The President sent a proposal to Capitol Hill yesterday that would enable him, and future presidents, to submit a parcel of cuts, called rescissions, all at once. The rescissions would be submitted after Congress passes a spending or appropriations bill. Under the proposal, the bundle of budget cuts would be voted up or down without any amendments by both chambers. The measure is supposed to make it easier to trim pet projects of individual senators and congressmen from federal spending. Obama’s proposed bill is called the “Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010.”
I am not an expert at reading between the lines of measures like this, but I wonder if it would work, since Congress can reject the President’s cuts. Certainly, there is a lot of pet project spending in every budget. It’s popularly referred to in Washington as pork barrel spending.
The Citizens Against Government Waste organization has an annual compilation of pork barrel projects. They say that it is about 20-billion dollars a year. A pork project is a line item in any spending bill that designates tax dollars for a specific project. And, it circumvents again the rules for the budgetary process. These pork barrel projects help lawmakers get re-elected or pay off political debts back home. On a rare occasion, I’m told, they can be used for a legitimate purpose, but they have still circumvented the established budget practices.
The question that comes to mind is why, especially in these times of economic hardship and a sky rocketing federal deficit, would our own representatives put their own political welfare above the welfare of the nation. Our founding fathers did just the opposite.
This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.
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