Heck of a Way to Run the Government

November 26, 2004

Heck of a Way to Run the Government
By U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)

Coloradoans have seen the results when government officials are unwilling to make tough budget choices. The caps on our state's revenue imposed by TABOR combined with the ever-increase costs of - and citizens' demands for - health care, transportation infrastructure and education have combined to create a budget crisis we in this state are only now coming to recognize.

Unfortunately, an even worse crisis is unfolding on the national level. The Constitution requires Congress to pass, and the President to sign, bills to fund the federal government by October 1 of each year. This is accomplished through 13 separate spending proposals. For the fourth time in five years, however, Congress has failed to meet this obligation. Instead, like a high school student pulling an all-nighter to finish an overdue project, Congress throws these plans into a gigantic pork-laden spending proposal that no one has time to read, let alone slash, before it is enacted.

The results are extremely dangerous for the financial health of our nation - and should outrage anyone who pays taxes. On Saturday November 20, most Coloradoans were making weekend plans, running errands or just plain enjoying a day off. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, however, were being asked to vote on a $388 billion, 1,600-plus page, 14.75 inch-think spending plan that they had only received hours before. The vast majority of Democratic and Republican Members of Congress were left completely in the dark about the spending proposal because it was written by a very handful of Representatives behind closed doors.

Unfortunately for the American taxpayer this very last-minute effort was crammed with pork and bad policies even Members of Congress are just now finding out about. More than $1.55 billion, or 4 percent of the total, for pet projects commonly referred to as pork was buried in this gigantic volume. While some money derided by the press and watchdog groups as pork is actually important, such as funding to maintain the federal highway system, much of it does not pass the smell test. This included such dubious uses of taxpayers' money as $515,000 for snake management in Guam, $443,000 for research and development of baby food containing salmon, $8,000,000 to rehabilitate an historic cafeteria and, perhaps most appropriately, $2.3 million for the International Fertilizer Development Center.

Under normal circumstances, when the House and Senate consider the funding plans individually, Members, the press and the public are able to read these spending proposals and weed out the individual examples of pork before they add up to billions in wasted tax dollars. But this is not how the process is happening. As, year after year since 1994, the House and Senate rush through these enormous spending bills at the last minute, it is easy to understand why the budget quickly spirals into uncontrollable deficits.

As troubling, this secretive, rushed process allowed some Representatives to sneak pet projects that had nothing to do with funding our government into the final proposal. The plan that is deservedly getting the most attention now is an outrageous proposal that would authorize a handful of Congresspeople and their staffs to view the tax returns of any American they desire. It also gutted privacy protections that made it illegal to divulge information about individual tax returns.

While the leaders of the House and Senate now assure us that the tax-peeping plan will be removed, we are stuck with other equally bad and unpopular proposals that were snuck into the funding bill. This includes the reversal of at least two provisions that had already been approved by both the House and Senate early this year. One would eliminate a law that protected overtime pay for millions of American workers who would otherwise have been ineligible for it. The other rolled back limitations on the outsourcing of federal government jobs overseas.

This is not the way to responsibly manage taxpayers' dollars, let alone run the federal government. That is why I joined 50 of my colleagues in the House in strongly opposing this plan. The American people expect Congress to be thrifty with the government's money and to carefully consider the impact of possible laws before they vote on them. As has happened too often in recent years, neither of these things occurred last week. As a result, the United States is one step closer to the financial crisis that has beset Colorado.

This column was originally published in The Rocky Mountain News.