As President Bush calls on the Senate to pass its version of line-item veto legislation as a means of controlling government spending, it’s important to keep in mind just how much pork barrel spending is in relation to other important budget data points.

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, the government spent $23.7 billion on "pork-barrel" spending. No small sum, for sure.

But, $23.7 billion is but a fraction (7.5%) of the $317 billion FY2005 federal budget deficit.

At less than one percent (0.96%) of the $2.5 trillion the government spent in 2005, it’s barely recognizable.

If we look at just discretionary spending - spending that is authorized each year by congress through the budget process - we see that earmark spending (i.e. "pork") composed only 2.45% of $968 billion in spending authorized by congress in FY2005.

So, for all the jumping up-and-down and speechifying about how important the line-item veto will be in restraining spending, it’s quite clear that the president and congress are not serious about getting control of the budget deficit.

Let me also call your attention to a handy set of data produced by the CBO - a PDF of Historic Budget Data. It's a set of tables neatly summarizing the revenues and outlays of the federal government 1962-2005.

Yesterday the House, under suspension of the rules, passed H.R 5060 - a one-sided bill sponsored by Reps. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Tom Davis (R-VA) that would require all domestic grants made by the federal government to be posted to a new free, searchable public website. Despite intense efforts, OMB Watch and other partners were unable to get the bill sponsors to add language requiring federal contracts data to be including in a simliar fashion - as a much better and more genuine Senate bill would require. OMB Watch is strongly supportive of the Senate bill.

Even at this point, it's unclear why Mr. Blunt and Mr. Davis believe disclosure of federal spending on grants requires transparency to the public, but federal spending on contracts does not? What exactly are they afraid will be reveiled? What are they hiding?

Disclosure, transparency, and access to government information are themes of good government properly ordered regardless of political ideology or party affiliation. Sens. Coburn and McCain - the Republican sponsors of the Senate bill realize this, as do the 43 conservative organizations who pledged their support to the Coburn effort. Federal contracts need to be disclosed to the public.

Earlier this year we blogged (here and here) about a new program authorized by Congress to allow the IRS to outsource its tax collection to private collection agencies. This program has caught the wary eye of a few folks in Congress, most of all Representative Steve Rothman (D-NJ).

Rothman recently successfully lead the charge against this policy, blocking the IRS from spending money on the program in the FY 2007 Treasury-Transportation bill recently approved by the House. Now all that is necessary to stop the program is successful passage in the final appropriations bill later this year.

Yet the IRS is storming ahead full steam. The Government Accountability Office recently confirmed they denied two bid protests against the IRS for contracts awarded under the program on June 14, and the IRS has immediately restarted work implementing those contracts. According to an IRS spokesman, the first accounts will likely be given over to the private collectors starting in September this year.

Because of Congress' lethargy in completing appropriations bills, it is highly likely by the time a final version of the provision stripping the collection outsourcing program's funding becomes law later this year, the IRS will have already awarded numerous accounts to the private agencies, wasting even more money.

Congress should act immediately to kill this program from moving forward and appropriately increase the IRS budget to allow government itself to collect its own taxes. It's more effective and efficient and is only one of many examples of a situation when government can do the job better.

We previously blogged on an effort by Sens. Coburn and Obama (and Carper and McCain) to establish a comprehesive website the public could search for information on federal financial assistance, including federal contracts and grants, by Jan. 1, 2007.

OMB Watch has circulated an endorsement letter for the legislation that currently has 32 organizations signed on. The National Taxpayers Union circulated their own endorsement letter, attracting additional support from conservative circles.

We hope the bill will be marked up in the Homeland Security and Government Affair Committee sometime in July.

UPDATE: The National Taxpayers Union has an updated version of its letter posted this afternoon with over 40 groups! Kudos to NTU and their partners!

Does welfare reform work? Do food stamps really feed the needy? Are government assistance programs really helping those in need? How effective is our social safety net?

Congress certainly doesn’t want to know. Right now, the House Appropriations Committee is considering a Bush recommendation to terminate a program designed to answer these questions.

In 1984 the Census Bureau initiated the Survey of Income and Program Participation, or SIPP. SIPP’s purpose is to “collect source and amount of income, labor force information, program participation and eligibility data, and general demographic characteristics to measure the effectiveness of existing federal, state, and local programs.” It is an invaluable tool used to determine how well (or how poorly) government assistance programs deliver on their promises.

Good governance requires good information, and since Congress isn’t interested in the former, one can conclude it’s not interested in the latter. Researchers seeking to understand low-income families and the programs designed to help them have very few places to turn when they look for data, and SIPP is unique in its depth, scope, and quality of data. In other words, it is THE place researchers (inside and outside the government) go to when they look for basic (and more complex) information about government assistance programs.

At $32 million per year, SIPP is a veritable bargain because of the quality and amount of information it supplies to policymakers. The existing FY2007 Science-State-Justice-Commerce Appropriations bill calls for just enough funds to wrap-up data collection for this year, effectively ending the program. However, Rep. José Serrano (D-NY) is proposing to add $10 million to keep the program in existence. It isn’t full funding, but it’s enough to ensure that the program continues.

UPDATE: Rep. Serrano was successful!

The House inched closer toward fiscal sanity yesterday when it voted to ban the IRS’s costly practice of using private collection agencies to collect uncontested tax debts.

The measure is included in the Treasury-Transportation appropriation bill passed by the House yesterday (406 - 22). This method of debt collection is especially wasteful as collection agencies keep 21 to 24 percent of their collected funds. IRS Commissioner Mark Everson testified before Congress earlier this year that IRS employees can do the exact same job but at a cost of less than one percent of the debt collected. The provision, introduced by Rep. Steven Rothman (D.-N.J), would also prevent the IRS from spending $54 million on collection agencies after September.

This administration is hardly ever serious when it talks about fiscal responsibility. In response to the provision, Everson said "using private collection agencies would bring in extra money and help reduce the deficit." A true statement, yes, but terribly misleading and one of which no one can claim as a reasonable approach to fiscal management.

Rep. Rothman's Press Release

Posted by Craig Jennings, 10:41:36 AM

Tuesday, June 13, 2006