Posted by Tina
Cathy McMorris Rogers, a Republican representing Washington State, has introduced legislation that will gradually cut funding for unauthorized government programs. The aim of the bill is to force Congress to act by subjecting them to a rolling sequester over three years. At the end of three years if Congress has failed to act the program would be eliminated. The government currently spends $310.4 billion on these unauthorized programs that include entire agencies, icluding the state department. It would be interesting to discover how many government agencies have never been made official.
The bill is called “The Unauthorized Spending Accountability Act,” or USA ACT.
McMorris Rogers explains:
“This is all part of restoring our power of the purse, our constitutional role, and ensuring the accountability to the people,” McMorris Rodgers said.
“What we’ve seen from a lot of these agencies is that they become arrogant, they become disconnected from their mission, and this restores the accountability with the elected representatives,” McMorris Rodgers stated.
“[The bill] allows us to review, first of all, whether or not this program, this agency is fulfilling the law, whether or not it is meeting the mission that is outlined in the law. And then, it also allows us to take action if the law needs to be changed or updated or if the agency has gone beyond what was ever intended or has exceeded its authority.”
This bill gives Congress three years to justify unauthorized programs or cut them loose. At present there are 256 of them. At last someone in Congress is making an effort to cut wasteful spending and useless bureaucracy.
Hat tip: Washington Free Beacon
But this bill would require the Congress to knuckle down and do actual work.
Actually this bill would create yet another government commission (I thought you disdained those) whose members would get to make all the proper noises and get their names in he paper … after … a lot of staffers (that you would have to pay) had done the research and compiled their reports … and … if the programs are in fact serving legitimate constituencies, they’re just going to get authorized.
I think all this wheel-spinning is going to cost money.
And it will be turned into a Media Marketing force for the Neo Liberal movement. The Market is our Master at the cost of human life.
When these so called Republicans talk about spending they never mention the huge amount of wasted spending that goes to corporate welfare and Military waste.
We need to clean out government not take away from the human race. Never do we look at the problems that got us here. The people who suggest these bills are the problem. They protect the raiding of our taxes for corporate profit.
The solution is not more austerity for people and more corporate subsidies for the elite. Nor is privatizing everything for profit. Those are the problems that got us here.
Clean out congress! If the candidate takes huge sums of money then one can be assured that is who they will work for.
Fascism – A corporate ran government
Cathy has been involved in the misuse of funds, and campaign finance scandals. But as usual her Tea party friends in the house did not complete the investigation. Bottom Line she is a Koch Puppet and a crook like so many in congress.
Saleswoman selling bad legislation with false promises. The goal is to get rid of any power for the people and put corporations in control. The Koch Network.
Cathy Morris Rodgers: tea party
In 2012 told the story of “Bette from Spokane” — a woman who reportedly faced steep costs as a result of Obamacare. Cathy Hid Bette had a cheaper insurance option available on the ACA site. Disingenuous at best.
McMorris Rodgers owes the nation an apology for lying in her Republican response to the State of the Union
Dewey are you seriously willing to leave the defense of our nation to a crippled fleet of air and sea ships, a ground force that is poorly trained and ill-quipped just so a bunch of unneeded bureaucrats can sit on their butts and push paper around? If so you are worse than stupid, you are dangerous.
THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, AS ENGRAVED IN THE CONSTITUTION, IS DEFENSE OF OUR NATION!!!
Wasteful spending on redistribution policies wastes not only taxpayer dollars but HUMAN POTENTIAL….LIVES!
Republicans talk about downsizing the federal government and leaving the choices about redistribution to the people and the individual states…just as the Constitution mandates!
Conservatives are against bloated federal government so by default they are against federal subsidies to corporations.
The ONLY place profit or wealth comes from is business. The money our government has and uses is generated by capitalism and taken through taxation.
FASCISM – corrupted politicians using their positions to further greater government control OVER the people and over business through taxation and regulation.
Corporatism/Crony Capitalism – Corrupt politicians doing favors for the moneyed interests that support them. These include non-corporate “donors” like unions, including government unions, environmental organizations and lobbies, and minority organizations like La Raza and the NAACP.
“Cathy has been involved in the misuse of funds, and campaign finance scandals.”
A specious accusation (LIE) lacking in substance or proof.
Dewey we allow you to post here because we believe in free speech but your posts are a laundry list of ignorance, empty accusations, and displaced anger.
I respond simply to educate and offer alternative opinion for anyone that might be ill-informed through your outrageous bloviations.
Well if you can think of another way to downsize the government I’ll push it. We don’t get to jump ahead as much as I’d love a magic wand, nope, we get to start at the beginning.
These guys have a lousy reputation…my expectations are low.
The wheel spinners are already spinning and being paid…they might as well do something other than invent new ways to tax or regulate us further.
ALL bills should have a Sunset Date! A Hat Tip to Ms Rogers for her courage!
I want you to face it. These tea party people, having attained their power, can contrive nothing more than a costly means to blow their own horns, and accomplish virtually nothing.
If these programs are in fact unauthorized, all the House has to do is very publicly drop them from the next proposed budget, and see if the Senate goes for it. No commission required.
Always the autoritarian…sorry Libs, I don’t take orders.
What cost? The people involved are already getting paid to do work, why not this work?
And you have a lot of nerve talking about the cost of government since you openly embrace and celebrate big government, government programs, and the bureaucracy required to administer all of it.
Tina, darling, I think you have conceded my point. You couldn’t just say so?
Power corrupts. Who wields it is most wildly irrelevant.