In this article, it is quite surprising to read about how Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) declined appropriations committee spots very recently. This is almost unheard of.
The appropriations committee is usually very coveted because, most usually, the focus is bringing earmarks back home. The job of the committee (especially for the conservatives) will be very different at this point, and for the foreseeable future: finding $100 billion in spending cuts. Even though the conservatives were voted into office (mainly) because of their firm stance on cutting spending, the committee members will be “accused of hating seniors, hating education, hating children, hating clean air and probably hating the military and farmers, too,” This creates interesting (and backwards) incentives. As the representatives that accept a position in the committee “will have to make some tough votes”. Taken to the extreme this could mean that the representatives that have a choice (the ones with enough seniority that is) will try as hard as they can to stay out of the appropriations committee, and that the ones that don’t have much of a choice (the freshman) might end up on that committee. And if cutting spending generates as much dislike as is claimed in the article, these representatives are almost guaranteed to be voted out of office in 2 years.
“The chairman needs to have some young stallions in there who are ready to back him or her up,” Kingston said. “And you’re going to do this in the face of Democrats and the press and the administration fighting you on it all the way.”
Bob Livingston, who chaired Appropriations from 1995 to 1999, however thinks that any representative can “make a darn good campaign out of going on the Appropriations Committee and cutting the budget. They can make a name for themselves by cutting spending.” And I wonder if the senior representatives that have been in the appropriations committee prior to the last midterm election wouldn’t be making a huge mistake by potentially loosing a lot of credibility.
How much of these spending cuts will actually happen? All the representatives, apart from the ones in the committee, will have huge incentives to vote for spending cuts, the ones in the committees have huge incentives to not cut spending. How will this work out? With so much incentives to not cut spending, what will happen?
