110th congress final report

One of the few rock-and-roll ballads to transcend the generations is The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." Aside from serving as the current opening theme for a television crime series, the song has achieved immortality in popular culture for the final stanza of its lyrics: "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss."

Lately more than a few taxpayers may be recalling this tune when considering the switch of party control in Congress to completely Democratic. The year 2007 saw the return of the Democrats as the majority party in both Chambers for the first time in 16 years. The newly empowered Democrats vowed to put an end to the budget policies of the previous Republican majority and manage the nation's affairs in a "fiscally responsible" way.

One visible sign of public skepticism over this pledge is the widespread Tea Party movement, whose strength helped to support last month's largest-ever protest by fiscal conservatives in Washington, DC. But can this political notion that the Congress's budgetary work product has not changed a great deal under the new management be quantified? The research that follows provides some solid clues. 

This report summarizes data from NTUF's BillTally accounting software, which studies the cost or savings of all legislation introduced in the 110^th Congress that affects federal spending by at least $1 million. Agenda totals for individual lawmakers were developed by cross-indexing their sponsorship and cosponsorship records with cost estimates for 1,634 House bills and 1,126 Senate bills under BillTally accounting rules that prevent the double-counting of overlapping proposals. Each Congressional office reviewed all sponsorship and cost data in this report confidentially prior to publication. Appendix A lists all Members alphabetically, Appendix B lists Members by state delegation, and Appendix C provides a thorough explanation of the BillTally methodology.[1]

BillTally results show that as in past Congresses, the legislative agendas compiled by the Members of the House and Senate during 2007 and 2008 prioritized spending increases over decreases. The typical lawmaker, regardless of party identification, continued to push for legislation that would expand government.  Likewise, it is not surprising that spending bills far outnumbered savings bills. There were small signs, however, that Members may be changing their ways: more Representatives added at least one savings bill to their agendas than they did in the 109^th Congress, and the dollar amount of savings sponsored by the typical Congressman was higher than it had been in several years. Yet, this greater prevalence of "offsets" still barely begins to dent the total amount of spending increases that were supported. During the 110^th Congress, taxpayers may have experienced a distinct sense of déjˆ vu; the budget status quo prevailed, and spending trumped saving.

I.     Key Findings

• During the 110^th Congress, Senators and Representatives introduced more bills (11,081) than ever before; consequently, NTUF "scored" more bills with budgetary impacts (2,760) than ever before.

• Calls to boost expenditures rather than reduce them were the primary cause of the overall increase in legislation. The number of bills introduced that would lead to new spending reached record heights in the 110^th with 1,565 in House and 1,090 in the Senate. On the other hand, there were fewer savings bills than during the previous Congress – 69 in the House and 36 in the Senate. This reversed the trend over the past few Congresses of Members drafting more proposed cuts.

• For every House bill that cut spending in the 110^th Congress, there were nearly 23 bills to increase spending. In the Senate, the ratio of increases to cuts grew to 30:1.

• Excluding overlapping legislation, if each of the House increase bills became law, spending would increase by $2.23 trillion. The passage of the House savings bills would subtract $57.5 billion – an offset of 2.5 percent – for a net of $2.2 trillion. This amounts to additional federal outlays of $19,383 per household. The Senate spending bills would add $1.5 trillion to federal outlays, 5.7 percent of which was offset by $83.6 billion in savings – for a net of cost $1.4 trillion ($12,002 per household).

• The typical lawmaker, regardless of party, sponsored a greater dollar amount of savings than in the previous Congress, but not enough to offset any significant portion of the spending hikes that were sponsored.

• Only the average House Democrat proposed less net spending than in the previous Congress. The typical House Democrat would offset 0.2 percent of his or her proposed increases for a net spending agenda of $624.7 billion – $141.1 billion less spending than in the 109^th. House Republicans opted for spending cuts of $7.6 billion, offsetting one-fifth of their $34.3 billion in spending hikes. Their average net spending agenda of $26.7 billion was $5.2 billion more than in the 109^th Congress.

• In the Senate, the average Democrat backed legislation that would increase outlays by $194.4 billion, with 0.5 percent of this new spending offset by $1 billion in savings.  Republicans, on average, sponsored legislation to hike the budget by $124.9 billion, with 5.3 percent of this amount offset by $6.7 billion in savings. The net result would be a jump in outlays of $118.2 billion.

• In the House, more Members advocated net agendas to reduce spending (up from 28 to 34) and two fewer Members had agendas greater than $100 billion (149). The trend went the other way in the Senate, where there was one fewer net cutter (bringing the total to seven). The ranks of Senators with agendas to increase spending by $100 billion or more annually rose sharply, more than doubling in number.

• With the exception of the freshman Republican class in the Senate, the average newcomer to Congress called for less net spending than their returning colleagues.

• Representatives who belong to either the "Blue Dog" Democrats or the Republican Study Committee – caucuses which identify themselves as "fiscally conservative" – proposed, on average, less spending and more savings than their colleagues. However, the average House Member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a related caucus that also espouses "fiscal discipline," called for over twice as much new spending as the average Republican.

II.     Analysis of Findings

A.  Members' Wish Lists

NTUF examines nearly every bill introduced in each Session of Congress to determine its effect on federal outlays.[2] After gathering this data, the cost estimates are matched up with the bills sponsored by each Member of Congress.  A Senator's or Representative's record of authored and sponsored bills can be viewed as his or her legislative "wish list," free from the pressure of party leaders that normally comes with the voting process.  By tabulating the cost and/or savings of each Member's agenda, taxpayers and constituents can gain a better understanding of the policy interests as well as the guiding budgetary philosophies of their elected representatives.

In terms of writing legislation, lawmakers were very prolific in the 110^th Congress. Between the House and the Senate combined, Members authored and introduced 11,081 bills.[3] Of these, cost estimates were obtainable for only 2,760 bills – 25 percent of the total introduced during the two Sessions of the Congress. The number of scored bills has risen by 129 percent since the 104^th Congress when the fewest bills were scored (1,206). Compared to the 109^th, during which 2,433 bills were scored, there were 13 percent more bills with cost estimates in the 110^th. Why such a jump in bills with estimates? Congress introduced 521 more bills than in the 109^th Congress, and compared to the 104^th Congress, there were 4,536 more bills.[4] NTUF was also able to score or obtain estimates for a higher percentage of bills. In the 104^th Congress, estimates were obtainable for 18 percent of bills, compared to 21.9 percent in the 109^th, and 25 percent in the 110^th.

Despite Congress's burgeoning workload and the total increase in the number of scored bills, fewer savings bills were introduced. There were a total of 105 cut proposals (69 in the House and 36 in the Senate) down from 116 in the 109^th Congress. After peaking in the 103^rd Congress at 639, the number of cut bills introduced in Congress steadily declined until the low mark was set in the 107^th Congress at 48 in the House and 23 in the Senate. Not coincidentally, the 107^th also set the high water mark for the ratio of increase bills to decrease bills at 23:1 in the House and 36:1 in the Senate. Over the next few Congresses, the quantity of cuts gradually increased, but that trend was reversed in the 110^th.

It appears that the typical Member's interest in finding more ways to reduce the budget remains weak. The most savings bills from either chamber were introduced in the 103^rd Congress. During that Congress, Representatives authored 458 savings bills – seven times as many as the 69 cut proposed in the 110^th Congress. Senators drafted 181 savings proposals in the 103^rd – five times as many as the 36 they managed to offer in the 110^th.

The growth in legislation (discussed above) and the net cost of legislation (discussed below) show that most Members of Congress have placed a higher priority on expanding the government than easing its cost to taxpayers. Compared to the previous Congress, in the House the number of spending bills increased by 233, or 17 percent, and the number of cut bills dipped by three, a 4 percent drop. In the Senate, there were 105 more spending bills, an 11 percent increase, and eight fewer savings proposals, a drop of 18 percent. The House and Senate both introduced the fewest spending bills in the 104^th Congress (496 and 278, respectively). Compared to that, the 110^th saw a three-fold increase in spending bills in the House and a nearly four-fold increase in the Senate. For each House bill to cut spending in the 110^th Congress, there were nearly 23 bills to increase spending. In the Senate, the ratio of increases to cuts swelled to 30:1.

The amount of spending under consideration is large by any measurement. If each of the House increase bills had become law, spending would increase by $2.23 trillion (overlapping bills are excluded). The passage of the savings bills would subtract $57.5 billion – an offset of 2.5 percent – for a net of $2.2 trillion. This would have meant an increase in federal outlays of $19,383 per household.[5]  The Senate spending bills would have added $1.5 trillion to federal outlays, 5.7 percent of which was offset by $83.6 billion in savings, for a net of $1.4 trillion. This equates to an extra $12,002 per household.

B.  Members' Spending Agendas

Despite the increase in the ratio of spending bills to savings discussed in the previous section, the typical Congressman, regardless of party, sponsored a higher dollar amount of savings than in the previous Congress. However, this somewhat greater prevalence of spending cuts was still far exceeded by calls for new spending. The average Member backed a mix of legislation which, if enacted, would result in higher spending that would have to be financed through higher taxes or more federal debt.

Tables 2 and 3 show the cost of the bills sponsored or cosponsored by the average Republican and Democrat in each chamber. With the exception of House Democrats, Members compiled larger net agendas than they did in the previous Congress. In the 109^th, the average Democrat would have offset just 0.1 percent of their increases. This figure rose to 0.2 percent in the 110^th. They more than doubled their savings and also had fewer net increases overall. In comparison to the last Congress, the amount of increase they called for dropped by $140.2 billion, to $626.1 billion. The $1.4 billion in savings they proposed bring the Democrats' net agenda to $624.7 billion, down from $765.8 billion previously.

In all of Congress, House Republicans, on average, produced the lowest net agenda. The increase bills they supported would cost $34.4 billion. More than one-fifth of this amount was offset by $7.6 billion worth of reductions, for a net agenda of $26.7 billion. Even though they proposed more savings than they did in the 109^th, their net agenda inflated because of the amount of new spending hikes they supported. The years when the Republicans' average net agenda would have led to an overall reduction in outlays is but a distant memory.

The net agendas of the average Senator saw a marked upswing, particularly for the typical Republican. Their net agenda jumped from $21 billion in the 109^th Congress to $118 billion in the 110^th. Even though they proposed more savings ($6.7 billion, up from $6 billion), the dramatic rise in proposed spending hikes, which swelled from $27 billion to $124.9 billion, meant that the amount of outlays they would offset without tax increases or deficits plunged. Part of this trend may be explained by rising interest among GOP Senators for cap-and-trade and health care legislation, which involved tens to hundreds of billions in additional outlays. Nonetheless, the typical Republican in the 110^th Senate had a costlier agenda than the typical Democrat in the 109^th Senate.

The average Senate Democrat proposed savings worth $1 billion ($719 million more than in the 109^th), but these budget cuts were outweighed by $194.4 billion in spending hikes (up $76.5 billion from the previous Congress). The proposed increases reached the highest level since the 103^rd Congress when the typical Democrat called for $212.9 billion in new outlays. But during that Congress, they would have offset a greater percentage of the spending with budget cuts. In the 110^th, just one half of a percentage-point of the increases would be offset. The net agenda of the average Senate Democrat reached a new high at $193.3 billion.

   C. Sponsorship Rates

Why did the average level of sponsored savings increase despite the fact that the ratio of increase bills to decrease bills became unbalanced? In the House, more Members were sponsoring or cosponsoring outlay savings. The number of Representatives who did not sponsor any reductions dropped from 24 in the 109^th Congress to nine in the 110^th. Given that a Member can cosponsor as many bills as he or she wishes, the total number of sponsorships of cut bills by all Representatives combined grew from 1,599 in the 109^th to 2,441 in the 110^th Congress (see Table 4). All of the growth was among Democrats, as fewer Republicans actually sponsored cuts.

In the upper chamber, the average dollar amount of savings that lawmakers supported rose, even though fewer Senators sponsored cutting legislation (see Table 4). Total sponsorships plummeted by over one-third from 337 to 215. The sponsorships of savings legislation were less widely distributed: In the 110^th, there were 17 Senators who did not sponsor a single cut bill whereas in the 109^th, every Senator backed at least one. The average savings increased because greater reductions were proposed: In the 110^th, if all the savings bills (excluding overlapping legislation) were passed into law, spending would decline by $83.6 billion, compared to a reduction of $64.4 billion in the 109^th Congress.

In either chamber, the average Democrat sponsored more cut bills in number than the average Republican – seven vs. four respectively in the House, and three vs. one in the Senate (see Table 6) But in general, the dollar amounts of savings sought by the average Republicans were larger than their Democratic colleagues.

D. The Outliers

Table 7 shows that the two chambers moved in opposite directions as far as individuals on both ends of the budget spectrum were concerned. The number of Members with net spending agendas greater than $100 billion declined slightly in the House, but jumped in the Senate. Over one-third of the House and nearly half of the Senate called for spending increases over $100 billion. At the other end of the agenda scale, the ranks of Representatives who backed legislation that would on net reduce federal spending grew for the third consecutive Congress. However, one fewer Senator called for a net reduction in outlays.

These disparities are not difficult to explain. On average, each Representative sponsored 14.5 bills to increase spending for each bill they supported to cut spending. Twenty-four Members sponsored 200 or more spending bills, including one Member who sponsored or cosponsored 332 bills to increase outlays.[6] As for savings bills, there were five Members who supported at least fifteen bills to cut spending.[7]

 The spending-to-cut ratio was larger for the average Senator, who backed 41.5 increase bills for each savings bill. Again perhaps contrary to widely-held perceptions of the two major political parties, the high Senate ratio is accounted for mainly by the Republicans who on average sponsored just one of the 36 cut bills introduced in the 110^th Congress. Four Senators backed more than 200 spending bills while the most savings bills supported were eight (just two Senators cosponsored this many reductions).[8]

E. Freshman vs. Returning Members

The data in Table 8 shows that in general, the newcomers to the House backed smaller spending agendas than their returning colleagues. This difference was most glaring among the Republicans. The average returning Republican sponsored more spending and less savings than the average newcomer Republican and also compiled a net spending agenda that was seven times larger. While the typical Democratic freshman class sponsored, on average, far more spending than the Republican freshmen ($421.1 billion vs. $4 billion, respectively), they could not keep up with their returning Democratic colleagues who proposed a net spending agenda that was 61 percent higher at $678.5 billion.

The results were not as clear-cut in the Senate. Even though incoming Senators sponsored fewer savings overall, the net spending agenda of the Democratic freshman class ($110 billion) was almost half as much as the incumbent Democratic Senators ($209.6 billion). The three Republican freshmen break from the trend by sponsoring more spending (on average, $179.4 billion).  This figure was higher than that of their returning intraparty colleagues, who called for a net hike of $114.3 billion.

F. Fiscally-Related Member Caucuses

Table 9 compares the average spending agendas of Members of House caucuses that espouse fiscal discipline for their respective parties. Caucuses, or Congressional Member organizations, refer to Members who formally join together outside of the committee structure of Congress to exchange information and work toward shared objectives. The Republican Study Committee (RSC) states that it is dedicated to "a limited and Constitutional role for the federal government."[9] On its website, the Blue Dog Coalition (BDC) states that one of its top priorities "… will be to refocus Congress on balancing the budget and ridding taxpayers of the burden the debt places on them."[10] A related third caucus, the Republican Main Street Partnership (RMSP)[11], highlights a quote from George Washington on its website proclaiming that "… the most important institutional value is fiscal discipline."[12]

Since the three caucuses seem to share at least some fiscal objectives, it may be surprising that there is quite a bit of range in the net agendas produced by the average Member of each of these organizations. Among these groups, the RSC produced by far the lowest net agenda, at $5.5 billion. Members of the RMSP, on average, sponsored legislation that would increase spending by $70 billion. Both caucuses would be outspent by the average Blue Dog, who sponsored legislation that would boost spending by $179.8 billion – still, about one-fourth the size of other Democrats' net agendas.

III.      Conclusion

The 110^th Congress came to a startling end that was reminiscent of The Who's concerts, where band members would smash their instruments. The housing market, largely fueled by cheap loans backed by government-sponsored enterprises, finally crashed, sending shockwaves through the economy and resulting in the demise of several established Wall Street firms. The Bush Administration and leaders in the House and Senate forced through a massive government bailout of the financial sector through the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program, tearing a new hole in the budget.  The 111^th Congress kicked off with more bailouts and a $787 billion stimulus package.

Given the large discrepancy between the amount and cost of new spending proposals versus that of savings proposals, any changes in Congress's legislative output are likely to be gradual rather than sudden.  After all, it has been over 10 years since the last time the average Member of either party completed a Session with a net agenda to cut spending. Will the chorus of less-patient taxpayers singing the political equivalent of "Won't Get Fooled Again" grow louder in coming months?  Perhaps Congress's future performance on the fiscal stage will be the deciding factor.