With the deadline approaching for the Super Committee to recommend at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction, senators Mark Udall (D-CO) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) sent a letter to the committee chairs encouraging them to include in their report the creation of a panel to identify wasteful government programs that could be cut to save taxpayers over $100 billion.  

The senators' proposed Committee to Reduce Government Waste is based on a program implemented after World War II, which cut wasteful spending by $38 billion in today's dollars over just three years.  While the Super Committee has been charged with taking important steps to reduce our deficit, establishing a Committee to Reduce Government Waste would help continue to reduce the deficit and prevent the country from repeating the problem we face now, the senators said.

"We ... recognize that this nation will continue to face ongoing spending issues that will require the continuous attention of lawmakers," the senators wrote.  "There can be no doubt that these wasteful and duplicative programs exist....  We firmly believe that creation of the Committee to Reduce Government Waste would be an effective curb on wasteful government spending even after Congress votes on the joint committee bill."

Udall and Hatch first proposed the idea in a Senate resolution introduced in March following a report by the Government Accountability Office, which identified multiple overlapping federal government programs that, if consolidated or cut, could dramatically reduce administrative and overhead costs, among other savings.  

Under the senators' proposal, a Senate committee composed of 12 members - four from each of the Senate Finance, Appropriations and Budget committees - would be required to submit a report to the Senate at least once a year identifying under-performing and wasteful government programs in need of cuts or elimination.  The report's recommendations would then receive expedited consideration.  

Udall and Hatch co-authored an op-ed about the committee earlier this year that can be read HERE.

The text of the letter follows:

Dear Senator Murray and Representative Hensarling:

Congress has tasked the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction with identifying significant savings in federal programs in order to reduce our annual deficits and national debt.  As our nation's debt approaches $15 trillion, the work of the Joint Committee is of mounting importance.  While it is critical that the Joint Committee will be looking for significant savings in the near term, we also recognize that this nation will continue to face ongoing spending issues that will require the continuous attention of lawmakers.  To that end, we encourage you to include in your recommendations the creation of a Committee to Reduce Government Waste.

In March we introduced S. Res. 93, which would reestablish a bipartisan Senate committee to target underperforming and wasteful federal government programs for elimination.  This Committee to Reduce Government Waste would look into, and recommend for elimination, those spending programs that are duplicative, wasteful, or whose claims to usefulness have lost their merit.  There can be no doubt that these wasteful and duplicative programs exist.  

In January 2010, our colleague, Senator Tom Coburn secured a Senate vote directing the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate a number of federal programs for wasteful and duplicative spending.  GAO released its report earlier this year, and Senator Coburn concluded that implementation of the recommendations in the report alone could save taxpayers $100 billion.  The need for a standing Committee to Reduce Government Waste is confirmed by the fact that GAO issued a similar report a decade ago, in 2001.  Yet, Congress took no action on its recommendations.  

The Joint Committee has a unique opportunity to take steps to ensure that wasteful government spending will be addressed by future congresses.  As designed in S. Res. 93, the Committee to Reduce Government Waste would submit a report to the Senate at least once a year that identifies underperforming and wasteful programs and recommends their reduction or elimination.  The recommendations would receive expedited consideration in the Senate.  This would be a bipartisan committee, comprised of 12 members -four from each of the Senate Finance, Appropriations, and Budget committees. The Senate Majority and Minority Leaders would each pick six members whose service would be limited to six years.

We firmly believe that creation of a Committee to Reduce Government Waste would be an effective curb on wasteful government spending even after Congress votes on the Joint Committee's recommendations.  By including a permanent Committee to Reduce Government Waste in your recommendations, the Joint Committee can ensure that Congress continues to deal in a systematic way with the long term spending problems that have become a legitimate threat to this nation's security and prosperity.

As you go about the important work of deficit reduction over the coming month, we urge you to include the language from S. Res 93 and establish a Senate committee devoted to eliminating wasteful government programs.