Lots of talk but few cuts: Despite repeated rhetoric about trimming wasteful spending, the 105th Congress has failed to live up to its budget-cutting billing. At every gut-check vote this appropriations cycle, Members passed up chances to trim the fat and instead bellied up to the pork platter.

Congress failed to cut numerous programs that are widely recognized by organizations and individuals from all political perspectives as wasteful and unjustified. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Pyroprocessing, timber road subsidies, tobacco crop insurance and the Animas-La Plata dam project continued to receive funding despite widespread opposition from taxpayer, consumer, environmental and free-market groups.

  • The $744 million Animas-La Plata dam project, which would provide subsidized water to irrigate low-value crops, escaped the budget axe through clever Congressional chicanery in the House. Even well-intentioned Members were confused by the Fazio (D-CA) substitute to the DeFazio (D-OR) amendment, which allowed continued funding for what U.S. News and World Report has called the “last surviving dinosaur from the age of behemoth water projects.”
  • Pyromania continues as the Pyroprocessing Program to reprocess nuclear fuel survived cut attempts in the House. Even though Pyroprocessing makes waste management more complex and therefore more expensive, taxpayers will continue to shell out for a program that NBC’s Fleecing of America called a “$50 million a year rip-off.”
  • Timber road subsidies for logging in national forests continue because taxpayers were whipsawed by Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA), Republican leaders and the Clinton Administration. The Dicks amendment succeeded in cutting only half of the over $90 million annual subsidy.
  • Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which insures profitable investors overseas at taxpayer risk, had its spending cap raised $3 billion by the Senate, potentially putting taxpayers at even greater risk.
  • Tobacco Crop Insurance – The House and Senate failed to get the government out of the tobacco business, choosing instead to burn $34 million a year. Tobacco continues to be one of the select few crops to receive subsidized insurance.

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