Spend Baby Spend

Why does Congress have a propensity to Spend?

By Jerry Climer

Two reasons:

·      Santa Clause is more popular than Scrooge; and

·      House and Senate members hope to be rewarded for bringing home the bacon when it appears someone else is paying the bill.

Pre-election studies, as well as exit polls, indicate the public is exhausted with political and federal government overreach, including spending money not in the Treasury. Numerous candidates for Congress made a campaign by attacking the very governmental structure they and their predecessors created. Whether talking about spending on environmental policy or international defense, most Members of Congress want you to think all the blame belongs to the occupant of the White House. Realistically, most of the blame belongs to Congress.

Presidents have certainly abused their power by making unilateral military decisions or forgiving debts (plus a hundred other examples). Still, Congress has tried to shift blame by complaining rather than putting a stop to what they rhetorically declare to be abuses. Congress can stop any of these “excess” excuses when it wants to.

As the scope of the federal government grew, Congress sloppily wrote legislation in a wide-sweeping fashion that enabled any creative administration to do about anything it wanted. Congress further undermined its budget-setting authority by waiting to receive the Administration priorities (almost always designed to increase spending) and hesitantly drafting its budget proposal. In fact, in most years, one or both of those steps were forfeited or abused.

Then, the congressional appropriation process, unfortunately, got so complicated and twisted that it became almost impossible to decipher the specifics of appropriation bills. It is nearly impossible to properly interpret and define programs, so they are held accountable for accomplishing the purpose for which the spending was created - even by measuring its impact and effectiveness. That failure to agree on specific programs for the 13 annual appropriation bills led to the creation of omnibus appropriation bills that are so large that only a few paid staff ever read them.

2024 is a perfect example of congressional budgetary failures, where Congress convenes post-election to deal with the government funding that it failed to accomplish before the election. There are a lot of reasons this happens, but the bottom line is that it happens. Again and again. It must be fixed.

Over decades, this failure of Congress to manage the federal piggy bank has led to modern actions by the Executive Branch that make a mockery of Congress’ first obligation, authorizing and funding the government. Why is anyone surprised that the relatively small amount of federal money spent on education has become the hammer by which education and social policies are set across the country? Or, that efforts to protect clean water were so loosely written by Congress as to allow federal agencies, not local or state, to regulate and inspect the replacement of existing bulkheads in private residential backyards? Or for a president to unilaterally forgive debts owed to the federal government?

As my coauthor Michael S. Johnson and I explain in Chapter 14 of our book, Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People, the Senate has significantly changed from the original design created by the Founders. Those changes now contribute to the spending orgy. Senators are now glorified (in their view) members of Congress with 6-year terms as opposed to the lowly 2-year terms of House Members.

Yet, in most cases, they behave like House members, looking for ways to “reward” their constituents with new programs, more spending, less taxes, etc. Our Chapter 14 suggests serious consideration be given to reversing the decision that made Senators directly elected and going back to the historical pattern that existed until around 1913 when states appointed their U.S. Senators. Appointed Senators would no longer need to spend time seeking support through spending favors and instead would be able to spend that time reviewing policy options based on higher criteria – fiscal integrity, national and international stability, and the interests of their home states. Money, time, and talent are lost to fundraising and spending decisions.

In the House, the deleterious role of excessively large congressional districts (around 762,000 people) means most citizens don’t talk directly with their Representative. Is it any wonder most voters feel they have no real power or influence over their Member of Congress other than to “demand” more spending for their pet project?

Will Congress set its policy and spending agenda with a view to the long-term impact of its decisions? As we ask in “Fixing Congress,” will the public become more informed about congressional actions and stop rewarding excessive spending? Do voters even know who is doing the spending and how it is packaged to make it next to impossible to understand where waste is buried? Will the media relearn how to dig into the details so they can play their legitimate role and inform the public instead of acting like they are reporting on a sporting event? Will the media and public sanction efforts like the long-forgotten Grace Commission* to dig out wasteful spending? Will voters learn enough to demand a reduction of spending and avoid passing on the cost of the spending orgy to their children and grandchildren?

This post draws attention to only a few of the million examples of such spending quandaries. Congress must clean up its spending processes so it can begin to clean up and improve our nation’s fiscal policies for the people.

Order a copy of Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People from your online bookstore and study the roles of the media and informed voters. Then, discuss the options for reform outlined in Chapter 14 with your state legislators and friends, encourage discussion, learn and demand changes. Most meaningful changes must be driven by outside forces. Don’t expect Congress to discipline itself; they think spending your money is rewarding. This book tells it ”Like it is.”

* As defined in Wikipedia: “The Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (PSSCC), commonly referred to as the Grace Commission, was an investigation requested by United States President Ronald Reagan, authorized in Executive Order 12369 on June 30, 1982. In doing so President Reagan used the now famous phrase, "Drain the swamp". The focus was on eliminating waste and inefficiency in the US Federal government. The head of the commission, businessman J. Peter Grace, asked the members of that commission to "Be bold and work like tireless bloodhounds, don't leave any stone unturned in your search to root out inefficiency."