Spending bill threatens 1,700 jobs in legislative branch

Amid bitter complaints that it weakens Congress' role as a co-equal branch of government, the House Appropriations Committee cleared a legislative spending bill Tuesday that could lead to 1,700 layoffs in congressional offices and supporting agencies.

Voting 31-23 along party lines [Vote 1], the committee moved to slash money for the House's operations-along with cutbacks in appropriations for the General Accounting Office, Congressional Research Service, Capitol Police and Architect, Congressional Budget Office, and Government Printing Office-by $273 million for the new fiscal year, starting Oct. 1. The reductions amount to a 13.1 percent cut from the current fiscal year for House activities.

Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, bemoaned the cuts. But Committee Chairman C.W. "Bill" Young, R-Fla., defended them as a difficult but necessary step to ensure the continued downsizing of the federal government and safeguarding of the Social Security trust fund.

Harking back to the Republican takeover of the House in 1995, Young brandished several graphs showing a steady decline in non-defense discretionary spending as well as a plunge in borrowing from the old-age pension fund to finance day-to-day government spending.

"This is what we committed to, and this is what we're doing," he declared. "If we can't cut our own legislative spending, how can be ask the other agencies of government to do so. That's the ball we need to keep our eye on."

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., called the cuts "a reckless attack on the quality of service we're supposed to provide to our constituents, and a reckless attack on the safety and security of this Capitol, all because the Republican leadership's budget resolution made room for a big tax cut."

Democrats maintained that the cutbacks would lead to the loss of 438 police and other personnel in the ranks of the Capitol Police; 707 jobs in the General Accounting Office, the watchdog agency that uncovers waste and fraud in federal programs, and 114 positions at the Congressional Research Service, which provides the House with unbiased reports about the potential impact of legislation.

In addition, said Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.), the printing office stands to lose 62 jobs and the Congressional Budget Office, 31. CBO crunches the numbers that go into making Congress' budget and analyzes the cost of proposed programs. House members' office and committee staffs also could expect to lose, in the aggregate, about 319 positions, Pastor said.

Even some Republicans who voted to move the bill to the floor acknowledged that the loss of valuable employees, particularly at GAO, CRS and the Capitol Police corps, could impair Congress' ability to root out waste in government programs and to stand vigil over the safety of tourists, officeholders and congressional staff members. Two years ago, a disturbed gunman forced his way into the Capitol, killed two police officers and wounded some tourists, in an act that an independent auditor later said could have been prevented with more police guarding the building's entryways.

After that incident, Congress swiftly authorized the hiring of 230 additional police and called for even more hiring later on. Critics said the spending cuts approved by the committee on Tuesday would necessitate the layoff of the new officers and prevent the recruitment of as many as 200 more police personnel.

Rep. James Walsh, R-N.Y., though saying he would vote to report the bill to the House floor to "move the process forward," agreed with most Democrats that the cutbacks were too steep and institutionally destructive.

"We can't unilaterally disarm the legislative branch of government without losing our parity and balance with the executive and judicial branches,'' he said. "We're cutting our own throats." Walsh was particularly upset by the cuts in the CRS and GAO.

Rep. Charles Taylor, R-N.C., chairman of the Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee, also lamented the cuts, but characterized them as "only Round 2 in a 10-round [legislative] process" that could provide opportunities to bolster spending for congressional operations later this year. Many lawmakers are banking on continued economic growth that would yield a larger federal surplus than earlier expected. A bigger surplus would enable them to spend a little more for programs that members in both parties believe have been stinted by the Appropriations Committee.

Some conservatives, however, insisted that the cuts were justified and made it clear they would resist any attempts to revisit the committee's numbers. "Unfortunately," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., "we've got to make tough decisions. That's what we're sent here to do. This is not something we're doing in a cavalier fashion."

But Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, retorted that "making a tough decision doesn't necessarily make it right." He scorned the committee-passed bill as the "Lobbyist Enhancement Act," saying it would boost the power of special-interest lobbies and executive branch bureaucrats by "diminishing our ability in the House to get objective analyses [of legislation] from CRS."