Lacking the political courage to cut waste, redundancy and obsolete programs from their spending bills, House Appropriators have resorted to indefensible budget gimmicks in order to "comply" with the discretionary spending limits required by the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. In the past week, Appropriators have declared nearly $10 billion in spending for routine programs – such as the 2000 decennial census and veterans health care – as "emergency" spending, which does not have to be offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget (meaning, it is funded with surplus dollars) and does not count against the discretionary spending caps.

Before giving money to federal programs, Congress has a moral obligation to ensure that these programs can account for every tax dollar they spend. This week, when the Senate considers increasing the budget for the Department of Commerce by $2.1 billion ($1.7 billion of which is dedicated to the 2000 Census), lawmakers should take note of a recent General Accounting Office report that most agencies within this department "lack the basic financial and performance information they need to manage their programs and activities and improve their performance."

According to recent Department of Agriculture statistics, America has become a nation of middle-class, part-time farmers. Yet some lawmakers are suggesting that because of the recent dip in crop prices, farmers should be given as much as $9 billion in direct crop support payments and subsidies for disaster programs such as low-cost crop insurance. Before throwing $9 billion to a handful of part-time farmers, lawmakers should consider the following information reported in the USDA’s Agriculture Fact Book for 1998:

Let the people vote! Historically, the citizens of North Carolina have had the opportunity to vote on bond proposals in our state. Now, however, the General Assembly is rushing consideration of a three billion dollar bond issue that bypasses the public’s traditional role in approving the state’s education bond issues. Such a move not only would put the state’s consumers at risk for higher taxes, bypassing the people’s right to vote on the University bond issue will cost taxpayers 40 million dollars and cause a huge $247 million budget shortfall next year.

May 26, 1999 The Honorable William Kennard Chairman Federal Communications Commission 445 12th Street, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 Dear Chairman Kennard: On behalf of our more than 250,000 consumer activists from around the country, I urge you to strongly reject the proposal to increase funding for the E-rate at tomorrow’s open meeting. Anything less would cause direct harm to consumers and is of dubious constitutional merit.

CHARTER SCHOOLS Most parents agree: Our current education system needs improvement. Charter schools can help by bringing competition, accountability, opportunity, and innovation to our public schools. Parental involvement is a key factor in your child’s success at school, and a key factor in the success of charter schools. Why?

One year ago, Bill Clinton promised to "save every penny" of the budget surplus for Social Security. Today, with budget surpluses projected well into the next century, Clinton’s FY 2000 budget proposes to grab nearly half of any future surpluses for new spending. Just as remarkable, Clinton calls for a net tax increase, not a tax cut, even though his budget assumes that Americans will pay war-era levels of tax revenues for at least the next decade. If enacted, the president’s FY 2000 budget plan would mean: