It’s official: This Congress is the least popular in history. The 17 percent average yearly approval rating for the 112th Congress is the lowest recorded in the 30 years Gallup has been tracking congressional ratings.
Congress has done plenty to earn the scorn of the American people this past year. Much of the 2011 legislative session was dominated by gridlock, political posturing, obstructionism and plain inaction. With legislative control divided between a Republican House and a Democratic Senate that fundamentally disagree about spending levels and the size of government, some conflict is to be expected.
Although Harry Reid’s Senate has not passed a budget in almost 1,000 days and has refused to consider the dozens of spending cut and job creation bills passed by the House, Congress has managed to achieve important progress in bringing fiscal discipline to Washington.
House Republicans began the 2011 legislative session by cutting the budget of every congressional office and committee by 5 percent. The Appropriations Committee on which I serve went further and cut our budget by 9 percent. We also passed new rules to change how Congress operates, ensuring that all legislation be posted online for at least three days before a vote and instituting a requirement that all bills submitted for consideration be accompanied by a Constitutional Authority Statement citing the specific constitutional provisions that permit the legislation.
In April, we passed a truly historic budget that would cut $6.2 trillion over 10 years. Because we can never balance the budget by trimming around the edges of yearly discretionary spending, the Republican budget resolution tackled the 60 percent of federal spending that is consumed by entitlement programs. Unless Congress takes decisive action soon, Medicare will go bankrupt in 2021, followed by Social Security in 2037. Reforming these vital programs is the only way to save them for future generations, and the Republican budget does so without affecting benefits for anyone age 55 and younger.
While this budget was too bold to even be considered by a Democratic Senate mired in the wasteful Washington spending of another era, we did score victories for taxpayers in a series of budget battles over short-term spending. The budget agreement reached in April for 2011 government appropriations cut $78.5 billion compared to President Obama’s request and was ranked the largest spending cut in history. At the conclusion of the debt ceiling negotiations in August, congressional Republicans secured $2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years and prevailed in our insistence that any debt ceiling increase should be paid for by corresponding spending cuts, not tax increases. The year concluded with a 2012 appropriations package that cut $95 billion compared to fiscal year 2010 and reduced non-defense discretionary spending back to 2008 levels.
Every step of the way, President Obama and congressional Democrats resisted spending cuts and fought to impose tax increases. Conservatives may not have achieved the level of spending reductions needed, but we succeeded in preventing tax increases and in changing the status quo.
After this historic year of spending cuts, the days of automatic yearly spending increases are over. The debate has shifted from whether we will cut spending to how deeply we will cut spending. For all the frustration of the past year, that is a significant accomplishment and an important foundation on which to build in 2012.
