Froomkin: House Republicans Propose Slashing Congressional Budget

House Republicans on Thursday proposed slashing the budget for Congress itself, continuing a process that critics are likening to a self-inflicted lobotomy.

The 6.4 percent budget cut that leaders of the House Appropriations Committee intend for the legislative branch next year would require significant reductions in pay and staff for congressional offices, as well as for the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office.

The inevitable result of the budget cuts will be even greater turnover among congressional staffers, said Daniel Schuman, policy counsel for the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to increasing government transparency.

"You have the people who are the most capable, well connected and able to push Congress's work forward leaving Congress, and instead of working for the public interest, they're working for special interests," he said.

"We're dumb on purpose," said Lorelei Kelly, director of the nonprofit New Strategic Security Initiative and a chronicler of the demise of congressional brain power. Ever since the 1994 Contract with America, Republicans have wanted to defund the legislative branch, she said. She calls it the "lobotomy of Congress."

And that, she said, serves the powerful private interests who can afford lobbyists and the conservative ideological interests who are particularly active at funding think tanks.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/republicans-propose-congress-budget-cuts_n_892585.html