Taxpayer Groups Speak Out Against Feigned Fiscal Conservatism
Thursday, June 5, 2008

The House Republican Conference
U.S. House of Representatives
1420 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC  20515

Dear Representative,

          Our respective organizations represent millions of taxpayers across the county.  When the announcement was made that the Republican Policy Committee had created the “Fiscal Integrity Task Force (FIT),” we were elated.  The goal of the FIT, according to Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) is “to put fiscal integrity into government budgeting, taxing, and spending, and to demand that Congress run the federal government like a family budget.”  Leader Boehner declared “[W]e’re going to prove it to Americans by fighting as a team for reforms that will get government off their backs and out of their wallets.”

          Finally, we thought, Republicans in Congress were re-discovering their fiscal soul.  But when FIT, and the Republican Caucus, had an opportunity to demonstrate their new-found mettle with the bloated $300 billion Farm Bill, a majority of their members failed.

          Imagine our surprise and disappointment that 55 percent of the FIT, including Co-Chairmen Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) and Kevin Brady (R-Texas), voted for the Farm Bill.  Among the House Republican Policy Committee (a group of legislators that are supposed to develop “sound policy and legislative initiatives” and provide “forward-looking Republican thinking”), 57 percent also voted in favor of the bill.  Taxpayers have reason to be skeptical when staggeringly expensive and wasteful proposals are being supported by a majority of key Republican legislators at the same time they are claiming they wish to bring fiscal sanity back to Capitol Hill.

          Our organizations recall the statement by former Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas) in September 2005 that Republicans had been victorious in their effort to cut spending and that they had “pared [the government] down pretty good.”  That was apparently based on the majority’s decade of leadership in the House.  But the facts contravene that rhetoric.  Under Republican leadership:

• Pork-barrel spending increased from $12.5 billion in fiscal 1996 to $29 billion in fiscal year 2006, the last year all appropriations bills included earmarks in a Republican-controlled Congress.
• Spending in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act:  A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) reached $286.5 billion, with approximately 6,500 pork-barrel projects totaling $24.5 billion, or 8.6 percent of the total spending.  In comparison, the 1991 highway bill cost $155 billion and had 538 pork-barrel projects.
• Government spending increased from $1.5 trillion in 1995 to $1.9 trillion in 2001, to $2.6 trillion in 2006.
• The national debt increased from $4.8 trillion in 1995 to $8.8 trillion in 2006.

          In 2006, voters handed Republicans a significant defeat.  While the Iraq War was a factor, voters said that the issue of corruption and ethics in government was more important than any other.  Clearly, the hundreds of news stories of how pork-barrel spending led to scandals and jail time for members of Congress and crooked lobbyists weighed heavily in voters’ minds.

          Our members tell us on a daily basis that overspending is their main concern.  They are disheartened and believe there are few they can look to for leadership.

          Therefore, public relations campaigns and clever catchphrases to demonstrate that Republicans have rediscovered their fiscally conservative credentials are empty platitudes if they are not followed up with real actions.  Support for the horrendously expensive Farm Bill that is larded-up with subsidies for wealthy farmers, along with policies that hurt our trading partners, distort the rural economy and drive up food prices is not a way to “get government off Americans’ backs and out of their wallets.”  This is old-fashioned go-along-to-get-along politics, not leadership.

          Ironically, on the day the House passed H.R. 6124, the “fixed” Farm Bill that contains all 15 titles in order to address the Constitutional issues swirling around the sloppily handled original version, Rep. McCotter announced that he had introduced H.R. 6015, the Fiscal Integrity through Transparency (FIT) Act of 2008.  The bill sets up a three-part initiative to reduce government waste and spending.  Rep. McCotter stated, “Excessive spending has rightfully raised doubts about the fiscal integrity of the federal budget and, most importantly, concern by taxpayers for their family budgets.  More transparency, oversight and accountability is required in federal budgeting.”  If the Farm Bill is not “excessive spending,” then we would like to know just how much more extreme a piece of legislation would have to become in order to “fit” into that category. Transparency is commendable, but it doesn’t trump the need to shrink government.

           Taxpayers do not want a Tax-and-Spend Congress, nor do they want a Spend-and-Spend-Again Congress, either.  Simply trying to prove that one party’s spending habits are a little less profligate than the other party’s is not an answer.  Unless there is real evidence of a majority of Republicans consistently voting in a fiscally conservative manner (as well as Democrats), the members of our organizations and indeed all taxpayers will not be getting the change the nation deserves.

Sincerely,

Ed Frank                                                                 Timothy Lee, Director of Legal and Public Affairs
Americans for Prosperity                                          Center for Individual Freedom

Thomas Schatz, President                                        Duane Parde, President
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste         National Taxpayers Union