Fiscal Responsibility

BALANCING THE BUDGET AND ELIMINATING WASTEFUL GOVERNMENT SPENDING

"Fiscal responsibility is a basic duty of the federal government. Cutting wasteful spending and spending taxpayer money wisely must always remain our highest priority. An important part of my platform when I first ran for U.S. Senate in 1992 was my 82-point plan to reduce the federal deficit. Fiscal responsibility is a strong Wisconsin tradition, one that I am proud to carry on in the Senate-most recently this past March, when I voted to keep in place spending caps on the Federal budget.

Fiscal responsibility is crucial if we are to eliminate our massive national debt, strengthen Social Security, and modernize Medicare. We have made great progress, bringing the budget deficit down from $340 billion in 1992 to a surplus in 2000. However, President Bush's irresponsible tax cuts have forced us back into deficit spending. I have fought and will continue to fight against irresponsible tax cuts and wasteful spending to reduce our massive federal debt and to practice responsible budgeting with your hard earned tax dollars."

ACHIEVEMENTS

Working Towards Fiscal Responsibility in the Senate: Senator Feingold serves on the Senate Budget Committee, where he strives to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent wisely.

Keeping Spending Caps in Place: This past March, Senator Feingold voted to keep spending caps in place on the Federal budget. This will ensure that the Senate carefully considers all expenditures in the federal budget over the next year. Senator Feingold join with Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) in introducing legislation to re-impose spending caps and to strengthen budget enforcement.

Voting Against Pay Raises: Russ does not accept pay raises during each term in office. When Congress votes to raise its pay or when it is scheduled to receive a cost of living increase, Russ sends his share back to the U.S. Treasury. As part of his efforts to reform government, Russ has introduced legislation that would end these automatic cost-of-living increases, so that Congress would be accountable to the public in deciding when to raise its pay.

PAYGO: Earlier this year, Senator Feingold's PAYGO amendment passed the Senate. The amendment to the budget resolution aims at bringing back fiscal discipline to the budgeting process by forcing Congress to find offsets to pay for new tax cuts or new spending on entitlement programs like Medicare. If offsets for spending were not included, Feingold's amendment subject the proposals to a budget point of order. In the Senate, that would mean such increases in spending would need a 60-vote majority for them to be included in the budget resolution. This type of fiscally responsible budgeting would bring us back to the rules, which helped our nation attain unprecedented budget surpluses in the 1990's.

"Honor Roll": Senator Feingold was named to the Concord Coalition's "Honor Roll" for his votes to cut the federal deficit. The nonpartisan group evaluated votes based on whether they protect the surplus by keeping it in reserve until the long-term Social Security problem has been solved; addressed long-term generational pressures on the federal budget; kept the budget enforcement procedures strong; opposed enactment of new permanent claims on the federal budget; favored reduction or elimination of unnecessary, wasteful, or duplicative defense or domestic program spending.

"Taxpayer Guardian": Senator Feingold received the honor of the top "Taxpayer Guardian" in the Senate by the Taxpayers for Common Sense, an independent, non-partisan group that monitors the spending of taxpayer money. Recently Senator Feingold was once again named as the top Senate Democrat "Treasury Guardian" for his efforts to rein in wasteful government spending.

Opposing Project ELF: Senator Feingold has been a longtime opponent of the Navy's Extremely Low Frequency communications site in Northern Wisconsin, having introduced legislation to terminate the operation of "Project ELF." This expensive, antiquated Cold War system is no longer necessary for communication with submarines and has a number of public health and environmental concerns associated with it. In September of 2004, the Navy finally shut down Project ELF.

READ MORE

Feingold: The Bad News About the Energy Bill, (Counterpunch.org, July 29, 2005)

Worths of state's U.S. senators vary greatly, (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 15, 2004)

Sen. Russ Feingold: Congress' backdoor pay raise system must end, (Capital Times, November 23, 2002)

Editorial: Feingold right to fight pay hike, (The Sheboyan Press, November 17, 2002)

Read about the National Taxpayer Union's recognition of Senator Feingold as the only Senator whose budget calls for reduced federal spending.

Read more about Senator Feingold's achievements in Government Reform.

Read more about Senator Feingold's succesful Campaign Finance Reform efforts.

Read a LaCrosse Tribune article about Senator Feingold's commitment to budget discipline.