Capito Votes To Eliminate Unnecessary Government Printing

Press Release

Today, Shelley Moore Capito, R.W.Va., voted in support of H.R. 292, Stop the OverPrinting (STOP) Act, introduced by Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY). The American Public voted for this cut in December, 2010, as part of the YouCut Program created by the Economic Recovery Working Group. The bill passed 399 to 0.

"A vote for this bill is a vote to eliminate waste in Washington. There's no excuse to print hundreds of copies of every single bill in Congress when the text is readily available online. This is a simple, commonsense change that will save the taxpayers $35 million over ten years," stated Capito.

Click here to view Capito's previous statement on eliminating unnecessary government printing.

Background:

Whenever a Member of Congress introduces a bill or resolution, the Government Printing Office prints 200 paper copies. In the last Congress, Members introduced 14,042 bills and resolutions. That works out to 2.8 million paper copies and with all the bills available online, many of these paper copies are simply thrown away. This year Congress will spend approximately $7 million printing bills and resolutions. By eliminating the mandatory printing of every introduced bill, and instead using technology to ensure that bills are available online for anyone to examine, we can achieve significant savings to taxpayers, while still ensuring accountable and open government.

Source