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By
Senator Ben Nelson
Two hundred million dollars is a lot of money. Two hundred million dollars is the amount I recently helped cut from a major budget. It totals a 5.2 percent reduction in spending from that budget and is an effort to lead by example, so Washington can return to fiscal sanity.
Admittedly, it’s not a lot when compared to 14 trillion dollars, which is the size of the national debt, but wouldn’t it be nice if every branch of the federal government would cut two hundred million from its budget?
Even cutting just a “little bit” like that, pretty soon, you could balance the budget.
To use a variation of a popular phrase coined by the late Senator Everett Dirksen years ago, “200 million here and 200 million there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”
Cutting Senate and House Budgets
As most Nebraskans know from all the years I served as Governor and Senator, I’m a fiscal conservative with a history of cutting budgets and I have taken that philosophy to the Senate.
I am Chairman of the Senate Appropriation Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch. That subcommittee has control over the budgets of such things as the Library of Congress, Capitol Police, Congressional Budget Office, Government Accountability Office, Capitol Visitors Center and the office budgets of members of the Senate and the House.
I have a bully pulpit when it comes to these budgets that are under our control. So, I’ve crafted a bipartisan bill that cuts spending by 5.2 percent below this year’s spending. Furthermore, the Senate bill cuts spending more than the House version. The House bill cuts the 2012 Legislative Branch spending by 5 percent.
In the Senate, I’ve worked closely with Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, the ranking member on our committee, to make strategic, sensible and real cuts.
A History of Cuts
When I became Legislative Branch Subcommittee chairman several years ago the first thing I did was to hold down spending. The second year I held spending flat; no increase. The third year I cut the Senate’s budget by 5 percent. This year we’re cutting spending by 5.2 percent for all of Congress, which includes senators’ office accounts, including my own office.
The cuts we’ve made to the budget that runs from October 1st until the end of September 2012 are real. They amount to several hundred million dollars in less spending.
The example we offer can be a model for all of Washington to follow on how to cut spending across the federal government. What if everyone cut their budgets by 5.2 percent?
Lead By Example
This effort builds on my sense of the Senate resolution that the Senate overwhelmingly approved last March to lead by example and cut its own budget by 5 percent. My hope is that this will serve as a clear example of how Washington can get off its spending binge and get onto its much-needed diet.
If we all do our part, even if it seems small in the big picture, we can reduce the deficit and balance the budget, which will strengthen the economy and create jobs.
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