Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, unveiled major legislation today to cut wasteful spending and institute reforms to control spending going forward.  The Control Spending Now Act is a comprehensive plan composed of more than 40 separate efforts to reduce the deficit by more than one half trillion dollars over 10 years and institute reforms to the budgeting and earmarking process to prevent wasteful spending in the future.  Feingold’s bill will make Congress tighten its belt, crack down on corporate welfare, curb subsidies to big agribusinesses and other private enterprises and cut other wasteful spending on unnecessary projects. 

“Fiscal responsibility is a Wisconsin tradition and something I have focused on throughout my time in the Senate,” Feingold said.  “A consistent message I hear from Wisconsinites – regardless of party – is the need to reduce wasteful spending.  With our nation facing record deficits, Americans are rightly concerned that their children and grandchildren will be forced to shoulder this burden.  That is why I am committed to attacking the deficit from all sides.”  

Along with reforming the budget process itself, the bill seeks to save taxpayer dollars by eliminating wasteful spending including:

• $244 billion by returning any unspent Wall Street bailout funds to the Treasury
• $4 billion by cancelling C-17 aircraft the Department of Defense didn’t even ask for
• $257 million over 10 years by allowing the FDA to assess fees on businesses for the cost of re-inspecting goods that fail an initial inspection – taxpayers don’t need to pay the bill for someone else’s mistake
• $30 million for a program that sends a radio and TV signal to Cuba that virtually nobody gets

“While I don’t expect this comprehensive package to pass all at once, Congress must get the message that it needs to reform its spending habits,” Feingold said.  “The message from taxpayers is clear – we must cut programs that do nothing but drain taxpayer dollars and institute reforms to prevent wasteful spending in the future.”

Feingold’s long record of deficit reduction began even before he came to the U.S. Senate.  In his 1992 campaign, he unveiled an 82-point plan to slash the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.  Many of those reforms have been enacted, as have many other fiscally responsible initiatives Feingold has championed, such as reinstating pay-as-you-go (known as “PAYGO”) budget rules, and creating an inspector general to oversee U.S. taxpayer dollars in Iraq.  These efforts are all part of Feingold’s record of working to prevent the abuse of taxpayer dollars and restore fiscal discipline in Congress.

Senator Feingold’s complete proposal is available at http://feingold.senate.gov/deficit.