YouCut Takes Aim at Wasteful Printing
Washington,
Dec 1 -
Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA) issued the following statement in support of legislation developed by Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY), which was chosen by the public as this week’s YouCut target. The proposal would end the practice of printing unnecessary copies of legislation and save approximately $35 million over the next decade.
“Since Republicans first unveiled YouCut last May, the public has asked us to enact more than $155 billion in spending cuts,” said Chairman Price. “This week, Americans chose to target wasteful spending in Congress itself. There is no reason to spend taxpayer money printing out millions of pages of legislation that anyone can easily access online. As Republicans look to cut back the bloated federal budget, we will search for even more ways to make government cheaper and more efficient.”
NOTE: Whenever a Member of Congress introduces legislation, the Government Printing Office prints 200 paper copies. 14,042 bills and resolutions were introduced in the last Congress, which works out to 2.8 million paper copies. Some bills, such as ObamaCare and the cap-and-trade national energy tax, stretched to more than 2,000 pages. This year Congress will spend approximately $7 million printing bills and resolutions, and many of these paper copies are simply thrown away. Eliminating the mandatory printing of every introduced bill and using technology to ensure that bills are publicly available online will achieve significant savings to taxpayers, while still ensuring accountable and open government.
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