The 12-member congressional supercommittee struggling to come up with $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions by Thanksgiving is getting little help from members of Congress on cutting their own budgets. So far, Republicans and Democrats have opposing ideas about what to cut,
The Washington Post reports.
Republicans on the House Administration Committee, which helps run half of the Capitol, have recommended cutting funding for the Election Assistance Commission, a group created under the 2002 Help America Vote Act to draw up election guidelines and disperse funding to states to meet those rule buy new voting machines, the Post reported.
GOP members of the committee said the commission’s tasks have been mostly completed and too much is being spent on staff. “The Election Assistance Commission has fulfilled its function and is now a perfect example of unnecessary and wasteful spending,” the Post quotes them as writing to the supercommittee.
However, committee Democrats object, arguing that closing the Election Assistance Committee would shift its responsibilities to the overburdened Federal Election Commission. Democrats instead recommended cutting spending by “adjusting corridor lighting levels and ambient temperatures overnight,” cutting computer costs, raising fees in the Library of Congress Copyright Office, and reducing printing costs, the Post reported.
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