On the first day of the 111th Congress, over 400 bills were introduced. I introduced House Resolution 17 which would effectively abolish the House Committee on Appropriations. This may seem like blasphemy in the tax and spend culture of Washington, D.C., but I believe it is just solution we need for a broken spending system.
This bill wholeheartedly acknowledges that an egregious amount of overspending, waste, fraud, and abuse exists within both parties throughout the spending process which is shepherded by the Appropriations Committee. The House of Representatives invests its spending power in the 25 individuals of this spending panel, whose sole purpose it is to spend the taxpayers’ money; and they do a damn good job at it, and if you ask me…too good. There is no doubt; many Members of Congress have been tempted by the enormous power of spending $3 trillion per year of someone else’s money.
By abolishing the Appropriations Committee, each committee within the House would appropriate money within their specific jurisdiction; take for instance the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Under the new model, this committee would exercise authority over the State & Foreign Operations appropriations process. Responsibility for spending would then fall upon the shoulders of virtually every member of the House, and the days of the all powerful Appropriations panel would be over.
The House Committee on the Budget would be further empowered to act as a check on the spending process to ensure that spending levels stay under or level with the authorized spending amounts. I don’t claim that this will be the end of our spending woes, (that rests with the members of Congress the American people elect to represent them), but this is a solid step toward curtailing the wasteful Washington spenders and bring more transparency to the process.