John Boehner, October 7, 2005

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have kick-started a national debate on our budget priorities. The federal government has spent billions of dollars - and may spend billions more - on the immediate needs of the relief and recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast. As well we should. An unprecedented disaster requires an unprecedented response - and that’s what we’re seeing.

But that’s not the whole story. As you well know, the federal government is buried in a mountain of debt. Runaway spending and the spiraling costs of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare have ballooned the deficit. We have a responsibility to help those in need in the aftermath of two devastating hurricanes, but we also have a responsibility to cut wasteful or unnecessary federal spending elsewhere to pay for it.

I’ve opposed wasteful government spending my entire career. And now, my committee is taking some of the first steps towards getting the budget in order. I recently introduced the Setting Priorities in Spending Act which will eliminate fourteen federal programs that have proven inefficient, duplicative, or simply unnecessary. These programs cost taxpayers nearly $250 million last year alone.

Year after year, despite their dubious merits, Congress has continued to fund programs such as "Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners," which lavishes money on a few groups in Massachusetts, Alaska, and Hawaii. And there’s the "Literacy Programs for Prisoners," which merely duplicates the efforts of other programs to provide educational opportunities for prisoners.

There’s no room for this kind of government waste, especially in a time of fiscal belt-tightening.

I should note that many of these programs were on the chopping block in the original version of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which I wrote, and which passed the House in May 2001 with overwhelming bipartisan support. In other words, as recently as four years ago even House Democrats agreed these programs were unnecessary and ripe for elimination!

Another bit of government waste we should be cutting out is "earmarks" -- that’s the Washington term for "political pork."

I was one of eight votes against the recently passed highway bill which is loaded with 6,371 earmarks. Taxpayers are coughing up billions for everything from landscaping to water taxis to visitor centers. There’s a $250 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska; $6 million for a government program to encourage people to ride bikes; $5 million for trails in Oregon; and $2.5 million for "freeway landscaping" in California.

If you ask me, this pork money - nearly $25 billion - would be far better spent helping those whose lives have been shattered by the hurricanes.

Of course, we’re hearing the predictable calls to "repeal the tax cuts" - code for "raise taxes" - in order to shore up the budget and pay for hurricane relief. That’s a nonstarter. All raising taxes would do is throw a wrench into the economy at the very time we need it to be running as well as possible.

President Bush was right when he said Congress should cut spending to help pay for hurricane relief, and this is the time for the House and Senate to show our resolve and make the difficult choices that are in the best interest of not just Gulf Coast residents, but the American taxpayers as well.

Congressman John Boehner, a Republican, represents Ohio's Eighth Congressional District, which includes Miami, Butler, Preble, Darke, and Mercer Counties.