Club For Growth To Track Spending Cut Votes With New Scorecard

Club for Growth President Chris Chocola: “It is good news that Congress is finally talking about spending cuts, but our review of voting records show that we have a long way to go if we’re going to achieve smaller government.”

Washington, DC – The Club for Growth today launched a new Spending Cut Scorecard designed for members of the public and Club Members to track how members of the House of Representatives are voting on amendments to cut spending from the FY13 appropriations bills. In the past, the Club for Growth tracked amendments to cut earmarks from appropriations bills, but recently noticed that many House members who ran on promises to cut spending have abandoned their pledges to do so.

The Club will include clean spending cut amendments and will update the Spending Cut Scorecard following the passage of every appropriations bill. To view the new Spending Cut Scorecard, click here: www.ClubForGrowth.org/SpendingCutScorecard

Thus far, interesting statistics from the Spending Cut Scorecard include:
· 20 members of the House have voted for every amendment to cut spending. All are Republicans.
· 50 members of the House have voted against every amendment to cut spending. 49 are Democrats. One is a Republican (Bonner).
· The average Republican voted for spending cuts 59% of the time. Republican Freshman are only slightly better at 60%.
· The average Democrat voted for spending cuts 6% of the time.
· The nine Republicans, including four freshmen, who have least often voted to cut spending are: Bonner 0%, Meehan 4%, LaTourette 4%, Bass 4%, Simpson 4%, Lucas 4%, King, P. 4%, Grimm 4%, and Dold 4%
· The eight Democrats who have most often voted to cut spending are: Matheson 32%, Rush 31%, Kucinich 30%, Polis 28%, Cooper 20%, McIntyre 17%, Velazquez 17%, and Honda 17%

“It is good news that Congress is finally talking about spending cuts, but our review of voting records show that we have a long way to go if we’re going to achieve smaller government,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “It’s important that Americans hold their members of Congress accountable for their votes and the Club for Growth intends to continue to make it easy for them to do so.”

“The Club continues to be disappointed, in particular, by the big spenders in the Republican Party. With a $16 trillion debt, voting to keep discretionary spending in appropriations bills is simply kicking hard choices into the future and passing the buck to future generations. House Leadership is clearly not pushing its conference to vote for spending cuts offered on the floor,” added Chocola.