The New York Times has a great article today highlighting some of the criticisms of supplemental spending, which has "ballooned over the last five years, driven first by the Sept. 11 attacks, followed by the war in Iraq and then by natural disasters including the tsunami in Asia and Hurricane Katrina."

Excessive supplemental spending allows lawmakers to push through projects without going through the budget process, and allows them to evade voted-on, set spending limits. And while supplemental emergency spending is often used to fund war activities, many believe that at this point the spending should no longer be categorized as "emergency." The article quote AEI research fellow Veronique de Rugy as saying:

We have been using supplementals to finance the war, and it might actually make sense the first year. But three or four years into the war, no war spending should be going through supplementals. It's not as if it's sudden, urgent and unforeseen, or temporary.

This issue is currently relative as the Senate plans to take up a $106 billion emergency spending bill this week, which is $14 billion higher than the one requested by the White House. As the NY Times points out, the bill includes such non-emergecny spending as "farm-program provisions totaling $4 billion," "$700 million to relocate a rail line in Mississippi," and "$1.1 billion for fishery projects, including a $15 million 'seafood promotion strategy.'"

Majority Leader Bill Frist and a number of other lawmakers are in agreement that the emergency spending process is being abused, and has been for years. In an April 21 letter to his Republican colleagues, Frist said "the supplemental should not be bogged down with extraneous amendments and unrelated provisions. In the face of continued deficits, we must be careful to not blow the bank on the back of the war."

New York Times: New Criticism Falls on 'Supplemental' Bills

A growing number of lawmakers are increasing their criticism of the dependence on repeated supplemental or emergency funding requests from the White House. While in the past the criticism has been from a limited group of lawmakers (mostly deficit hawks) and was mostly rhetorical, the increasing unease of lawmakers has pushed congressional appropriators to take action.

Within the current supplemental working its way through Congress, appropriators have added language that challenges the administration for continuing to fund known and ongoing military costs through supplemental requests - which are exempt from spending controls. Appropriators included this slap to the White House in the committee report for the bill:

Congress will not be able to fully support [future] supplemental requests unless it is provided with the same detailed justification and program materials that it receives with the annual request.

Previously, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), Rep. David Obey (D-WI), and a host of other lawmakers have tried to convince the administration, and their colleagues in Congress, to end the practice of depending on huge supplemental bills to fund ongoing war costs.

It is an extremely bad budget procedure that weakens fiscal responsibility, errodes congressional oversight, and discourages long-term planning and preparedness. Why has it taken Congress so long to figure this out?

Roll Call: Senate Targets Supplemental: 'Emergency' Bills Draw Scrutiny (sub. required)

Following up on a OMB Watch Budget Blog posting late last month, the Washington Post has an excellent editorial in this morning's paper criticizing Congress for "resorting to a [tax] gimmick that is even more egregious than their usual tactics."

The only way for the folks over at the Post to improve this editorial is to correctly identify this gimmick as a GOP proposal and not hide behind the general moniker of 'Congress.' As important as it is for all members of Congress to be honest about the impact of their policy proposals, it is equally important for the media to call a spade a spade. This tax gimmick is a purely GOP idea to finagle passage of a GOP tax cut that Democrats do not support.

It is still possible for the Senate parliamentarian to rule against this tax gimmick when Congress returns next week, then forcing the Senate to muster a more difficult 60 votes to approve the bill rather than simply 50. Unfortunately, that is the only way this bill won't eventually pass into law.

Washington Post: Tax Gimmickry

Any chance you get -- whether it's a question-and-answer session or just going down the line to shake your member's hand -- is a chance to register your concerns. Take it!

Print out our tips (PDF | Word), or read below:

State your concern: Whatever chance you get to speak, start right off the bat by stating your concern: "I am very concerned about Congress considering creating sunset commissions."

Explain the issue: Your member probably isn't expecting the issue to come up, so give a quick explanation: "The House leadership just promised a subset of members that there will be a vote on sunset commissions. If this radical proposal goes through, it would mean that every single federal program would be forced to beg for its life in front of an unelected commission that gets to decide whether it lives or dies."

Say what it means to you: Your member needs to hear that sunsets are a bad idea, but also that they will have consequences for you. Here are some ideas:

• Programs that you care about are at risk: "I am really concerned about ___________. I think there's no doubt at all that we need this program. It will be a waste of resources for that program to have to beg for its life; that's money that should be spent on the good things that program does."

• Programs that you care about are probably on the chopping block: If your program has been repeatedly set up for budget cuts or being eliminated, that program would probably be especially at risk from a sunset commission. "A sunset commission would take its cues from the White House's assessment of programs. Year after year, the White House argues that ________ should be cut or eliminated. That troubles me, because that means that _______ is particularly at risk from a sunset commission."

• Programs that you care about could be killed with no warning: "Some of the sunset proposals would actually allow the sunset commission to decide what programs live or die, without ever having any hearings or letting us come in to defend the program. And Congress would have extreme limits on its ability to debate the sunset commission's recommendations, or make changes to save important programs."

• Your tax dollars would be wasted: "There's just no need for this kind of waste. Congress already has the power to kill programs any time it wants, and it already spends most of its time every year deciding whether to give them any funding. We know that we need programs like EPA, or the Department of Education, or veterans' support programs. It would be a waste of my taxpayer dollars to force these programs to take time away from serving us in order to beg for their lives."

Demand your representative to take a stand. "I am opposed to a federal sunset commission. I want to know where you stand on sunset commissions. Will you allow the House to vote on sunset commissions? If there is a vote, will you vote against it?"

And here are more reasons to oppose sunset commissions.

Posted by Robert Shull, 05:02:05 PM

Friday, April 07, 2006