DearMember of Congress:
On behalf of the 362,000 members of the NationalTaxpayers Union (NTU), I urge you to support legislative efforts underway withHouse Budget Committee Members to strengthen spending controls, enhanceaccountability, and increase transparency in the federal budget process.
The past decade has witnessed an explosion in spendingdriven by factors such as the creation of a new cabinet-level Department ofHomeland Security, rapidly rising entitlement costs, and the recent surge inso-called “crisis responses,” including the$862 billion “economic stimulus” bill of 2009. Congress clearly lacks theinstitutional will to restrain spending, a situation made worse by the fact thatlawmakers maneuver on a field tilted in favor of increased spending and taxes.The budgeting process itself is also undoubtedly broken, as evidenced byCongress’s abandonment of the regular-order appropriations process in the pastseveral years. Washington has instead relied upon stopgap measures or lastminute must-pass deals that few have had a chance to read or understand.
Republican Members of theHouse Budget Committee have introduced a package of nine thoughtfullyconstructed bills that would help to apply the brakes to a budgeting process indanger of spinning out of control. Among the many beneficial proposals, Rep.Campbell’s “Spending Control Act” would set total, mandatory, and discretionaryspending caps. The result would be a more holistic, deliberative exercise inwhich spending increases in one area must be offset with spending cuts in another.This is a powerful tool for encouraging legislators to prioritize expenditures.However, NTU would like to have seen a more aggressive approach that wouldachieve balance between outlays and historical revenues more quickly.
The reform package would also lessen the bias towardever-higher spending by making prudent adjustments to how the calculation ofthe budgetary baseline is conducted. Rep. Woodall’s “Baseline Reform andGovernment Shutdown Prevention Act,” would eliminate automatic inflation increasesthat are baked into the budgetary cake and often obscure the true amount ofyear-to-year spending reductions or increases. Another proposal, Rep.Chaffetz’s “Review Every Dollar Act,” would help take the federal budget offauto-pilot by requiring periodic reviews of all federal programs and makingmodest changes to direct spending programs like the Highway Trust Fund and PellGrants to more accurately reflect their impact on the budget. Additionally,Rep. Garrett’s “Budget Transparency Act” would introduce a “fair-value”methodology to federal credit programs so as to incorporate the impact ofmarket risk and thus provide a more realistic accounting of their costs totaxpayers.
These are but a few highlights among the nine billsintroduced by House Republicans devoted to creating a more workable andtransparent budget process. They would not serve as a cure-all, or as asubstitute for constitutional measures such as a Balanced Budget Amendment.Nonetheless, they would instill a healthy measure of spending discipline aswell as bring more clarity to federal finances. For all these reasons, NTUrecommend that you work toward enactment of this multi-faceted package.
Sincerely,
Brandon GreifeFederalGovernment Affairs Manager