Washington Post Asks for Budget Plans
The Washington Post’s editorial board issued a challenge to the president and his Republican opponents: “show us your plans” for deficit reduction. In fact, the Post says it would be “delighted” to receive plans from its readers. However, the Post isn’t interested in “meaningless promises” to cut “waste, fraud, and abuse”—it wants specifics:
Here’s what we’re not looking for: pablum about eliminating unnecessary spending without identifying where. Gauzy rhetoric about making hard choices without making them. Meaningless promises about eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Broad assertions about where to find the money — “Medicare savings,” “tax reform” — without specifics. Arbitrary spending caps without accompanying details about how those limits are to be met. If you believe, for example, that federal spending should be kept to a specific share of the economy — 18 percent? 20 percent? — show the plausible path to getting there.
Amen. Chris Edwards and I have been beating the drum for Republican policymakers in particular to get specific about what they would cut. Chris recently noted that with the exception of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), and perhaps a few others, Republicans aren’t putting much effort into identifying programs to terminate. And I have noted that “It’s more common to hear Republicans blubber on about ‘reducing waste, fraud, and abuse’ in government programs and ‘saving’ the pillars of the welfare state (Social Security and Medicare) for ‘future generations.’”
As for deficit reduction ideas from Washington Post readers, we have a balanced budget plan on our Downsizing the Federal Government website. In fact, not only do we have a plan, we have over three dozen essays on numerous government agencies that provide details on what programs to cut and why.
Obsession with Senate “Holds” Is Misguided
With the start of the 112th Congress, Senate Democrats have offered a set of rule changes, most of which are geared toward the filibuster. Some of these changes, such as guaranteeing the minority at least three amendments, make a great deal of sense. I’ve long thought that the practice of the majority leader (of any party) “filling the amendment tree” did not make for good legislating. And I say that, recalling as a former Senate staffer, the practice made my life easier on numerous occasions.
One part of the package, however, that of ending “secret” holds, strikes me as rather uninformed as to actual Senate practice. First let’s recall that a “hold’ is essentially a method for senators to tell the majority leader that if the leader were to try to move a nomination or piece of legislation by unanimous consent, that Senator would object on the Senate floor.
There are lots of reasons why senators might put a hold on a bill. They object to the bill and would like to be able to vote “no,” which is impossible when moving bills by unanimous consent (UC). Maybe they’d like to offer an amendment. Or, I know this sounds crazy, maybe they (or their staff) would like time to actually read the bill.
The rules change package does aim at ending “secret” holds, where the senator placing the hold is not publicly known. Again speaking from my own experience of seven years as a Senate committee staffer and having helped passed dozens of bills by UC, I have never once had a problem of figuring out who was behind a hold. In fact, most the time the Senate office in question would call me and let me know what their problem was. The vast majority of the time we were able to address the issue and move forward. Many holds only lasted a few hours. Several offices, such as Senator Coburn’s, actually read every bill that was brought to the floor, and all they wanted was a little time to do so. I can’t see how anyone would have a problem with that.
As to the secret nature of holds, I have yet to see a case where that knowledge didn’t become public. The risk to making it public immediately is that every special interest involved in the bill would swarm upon whoever placed the hold. And that is what removing the “secret” hold is really about: giving special interests further opportunities to pressure senators before they have the time to actually learn the issue and perhaps work out a compromise with their colleagues.
At its core, the hold is simply a courtesy between senators. And courtesy is something I think the Senate needs more of, rather than less. Of course, holds would not matter at all if we just made two simple changes: no more moving bills/nominations by unanimous consent (have actual votes), and announce at least a week ahead of time which bills will be voted on and have the bill language publicly available.
Emergency Spending
A recent paper by Veronique de Rugy examines how policymakers use various budgeting gimmicks to increase spending and obscure liabilities. One particularly abusive mechanism is the designation of supplemental spending as an “emergency.” The emergency designation makes it easier for policymakers to skirt budgetary rules, particularly “pay-as-you-go” (PAYGO) requirements.
The following chart from the paper shows how supplemental spending, most of which was designated as “emergency,” has taken off in the last decade:
As the chart notes, much of the increase is attributable to supplemental appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration was rightly criticized by analysts across the ideological spectrum for funding the wars outside of the standard budget process.
However, with the Democrats in control, the emergency designation is now being abusively applied to domestic spending. Congressional Research Service data obtained by the office of Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) finds that emergency spending has increased deficits by almost $1 trillion since the 111th Congress was seated in January 2009.
The biggest chunk came with passage of the $862 billion “emergency” stimulus bill in February 2009. The Obama administration insisted that the emergency spending legislation was necessary to jump-start the economy and keep unemployment below 8 percent. Oops.
Congress has since passed additional multi-billion dollar “emergency” bills to extend supposedly simulative activities like unemployment benefits. The latest “emergency” extender bill that is bogged down in the Senate would add another $57 billion in debt.
What is Congress allowed to designate as emergency spending? Keith Hennessey, a former economic advisor to George W. Bush, offers the best definition: “it’s whatever you can get away with labeling as an emergency.”
However, Hennessey points out that there was originally a test with a fairly high bar created by the Office of Management and Budget in 1991 under the first President Bush. According to Hennessey, all five of these conditions had to be met:
- Necessary; (essential or vital, not merely useful or beneficial)
- Sudden; (coming into being quickly, not building up over time)
- Urgent; (requiring immediate action)
- Unforeseen; and
- Not permanent.
Hennessey says the definition was included in congressional budget resolutions during Bush II’s administration and that the president proposed codifying it in law. But that doesn’t seem to be the policy that the Bush II administration actually followed. With perhaps the exception of initial hostilities, there was nothing “unforeseen” about Bush’s “emergency” war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems that Bush’s inability to abide by his own proposal is another sad reminder that his fiscally reckless tenure helped pave the road to Obama.
Republicans and Earmarks
This week, a handful of fiscally conservative Republican senators have been trying to cut earmarks out of the $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, the legislation contains 8,570 earmarks worth $7.7 billion.
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has sought to strike specific items, like the $200,000 earmark for Tattoo Removal Violence Prevention Outreach Program in Burbank, California and the $1.9 million earmark to the Pleasure Beach Water Taxi Service in Connecticut.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has taken a broader approach by introducing an amendment to strike all earmarks from the bill and revert to last year’s spending levels.
Not surprisingly, they have been unsuccessful. And given recent events, one must wonder if these efforts by fiscal conservatives are even welcomed by members of their own party.
The amendments introduced by Coburn and McCain were defeated by opposition from not only by the majority of Democratic senators, but also many Republican appropriators, like Senators Thad Cochrane (R-MS) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
And despite his occasional anti-earmark rhetoric and support for the Coburn and McCain amendments, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is one of the chief beneficiaries of the earmark-laden omnibus bill. Reports suggest he requested either $75 or $51 million for his home state of Kentucky. Either way, he will obtain far more than his Democratic counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), whose earmark requests total $26 million.
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) has been fairly consistent in her criticism of the earmarking process and, for the most part, has voted accordingly. Proving that Republican affection for earmarking is a bicameral phenomenon, her stance attracted ire from Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO), formerly one of the highest-ranking Republicans in House, who said he “would hope that Claire would change her mind on this,” as he praised Senator Kit Bond’s (R-MO) prowess at earmarking.
Now, earmarks make up a relatively small slice of the overall budget, but as Coburn has noted, the problem with earmarks is ‘‘the hidden cost of perpetuating a culture of fiscal irresponsibility. When politicians fund pork projects they sacrifice the authority to seek cuts in any other program.”
For more on earmarks, check out the “Corporate Welfare and Earmarks” chapter of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers.
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