Hey, Big Spender!
BillTally provides a window into the cumulative costs or savings present in bills sponsored by Members of Congress.
What would a perfect world look like to members of Illinois’s congressional delegation? Hard to say, but we can get a good glimpse in their minds from the bills they choose to sponsor.
Of course, big ideas don’t always come cheap. The National Taxpayers Union Foundation releases a report called “BillTally,” which totals up the spending (or savings) contained within each bill sponsored by a Member of Congress.
How did Illinois do for the first session of the 111th Congress? Turns out we’ve got some big spenders…
The biggest spender is Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D), and the biggest cutter is Rep. John Shimkus (R).
More fun data points from BillTally:
- Representatives authored 981 bills to raise federal spending and 63 bills to reduce spending. Senators drafted 620 increase bills and 34 savings bills. This comprised the largest number of savings bills introduced in the House since the 105th Congress, and the most in the Senate since the 106th.
- Each bill in the House to cut spending was outnumbered by 16 bills to increase spending. The ratio of increases to cuts was 18:1 in the Senate. Even so, in both Chambers this ratio represents a significant decline from the 110th Congress.
- Excluding overlapping legislation, if each bill in the House were to become law, spending would increase by $1.845 trillion, or $15,802 per household. If each bill in the Senate were to become law, spending would increase by $1.064 trillion, $9,115 per household.
- The typical House Democrat backed increases totaling $502.5 billion, 0.46 percent of which would be offset by savings of $2.3 billion, for a net agenda of $500.2 billion. This amount had been gradually declining since the 109th Congress.
- For the first time since the 106th Congress, the typical House Republican sponsored more spending cuts than increases. If this average spending agenda were enacted, outlays would decrease by $45.3 billion.
- The net agenda of the typical Senate Democrat grew from $59.2 billion in the 110th Congress to $133.7 billion this Congress.On average, Senate Democrats proposed spending cuts of $3.3 billion, which would offset 2.4 percent of their sponsored increases.
- Republican Senators, on average, supported spending hikes of $76.3 billion, a third of which would be offset by $25.4 billion in savings. This comprises a net spending agenda of $50.9 billion – the highest amount seen over the past ten Congresses.
The methodology:
This report summarizes data from NTUF’s BillTally accounting software, which studied the cost or savings of all legislation introduced in the First Session of the 111th Congress that affects spending by at least $1 million. Agenda totals for individual lawmakers were developed by cross-indexing their sponsorship and cosponsorship records with cost estimates for 1,044 House bills and 654 Senate bills under BillTally accounting rules that prevent the double counting of overlapping proposals. All sponsorship and cost data in this report were reviewed confidentially by each congressional office prior to publication.