BrianGarst.com

The National Taxpayers Union released a report confirming what we already knew: Republicans are continuing to act like Democrats and nobody’s acting like Republicans (that is to say, like the small government advocates Republicans claim to be).

Congress’s feverish voting habit for higher spending may have declined a fraction of a degree last year, but lawmakers have largely failed to pursue the aggressive treatments needed to cure Washington’s budget deficit, according to the latest VoteTally study from the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF). The one-of-a-kind analysis, which measures the dollar impact of all voting activity on the floor of the House and Senate, shows that the average Representative supported five cents in federal spending reductions for every dollar of increases, while the Senate’s ratio was just two cents on the dollar.

. . . The average Senator voted for a net $198.2 billion in additional annual federal spending last year, 31 percent less than the spending hike he or she supported during the 1st Session of the 108th Congress (2003). House Members backed, on average, a yearly expenditure boost of $172.9 billion ? 24 percent smaller compared to the same period in the previous Congress. These totals do not include lawmakers’ acquiescence to “mandatory” (such as entitlement) spending growth, which would add nearly $130 billion to the 2005 figures cited above.

However, this drop-off is attributable to a slightly slower pace of spending hikes, not a new-found interest in spending cuts. Both chambers put together considered amendments that would have trimmed annual outlays by a total of $5.0 billion, less than one-tenth of the $54.1 billion in savings that were debated in 2003.

. . .VoteTally totals were nearly indistinguishable between Democrats ($178.1 billion) and Republicans ($168.3 billion) in the House, although party differences were somewhat greater in the Senate ($217.0 billion for Democrats versus $183.0 billion for Republicans).

 

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