John Boehner proposes splitting up spending bills in the new Congress
December 1, 2010
During the campaign Republicans introduced their “Pledge to America.” One aspect of that pledge was to do away with comprehensive spending bills by requiring each government department to appear before the Congress individually and make their case for the level of future funding. John Boehner is now looking to make good on this promise:
The move would facilitate cutbacks in government programs and, GOP aides say, enhance oversight and accountability for individual agencies, fulfilling promises made by Republicans on the campaign trail and in their Pledge to America.
Here is what John Boehner said about this proposal while on the campaign trail:
Let’s do away with the concept of ‘comprehensive’ spending bills. Let’s break them up, to encourage scrutiny, and make spending cuts easier. Rather than pairing agencies and departments together, let them come to the House floor individually, to be judged on their own merit,” he said at AEI more than a month before the midterm election. “Members shouldn’t have to vote for big spending increases at the Labor Department in order to fund Health and Human Services. Members shouldn’t have to vote for big increases at the Commerce Department just because they support NASA. Each department and agency should justify itself each year to the full House and Senate, and be judged on its own.”
This sounds like a great idea to me; by doing away with a single, large, convoluted spending bill on government agencies and requiring the agencies to justify future spending levels individually it would seem to me that the Congress would have a better handle on who is getting what money. It would make the government more transparent on spending issues and would make these agencies more accountable to the Congress. This would make it easier for the government to cut spending on agencies which are already bloated while allowing the government to spend more money where it is apparent that there is a need to do so.
I cannot see any downside to this issue, and it will be interesting to see if this idea gains any traction in the new Congress in January.
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America's Watchtower 
Don’t you just love this guy! Brilliant!
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I do! I think this would be a great start towards transparency and reform–two issues that Obama ran on but failed to deliver.
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With all the hiring in the last few years, government employees won’t be happy about this. They may have to go out and get real jobs.
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Very true!
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Can anyone say “sounds like a plan”? This just makes sense, plain and simple common sense. The less layers we have to dig through to see where the money is going, the better chance we will have of cutting the spending in a sensible manner.
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This makes so much sense I wonder why it hasn’t bee tried before. (Unless the politicians didn’t want us to see where the money has been going.)
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Now we are talking. If we could get rid of amendments that have nothing to do with the major bill, perfecto!
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Agreed! Let every bill stand on its own based on its merits.
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I think this idea, coupled with zero-earmark-tolerance could end a lot of government waste and corruption.
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