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Posted on Sat, Jul. 29, 2006

Tiahrt's bill on government waste doesn't go to vote

BY ALAN BJERGA
Eagle Washington bureau

WASHINGTON - As the U.S. House of Representatives wrapped up before its August break, Rep. Todd Tiahrt's bill to create waste-fighting federal commissions failed to get a House vote, as united Democrats and worried Republicans stopped a bill that once seemed destined to pass.

"We didn't have the votes we needed" to pass the legislation, said Chuck Knapp, spokesman for Tiahrt, R-Goddard.

Tiahrt's Government Efficiency Act proposes to let either Congress or the president create federal commissions to evaluate specific federal programs and make recommendations for how they could be changed or abolished to reduce duplication or wasteful spending.

Creating an anti-waste commission has long been a goal of Tiahrt.

His bill is the closest any of his efforts have come to passing the U.S. House.

But Democrats and some moderate Republicans balked at the commission, as groups including labor unions and veterans organizations expressed fears that waste-fighting commissions could become an excuse to cut programs that help their constituents without any public input or accountability.

"On our own efforts, over 12,000 people contacted their members," said Heather Taylor, deputy legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group based in New York.

The scales tipped against Tiahrt's bill when House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and other members of the House Appropriations Committee, which Tiahrt sits on, expressed concern that the bill would take away power from Congress.

Tiahrt's bill was actually the less controversial of two separate commission proposals proposed by Republicans, neither of which made it to a vote. The House's top Democrat, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the lack of a vote showed that it wasn't something Republicans were willing to fight for.

"The truth is, the Republicans didn't take it seriously enough to put it on the floor," she said.

Pelosi said Democrats tend to make their own announcements on how to reduce government waste.

"I'm all for looking at waste, fraud and abuse," she said.

Knapp said Tiahrt still supports his bill and plans to push for the bill in September.

But with only a few weeks of Congress before it adjourns to campaign in October, getting it back on the crowded House calendar could be difficult.

"We'll see what happens," Knapp said. "There aren't any guarantees."


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Reach Alan Bjerga at 202-383-6055 or abjerga@mcclatchydc.com.


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This will never end as long as CONgress separates US from our money at the payroll level.