Tell Your Representative to Co-Sponsor the Decrease Spending Now Act

Dear FreedomWorks member,

As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your Representative and ask them to cosponsor H.R. 828, the “Decrease Spending Now Act.” Introduced by Rep. Tom Price (GA-6), the bill mandates that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) withdraw $45 billion from unobligated balances of discretionary appropriations within 60 days.

A fiscal year 2012 OMB report states that the federal budget contains nearly $700 billion in unobligated balances. This means that hundreds of billions of dollars sit unspent in numerous government agencies. The report finds that $226 billion sits in the Treasury, $14 billion at the Agriculture Department, $18 billion at Labor, $78 billion at Defense and $23 billion at Housing and Urban Development. In 2011, Sen. Coburn’s (Oklahoma) office found that at least $100 billion of these funds can safely be redirected immediately to reduce the national deficit. It is estimated that $82.4 billion of these funds are between six and twenty years old.

Congress must seek to eliminate wasteful spending wherever they find it. One of the most obvious examples of needless spending is Congress appropriating more money to a federal agency than it can spend. With our nation over $16.6 trillion in debt, we clearly cannot afford a federal budget that includes hundreds of billions in unobligated balances.

The Decrease Spending Now Act is a modest proposal that is a step in the right direction towards reining in excessive spending. More importantly, it is a major reduction in spending that both parties should be able to agree upon – this exact bill passed the Senate in 2011 with a massive bipartisan majority. I urge you to contact your Representative and ask them to cosponsor Rep. Price’s Decrease Spending Now Act today.

Sincerely,

Matt Kibbe

President and CEO

FreedomWorks