While everyone inside the Beltway is focusing on President Trump’s recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin’s involvement in the 2016 election, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are quietly working on their respective spending packages for the upcoming fiscal year. Yet again, a unified Republican government is going to publicly advocate for fiscal conservatism, while at the same time increasing spending across the board. The Democrats will likely allow irresponsible spending to continue so long as the programs they like get a bump in funding.
Failing to address the debt will hurt us in the long run, wiping out the gains that are being made in the economy. With both parties working together, and the national debt exceeding $20 trillion, the taxpayer always loses.
So far, the House has passed one minibus (a combination of two or more appropriations bills combined into one package) which provides funding for three of the 12 subcommittees: Energy and Water Development, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs. The Senate passed that bill with changes, sending it back the House for approval, increasing spending by about $7 billion over the 2018 levels. Back in March, those levels were increased by about $15 billion from the previous year.
Additionally, the House passed H.R. 6147 this week, a second minibus which would fund two more subcommittees: Interior and Environment, and Financial Services and General Government. The passage of this minibus would keep spending at the fiscal 2018 levels, but would implement Rep. Tom Graves’, R-Ga., new plan for debt reduction. The chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Appropriations, in the Financial Services portion of the bill, would create the Fund for America’s Kids and Grandkids.
The plan would put away two and a half pennies for every dollar spent in this bill, starting with an initial investment of $585 million. This money can only be spent when the Treasury secretary determines that the budget deficit is gone. Though the topline numbers would stay the same, this money would not be touched, resulting in modest savings. This plan would start moving Washington away from the “spend it or lose it” mentality, and toward saving for the future.
Still, important appropriations bills need to pass like Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (all one subcommittee) and Defense. Spending on these was also just ramped up in the March omnibus, but will likely see additional increases. Implementing a policy like Graves’ in those appropriations packages would be a great starting point.
Another solution has been introduced by Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker, R-N.C. His legislation would hopefully curb long-run spending by requiring agencies to author reports on current recommendations made by the Government Accountability Office and Inspectors General reports. These reports signal to agencies how they can more effectively and efficiently spend taxpayer dollars, but are often simply ignored. The GAO-IG Act was passed in the House on Monday and would save at least $87 billion.
Over and over, Congress votes to spend more money without debating the merits of each individual program. Recently, the Congressional Budget Office totaled the number of programs that are unauthorized, meaning their funding has expired and has not been voted on, putting the program on autopilot.
The amount of money designated to these programs is supposed to be debated every year, but sometimes members of Congress simply ignore this process and continue at the same levels or even increase funding. More than 1,000 authorizations have expired, resulting in $318 billion dollars in spending simply escaping debate. Every year, these programs keep receiving appropriations funding, despite the fact that they haven’t been authorized in decades. In fact, it’s been decades since the Federal Trade Commission, National Weather Service, and the Federal Election Commission have been reauthorized (1998, 1993 and 1981, respectively), just to name a few.
While the massive appropriations bills are being debated and solutions like Graves’ are being considered, the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform has been meeting for months to try and suggest changes that would help fix the process of constant continuing resolutions, omnibuses, and minibuses. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., the panel’s co-chairwoman, blames “polarization and partisanship” for the failure to get budgets passed. She points to the Senate’s success of passing bipartisan appropriations bills as a role model for the House to look into.
The problem is that when Democrats and Republicans work together, more spending is often agreed upon. There’s never a debate to look at all spending, weigh the pros and cons, and determine where the federal government should focus their energy. Instead, the new bipartisan budget rule is, “I vote for your spending, if you vote for mine.” Just look at the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, passed less than six months ago. In order to get big increases in defense spending, Republicans gave Democrats increases in nondefense discretionary spending programs, while both silently agreed touching entitlement spending was out of the question.
The Heritage Foundation and the Republican Study Committee recently released their annual budget proposals, giving Congress even more examples of what they can do to cut spending. Both of those, on top of legislation introduced by Walker and Graves shows that there are not only viable solutions, but Republican policymakers who are dedicated to solving this problem. Bipartisanship won’t solve the issue of spending, it will simply make it worse.
Jake Grant (@thejakegrant) is a Young Voices Advocate and outreach director for the Coalition to Reduce Spending. The views expressed here are his own.
