(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today encouraged Congress to embrace budget reform as a strategy for reducing the influence of special interests and reigning in the growth of government.  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) have introduced the Obligation of Funds Transparency Act (S. 1495 and H.R. 1642, respectively) to reform the process by which earmarks get added to appropriations bills.   

“Lobbying reform alone does not get to the root problem in Washington, which is the mangled and secretive budget process,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “Bipartisan abuse of the budget process has led to record spending on pork-barrel projects and handouts to special interests.”

Total federal spending has swelled by 67 percent, from $1.5 trillion in fiscal 1995 to almost $2.5 trillion in fiscal 2005.  The number of pork-barrel projects in the federal budget during that same period of time has skyrocketed from 1,439 to 13,997, an increase of 873 percent.  The 2005 Congressional Pig Book chronicled such items as $2 million to buy back the USS Sequoia Presidential Yacht and $25,000 for the Clark County (Nev.) School District’s mariachi music curriculum.  Almost all earmarks are added to spending bills by members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, which Jack Abramoff once called “earmark favor factories.” 

The McCain-Flake bill is designed to make earmarks more visible and amendable before legislation is passed, requiring the specific projects to be included in the text of spending bills.  The Obligation of Funds Transparency Act would prohibit federal agencies from funding any earmark that is not printed in the text of an appropriation bill.  The legislation would also change procedural rules, making it easier for senators and representatives to challenge individual spending provisions on the floor. 

CCAGW has long championed other reforms to tighten up the budget process, such as:  ensure that a point-of-order can be raised against spending that violates budget caps; require a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House and Senate to allow over-budget spending; institute biennial budgeting; reduce the frequency and abuse of emergency spending bills by requiring each agency to set aside 1 percent of its annual budget for emergencies; and subject every part of emergency spending bills to the budget rules. 

“The deck is stacked in favor of bigger government and more spending, which is one reason why CCAGW has endorsed S. 1495 and H.R. 1642,” Schatz said.  “Ultimately, it should be easier to remove egregious projects from spending bills than it is to insert them.  If the first order of business after the recess is lobbying reform, the passage of the McCain-Flake bill should be the second priority.”

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.