He still has some ‘splaining to do about that CR vote, but I can get on board with this:

Just got this flash from Frank Guinta’s office:

For Immediate Release
Contact:  J. Mark Powell
(202) 226-8530

GUINTA CO-SPONSORS BILL TO RESCIND
$45 BILLION IN UNSPENT FEDERAL MONEY

 

“The money just sits there, doing nothing.  It’s wasteful, it’s totally unacceptable and it must stop now.”

(WASHINGTON – March 17, 2011)   Taxpayers would save $45 billion under a bill co-sponsored by U.S. Representative Frank Guinta (R/NH-01).  He added his name to the Decrease Spending Now Act (H.R. 1111).  It requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to rescind money from unobligated balances of discretionary appropriations and report to Congress and the Treasury Secretary on these efforts within 60 days.  Discretionary funds for the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration would not be affected.

“Most Americans don’t know it, but tens of billions of dollars are just sitting idly in government bank accounts,” Guinta explained.  “Congress appropriated that money, but the various departments and agencies never got around to directing where it should go.  So the money just sits there, doing nothing.  It’s wasteful, it’s totally unacceptable and it must stop now.”

Guinta noted the bill requires the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to report a plan to make these cuts.  “That would force the Administration to finally come off the sidelines and get into the spending cut game.”

Guinta went on to say the fact that such a large amount of money can sit untouched in the bank is further evidence that the federal government is living beyond its means. “This reveals that Washington can clearly get by on a much smaller budget.  I not only want to change the way Washington does business, but I want to change how it handles the money that you –the taxpayer- send it.  This bill, combined with further rounds of deep, across the board cuts in spending, will put us back on the road to fiscal solvency and prosperity.”

Again, doing clawbacks of taxpayer money is good, but it HAS to be faster than this.  That said, speed up the pace and increase the the size of the cuts and clawbacks, and the pikes go back to a "ready" position from their "let’s prod him a bit more" one. 

$45 Billion at a whack is more like it – two or three of these a week would put me into a more mellow state of mind (such as I have).