(The Center Square) – A recent poll stated that 60% of Americans think the government is spending “too much.”
The National Taxpayers’ Union (NTU), a fiscally conservative non-profit group based in Washington, D.C., tracks legislators’ commitment to reducing government spending. This week, it released a comprehensive list of scores for U.S. senators to evaluate their fiscal responsibility. The NTU grades them out of 100 – based on their voting records in 2023 in key votes that affected spending, taxation and borrowing – according to whether their votes saved taxpayers’ money.
On average, the NTU scored the whole Senate – currently controlled by Democrats – at 43%, the same rating as the House of Representatives. The average score by party varied significantly, with Senate Republicans scoring at 69% and Senate Democrats at 16%. Independent members of the Senate – in 2023, just Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) – scored 26% in terms of fiscal responsibility.
The Senate’s most fiscally responsible member, according to the NTU, was Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), with the highest score of 87%. Paul has been the loudest voice in the Senate for reducing government spending, and he has often slowed the passage of big spending legislation to do so.
Most recently, Paul used procedural tactics to delay passage of an omnibus appropriations bill to fund the government for the 2024 fiscal year, as well as delay passage of a $95 billion bill to send foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. He has often employed creative ways to highlight allegedly wasteful government spending – such as brackets for the “March Earmark Madness Tournament” (a pun on the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship) and releasing Christmas messages that satirize the issue.
Other senators cited by the NTU for their high scores were Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who scored 85%, and Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., at 81%. By contrast, the senator with the lowest score was Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., with a rating of just 6%.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., received a score of 62%, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray – who oversees all spending bills that reach the Senate floor – was scored at 14%, and Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who oversees all tax legislation, was graded 20%.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who leads the body, did not receive a score.
NTU President Pete Sepp said that the recent set of scores were an improvement over the last few years.
“The overall fiscal work product of Congress has gotten less shoddy in our most recent rating compared to the past few pandemic years, but it is still far short of what will be required to meet the challenges in tax and spending policy ahead,” Sepp told The Center Square.
The votes taken by the Senate were weighted differently based on their fiscal effect. In the Senate, the most heavily weighted vote was on H.J. Res. 45, a bill to overturn President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive up to $10,000 in student debt for all borrowers, which was later ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.
Currently, the federal government is running a $1.2 trillion deficit – the gap between spending and actual revenue. Congress, in 2025, is due to take up a variety of key fiscal issues – such as the expiration of the Trump administration’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the expiration of the national debt limit.
“2025 will be a perfect storm of issues like expiring tax relief and a debt ceiling increase, and taxpayers need all hands on deck – Republicans and Democrats – to navigate through them,” Sepp noted.
