to his most recent (2003) NTU rank in the Senate of 100. Senator Dorgan has shown allegiance not to American taxpayers, but to pork-barrel spending and special interest perks.

Despite falling by nine places, during his first term on the Appropriations Committee Senator Herb Kohl (WI) retained the best rank (42) among the Democratic Appropriators studied. Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Tim Johnson (D-SD) managed to slip the least in their rankings, at just one place (63 down to 64) and three places (from 85 to 88), respectively. Curiously, both Senators served just one full year of a two-year Appropriations Committee term. [4]

IV. A Case for Term Limits?

The propensity to spend often seems to rise over the course of a Congressional career. One can see confirmation of this through proposed spending increases by freshman and veteran Members of the Senate. According to a BillTally study conducted by Demian Brady, Senior Policy Analyst for NTU's research arm, there are distinct empirical differences between freshman Members of the Senate and their senior colleagues. Created in 1991, BillTally computes a net annual agenda for each Member of Congress based on sponsorship and co-sponsorship of pending legislation (whose costs are estimated by using third-party sources or neutral data). Utilizing BillTally data, Brady concluded that during the first 18 months of the 108^th Congress, freshman Members of the Senate proposed an average increase of $28.6 billion in federal spending, while non-freshman Members proposed an average of $118.4 billion in federal spending.[5] Voting records of Members of the Appropriations Committee certainly don't contradict this phenomenon.

Taking a longer view, of the Members included in the study, only two have substantially improved their NTU rankings from their freshman year to present. If Senator Arlen Specter is excluded for his mediocre 2003 ranking of 48, then only Senator McConnell can claim this distinction. McConnell's record went from the 33^rd-best in 1985, to the 17^th most fiscally responsible in 2003. However, the average loss of rank in Taxpayer Scores for Members of the Appropriations Committee from their first year to the present is seven ranks in the Senate. One example of this trend is Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), who has stated, "Establishing fiscal responsibility in our federal government is one of the most pressing issues that we face."[6] Yet, after beginning his career in the Senate with a laudable ranking of 7, and an "A" grade, Senator Brownback's performance has undergone a precipitous drop that saw him earn a "B-" in 2003, and a ranking that fell almost an entire quartile in the Senate.

V. Conclusion

It has been stated that in Congress there are three parties: Democrats, Republicans, and Appropriators. These results indicate that there may be at least some truth to that charge. The three highest-ranking Members on the Appropriations Committee are not apologetic about their penchant for higher spending and their love of pork-barrel expenditures – a proclivity that is hardly constitutional, nor is it beneficial for more than a handful of constituents. A top aide to Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) commented, "Senator Bond always said pork is a mighty fine diet for Missouri."[7] The taxpayers who pick up the tab for this diet might not agree. Given Appropriators' ability to control billions of dollars, thousands of earmarks, and much of the fiscal direction of this country, taxpayers hoping for fiscal restraint in the 109^th Congress will be looking carefully at their voting habits for signs of a solid commitment to change the course of reckless spending.

Notes

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