Darrell Issa and the Republicans on the Oversight Committee are complaining that their committee got only a bigger-than-inflation but smaller-than-other-committees 3.43% increase in funding this year. Oversight still has the second largest budget of any House Committee, with $22.3 million.
In what some might call a great example of "what goes around comes around," Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR) are up in arms over what they consider a paltry budget increase for the panel tasked with tracking the operations and spending of the federal government. Democrats say they’re practicing fiscal restraint and that oversight will continue no matter who occupies the White House.
Committee budgets are set by the Committee on House Administration, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the House of Representatives. The panel, chaired by Rep. Robert A. Brady (D-Pa.), gave OGR a 3.43 percent budget increase this year, less than the 10.9 percent bump it requested. The full House is scheduled to vote on the budget increases later this week. OGR’s $22.3 million budget is second only to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"We have the second largest budget, but that number is deceiving: we have the largest staff as well," said Kurt Bardella, spokesman for OGR’s Republican members.
I thought Republicans didn’t want any Federal money to go to governance. So why does Issa want an inflation-busting increase?
If Issa weren’t such an asshole, I might be all in favor of an increase in oversight. But seeing as how two months into his tenure as Ranking Member at Oversight, he has already proven to a hypocritical, fairweather advocate of oversight, I have just this to say to Issa:
Darrell? Elections have consequences.