Appropriations

 Kevin D. Williamson at The Dispatch:

Appropriations, which is the nitty-gritty business of putting money into agency coffers where it may be spent, theoretically happens in 12 parts, with 12 subcommittees writing appropriations bills and these then going to the House and Senate appropriations committees. The subcommittees are for the most part relatively capacious slop buckets: Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration; Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies; Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies; etc. Some are more focused, such as Defense—not to be confused with Homeland Security or Military Construction, Veterans’ Affairs, and Related Agencies.

When things are working the way they are supposed to, the appropriations subcommittees spend a lot of time listening to testimony and holding hearings about this or that program and its financial needs, with members of each party negotiating with their own fellow partisans and with those of the other party, doing all the usual horse-trading and favor-swapping and such that constitutes ordinary politics. It is a long, complicated, exasperating, labor-intensive process that, for the average congressional specimen, is not nearly as much fun as getting a hit on Fox News or MSNBC. And so we end up with what Jonah Goldberg calls our “Parliament of Pundits,” where relatively little work is done in the way of the ordinary business of politics (much less the ordinary business of governing!) and, while our lawmakers and bureaucrats angle for television time and hone their own-the-opposition social-media strategies, the actual fiscal process lapses into chaos. Holding off that chaos is what such stop-gap measures as “continuing resolutions” and “omnibus appropriations” and such are all about.

It matters how much money Washington spends. It also matters—a great deal!—what it spends that money on. And here I do not mean big broad vague categorical buckets such as “defense” or “education” or whatever, but actual programs. There is some education spending that is excellent and worthwhile and worth expanding, and some education spending that ought to be eliminated entirely, the programs ended, the records burned, the bureaucratic fields sown with salt by libertarian centurions under the command of Nick Gillespie (if only because I think he is likely to own a toga in addition to his 41 black leather jackets). (Rough estimate.) Talking about “how much we spend on education” doesn’t get to the important details.

You know what probably could get into those details? Congressional subcommittees doing their g—mned jobs.

“Getting spending under control” is only in part about debt and deficits—as important as those factors are. It also is about making sure that the money we do spend, we spend on things that are useful and productive. And that is why it is important to understand that continuing resolutions and budget ad-hocracy isn’t just about avoiding the hard work of intelligent appropriations and oversight—it is about avoiding accountability. If you lump everything together into one big mess and then pass it at the last minute under the shadow of a budget crisis, then you can pretend that you have an excuse for not watching where the money is actually going. And then you can go back to your career as a half-assed cable-news pundit who also happens to serve in Congress.

Congressional Capacity

A number of posts have discussed congressional capacity.  Despite large increases in federal spending and administrative rulemaking, Congress now has less capacity to oversee the executive than it did decades ago.

Congress has fewer committee staff and nonpartisan wonks to help it than it did in 1990.

Source: https://t.co/MK5SK2rZSM pic.twitter.com/5l9dNU8mu0

— Kevin R Kosar (@kevinrkosar) March 13, 2024

Tracking Oversight

Molly E. Reynolds and Jackson Gode at Brookings:

Two of the most significant [congressional oversight] mechanisms include holding congressional hearings as well as sending letters to executive branch agencies and to individuals involved in executive branch operations.

Developed by Governance Studies, Brookings’s House Oversight Tracker monitors the actions being taken by House committees to conduct oversight of administration actions and policies since the 2016 election.

Search hearings or letters by clicking on the numbered icons below, or view all activity in a specific policy area by selecting one of the relevant boxes underneath. Click on any row to view additional information about each hearing/letter.

The data is updated frequently, and new oversight items will be added on a regular basis. For more information on the tracker, read Brookings’s methodology used to identify executive branch oversight in hearings and letters. For questions and feedback, please contact OversightTracker@brookings.edu

Oversight and the Legislative Lobotomy

Many posts have discussed declines in congressional capacity.

William Yeatman at Cato:

After World War Two, committees were the most consequential institutions in Congress; now, parties fill that role. Part of the reason for this change is demographic: The parties became more homogenous with the demise of southern Democrats and northeastern Republicans. At the same time that party rank-and-file were taking on hive-minds, opportunistic party leaders gamed the House and Senate rules to centralize power in their hands.

For ascendant party leadership in Congress, strong committees were a roadblock to the consolidation of authority. To weaken committees, party leaders sought to weaken committee staff.

Matters came to a head in 1995 on the first day of the 104th Congress, when Speaker Newt Gingrich and Republican leadership slashed committee staff by one-third, and the Senate soon followed suit. Because it was in the interest of both parties’ leaders to subdue committees, staffing never recovered

For example, there were 2,115 professional personnel in House and Senate standing committees in 2015, or less than two-thirds the total in 1991 (3,528). To be fair, party leaders invested in some parts of Congress--themselves. From 1995 to 2011, House and Senate leadership staff increased 35 percent and 38 percent (respectively).

Simply put, Congress doesn’t have the tools to oversee the administrative state it created. The WSJ grows a false narrative when its Editorial Board opines that Warren’s plan for congressional staff reflects an “expansion of government.” In a less sincere tone—his real purpose was power—Rep. Gingrich advanced the same arguments when he dropped the ax on committee staff in 1995. Though untrue and often disingenuous, it makes for a great talking point to claim that Congress should lead by example by starving itself in the name of fiscal prudence. Anyone who claims otherwise is branded as a spendthrift. That’s why staffing levels have never recovered

Undersight

Casey Burgat at R Street:

The legislative branch simply does not have the levels of staff resources, funding or expertise to conduct effective oversight of the executive branch, including—and perhaps even especially—on matters of foreign affairs, intelligence and national security. Congressional committees are supremely overmatched by the resources of the executive agencies they are tasked with overseeing, and as a result, they cannot reasonably keep up with the decisions, plans and results produced by the sprawling military bureaucracy. This dynamic is compounded by the reality that the president enjoys near unilateral authority over military and intelligence operations, ultimately leaving Congress with little insight into the day-to-day operations of the people, programs and agencies they are expected to oversee and fund. Instead of providing an independent check on the president’s military authorities through oversight, such a lack of capacity has rendered Congress dependent upon the information provided by the very agencies they monitor.

House Committee Funding

Many posts have discussed declines in congressional capacity.

Casey Burgat at LegBranch.org:

On March 26, observers received a glimpse into the what House Democrats will prioritize in the 116th Congress when the House Committee on Administration met in an open session and passed House Resolution 245, setting authorization levels for each of the chamber’s committees. (Note: the Appropriations Committee funding level is set in a separate stand alone measure.)

What do these committee allocations tell us about what House Democrats deem most important, and how does this differ from years past? Let’s follow the money.

1. Total authorizations down $2 million

Much to the delight of First Branch enthusiasts, Congress had been slowly but surely investing more money in its committees from 2013 through 2018. During that period, House committees were authorized just shy of $12 million more in constant 2019 dollars, a bump of 4.56% (again, keep in mind these numbers don’t include the nearly $50 million authorized to the Appropriations Committee). But, as the above figure makes clear, these modest gains were miniscule compared to the draconian 22% cuts Republicans instituted after they gained control of the chamber in the Tea Party wave of 2010. In fact, committee authorization levels in 2013 (113th Congress) were barely greater than those in 1995 (104th Congress) after adjusting for inflation. As a result of these cutbacks, House committees have been working with 1995 resource levels despite large increases in the size and complexity of the federal government, congressional districts, and a sped up economy complete with entirely new industries.

And unfortunately, the 116th authorizations reverse the trend of reinvestment experienced during the past six years and instead cut committee expenses by $2 million (0.86%) from 115th Congress levels. Though the decrease is marginal, the signal it sends is not. As many reformers have argued, the legislative branch has “suffered from a funding deficit and significant loss of institutional capacity in recent decades.” Big funding increases are needed to compete with special interests and the Executive Branch; decreases, especially in committees where much policy formation occurs, only exacerbate the capacity losses.

FEC Troubles

Dave Levinthal at the Center for Public Integrity reports on the Federal Election Commission.  An internal turf war has led to a vacancy in its office of inspector general.

The May 2018 fracas, described in interviews and a series of internal emails obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, is but one of several stumbles that have helped render the FEC’s inspector general office effectively nonfunctional since November, when the lone deputy inspector general quit.

This matters because the inspector general office investigates waste, fraud and abuse at the FEC, including accusations against commissioners. The bipartisan FEC is itself responsible for enforcing and regulating national campaign finance laws but has long been hamstrung by ideological divisions, low staff morale and other long-standing vacancies, including two of six FEC commissioner slots.

So the lack of an inspector general means no one is watching the election watchdog — at a time when few feel the FEC is functioning effectively, even as its missions are evermore important. The FEC’s struggles are set against the backdrop of an accelerating chase for presidential campaign cash and prominent political money scandals — alleged porn actress hush-money payments and foreign infiltration among them.

Scammers are also increasingly preying on vulnerable Americans who are misled into believing they are supporting a candidate or cause — an issue the FEC has struggled to address.

Making the Legislative Branch Great Again

Many posts have discussed the role of Congress in the constitutional system.

From the R Street Institute and the Legislative Branch Capacity Working Group:

White Papers

• Kevin R. Kosar, Lee Drutman, Paul Glastris, Yuval Levin, Jonathan Rauch and Molly Reynolds, “Restoring Congress as the first branch“
• Anthony J. Madonna and Kevin R. Kosar, “Could the Senate manage an open-amendment process?“
• Kevin R. Kosar, “How to strengthen Congress“
• Kevin R. Kosar, “Three steps for reasserting Congress in regulatory policy“
• Philip Wallach and Kevin R. Kosar, “The case for a Congressional Regulation Office“
• Kevin R. Kosar and Adam Chan, “A case for stronger congressional committees“
• Russell W. Mills and Nicole Kalaf-Hughes, “Exit earmarks, enter lettermarks“
• Kevin R. Kosar and John Maxwell Hamilton, “Government Information and Propaganda: How to draw a line?“
• C. Jarrett Dieterle, “Regulatory Reform in the 114th and 115th Congress“

Selected Commentaries

• “A welcome message from the R Street Governance Project’s director“
• “Why does Congress diminish itself?“
• “The legislative branch’s big oversight problem“
• “Outsourcing oversight through open-government data“
• “Making oversight win-win“
• “Inappropriate appropriations: How Congress spends without authorization“
• “A revived Congress?“
• “Does America need more political dynamism?“
• “Whither the conference committee?“
• “How to put the ‘most complete and effectual weapon’ back in their hands“
• “Should we have a long-term budget for entitlements?“
• “For regulatory reform, look to Congress“
• “An Uncomfortable Reality: Congress needs more staff”
• “Eight good pieces of news about Congress“

Tips on Oversight

Is Congress Broken? includes an extensive discussion of congressional oversight.

From Wayne State U:

In these Levin Center at Wayne Law video trainings, experienced investigators offer advice in 5 to 10 minute segments on Levin Center logohow to conduct effective congressional oversight investigations. The first in the series provides an overview; the others present tips on how to: (1) investigate the facts, (2) write up investigative results, (3) hold a hearing, (4) follow up with reforms, and (5) handle related investigative issues.