WISinfo.com

Posted Oct 25, 2009; 3:57 AM

Column: Congress must reduce spending

By Russ Feingold
U.S. Senator

There is a famous scene in the movie "Dave" where actor Kevin Kline, playing the role of an average guy who takes the place of an incapacitated president, needs to cut $650 million from the federal budget. With the press and the cabinet gathered, the "president" says this can be done and proceeds to list a couple wasteful programs that need to be cut.

That kind of thing shouldn't only happen in the movies. Because if the government were to stop and take a minute to actually look at what we're spending money on, there are plenty of projects and programs that can be cut and save millions if not billions of taxpayer dollars each year.

For 17 years, I have worked to bring Wisconsin's tradition of fiscal responsibility to Congress. When I first ran for the U.S. Senate in 1992, I offered an 82-point plan to slash the deficit. And now, just like back then, our country is facing record deficits. That is why I am introducing the Control Spending Now Act, to not only get rid of a lot of this wasteful spending, but also institute reforms to control spending down the road. This bill includes more than 40 separate efforts to rein in out-of-control spending and reform the broken budget process.

To reduce spending, my bill targets several key areas including corporate welfare, massive subsidies for big agribusinesses that come at the expense of family farmers and programs that plain don't make sense. Some of the prime targets for cuts include:

The Wall Street bailout — we can save $244.5 billion by ending it now;

$4 billion for C-17 aircraft that the Defense Department doesn't even want; and

$30 million per year for a program that sends a TV signal to Cuba that virtually nobody gets.

But terminating wasteful programs isn't enough. My bill includes institutional reforms to make the federal government more fiscally responsible. The bill would end bad budgeting by reinstituting "statutory paygo," a tool we used in the 1990s to help balance the budget, fixing the broken earmarking system that allows billions of taxpayer dollars to be spent on the pet projects of members of Congress, and giving the president a line-item veto to challenge earmarks.

Congress should be tightening its belt, as well. My bill includes legislation I have championed for years to permanently end automatic annual pay raises for members of Congress. It would also cut the budgets of House and Senate offices by 5 percent, similar to what I do every year when I return a portion of my office budget to the U.S. Treasury.

Americans are right to be concerned that their children and grandchildren will be the ones to pay if Congress doesn't change its ways. One of the issues that many Wisconsinites agree on, regardless of their political party, is the need to protect taxpayer dollars. This is a message I hear in every corner of the state.

While cutting wasteful spending may not be as easy as it is in the movies, the American people deserve a serious effort by Congress to address it. And in the spirit of Wisconsin's history of fiscal discipline, I am proud to help lead the way.

For information on the Control Spending Now Act, visit http://feingold .senate.gov/deficit.

Russ Feingold is a Democratic U.S. senator from Wisconsin.