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DeMint, colleagues take stand against pointless $400k Senate resolutions
A bipartisan group of senators led by South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint introduced the Pay for Printing Act Thursday, which would require senators to pay for celebratory “simple resolutions” with money from their own budgets.
During the 112th Congress, the Senate has already passed over 350 simple resolutions, and introduced over a 100 more. They have mostly been symbolic, feel-good declarations including, as The Daily Caller reported in June: “National Chess Day,” “National Safe Digging Month,” “Year of Water,” “National Inventors Month,” “Collector Car Appreciation Day,” and “The Year of the Family Caregiver.”
DeMint’s office points out that each resolution page costs an estimated $1,200. A Daily Caller investigation in June revealed that the 318 simple resolutions passed since January 2011 cost taxpayers $381,600. Dozens of additional simple resolutions have been passed since then, and their total price tag in this Congress now amounts to more than $400,000.
“The printing of symbolic, nonbinding resolutions has gotten out of hand and it’s costing taxpayers more of their hard-earned dollars,” DeMint said in a statement. “This bipartisan legislation simply requires senators to take responsibility for paying for the cost of printing these symbolic resolutions out of their own office budgets. This will require senators to be more judicious with taxpayer dollars and hopefully cut down on many of these unnecessary resolutions.”
Unneutral
August 3rd, 2012
You mean, a politician wants to save tax-payer dollars….is that even permissible?
Noodengr
August 3rd, 2012
nice gesture, but very sad that he even needs to make it. There is no place in the Constitution that assigns the task of proclaiming silly things to congress. Read the Constitution at the opening of every session and if anyone deviates from the intent of it, they loose their jobs. Might solve many problems in DC and across the country.
Tim
August 3rd, 2012
Where does the good Senator think the office budgets come from?
The Office Budget Fairy?
The scumbags will simply vote themselves higher office budgets to cover the costs.
Billy Fuster
August 3rd, 2012
How about everybody stop paying income tax?
Stranded in Sonoma
August 3rd, 2012
I’m going with @Tim on this one. The plan sounds good but the actual application leaves a bit to be desired. About the only thing that is good is the 27th Amendment:
We can always use the 27th as an election hammer, if need be.
Justsomebody
August 3rd, 2012
@ Bill Fuster.
That might just jar their memory as to who they
are responsible to, or who is answerable to who.
FBO 2012