Richmond, Va. Balance the budget. Rein in spending. Stick a hungry government bureaucracy on a diet.
Those were mantras of Virginia's Republican congressional candidates who won big in Tuesday's elections. But within weeks, the critics will move to the corridors of power and it will be their unbalanced budget and their national debt.
Within their immediate control are their $174,000 annual salary and an office budget of roughly $1.5 million. We asked Virginia's three Republican congressmen-elect what they personally are willing to cut.
Scott Rigell, who defeated Rep. Glenn Nye, D-2nd, promptly issued a series of reforms he says he will follow whether they are enacted into law or not.
The car dealer from Virginia Beach says he will roll back his congressional office budget to 2008 levels and allow government trips only on official business -- "real official business."
He has pledged a 12-year term limit and he wants to "reduce the incentive to stay in Congress" by replacing the current retirement system with a 403(b) match program.
He has even sketched out rules on mail -- "Only two direct-mail pieces will be sent each year, no closer than three months prior to an election, standardized in form and content, one page only, using recycled paper and black and white ink."
That kind of up-front commitment is smart politics on Rigell's part, said Steve Farnsworth, a political analyst at George Mason University.
"I think the one thing that voters cannot stand about politicians is hypocrisy," he said. "A congressman-elect who promises to cut his own office expenditures, that's absolutely a smart move for congressmen looking ahead to 2012. That's what people want to see."
A challenge for Republicans over the next two years will be to demonstrate that they can make change happen while they control the House but not the Senate or White House, he said. That split in power makes it virtually impossible to repeal the health-care legislation, for example.
"That's why it's such smart politics for Republicans to look at things that are more directly under their control, like their own office expenditures," he said.
. . .
Rigell's plan is pretty specific, and while the other congressmen-elect did not offer the same level of detail, they gave some insight during the campaigns.
State Sen. Robert Hurt, who defeated Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th, has said he would vote to reduce the salary of members of Congress. His campaign also says he will use the franked mail system "only for legitimate constituent services."
The lawyer from Chatham said last week in a news conference about his transition plans that he doesn't anticipate greatly altering the number of district offices. There are four in addition to the Washington office.
"Right now I have no reason to believe that we'll change anything [that's] in place, but we will take a fresh look at that because obviously we want to make sure we're as accessible as possible," he said.
Congressman-elect H. Morgan Griffith of the 9th District has advocated for a 10 percent pay cut for Congress, and he wants to end the practice that allows members of Congress to lease a vehicle through the House of Representatives.
"There's got to be a lot of other things like that," he said.
If his pay-cut idea doesn't go over well with his colleagues, Griffith said he will donate the equivalent of a 10 percent cut into the 9th District to not-for-profit charitable organizations.
He said of his early ideas: "They're not going to solve the budget problem, but you've got to start somewhere."
The office budgets for the new Congress have not been decided, but Perriello's for 2010 was $1.46 million, Nye's was $1.48 million and Rep. Rick Boucher's was $1.5 million.
That allowance will not likely vary dramatically for the new members. It is supposed to cover the expenses congressmen incur as part of their official role, and it is based on three major components: staff salaries, office expenses and official mail.
Funding for salaries made up the largest component in 2010, at $944,671. House members can decide how many employees they hire and how much they pay them, but there are caps on how many and how much.
Office expenses include a travel stipend that varies based on the distance of the representative's district from Washington, as well as district office rental expenses. That also varies by member -- space in downtown Los Angeles will cost more than on Main Street in Chatham.
In general, however, members can spend the money as they see fit, as long it complies with federal and House rules. Spending on campaign or political purposes is a no-no, for example.
Voters serious about the spending-cut message this year likely will keep tabs on how their new congressmen operate on Capitol Hill.
"In the new Congress, the tea party's influence will be far larger than their numbers," Farnsworth said, "because so many Republicans are going to be looking over their shoulders wondering if the tea-party activists are going to run a Republican nomination opponent against them the next time they face the voters."
www.timesdispatch.com
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