Dennis Kucinich received a "F" rating for how he handles taxpayers' money from the tax watchdog organization, the National Taxpayers Union (NTU). Kucinich was tied for the second lowest rating among Ohio representatives with a 12%. Kucinich had a 21% rating in 1998.
Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich helped to lead a decline in Congress’s overall pro-taxpayer voting records last year, according to the widely-anticipated annual Rating of Congress released today by the non-partisan National Taxpayers Union (NTU). In spite of 2001’s tax cuts, the average lawmaker still voted less than half the time to reduce or control the federal government’s burden on taxpayers.
“Congress made a promising start for overburdened Americans last year by passing modest tax relief, but the months that followed were a disappointing finish for fiscal responsibility,” said NTU President John Berthoud. “Congress will need to pay more attention to making every dollar count in 2002, not only for the War on Terror but also for pro-growth tax cuts to get our economy moving again.”
In 2001, the average pro-taxpayer score in the House of Representatives was 41 percent – down from 2000’s mark of 45 percent. Averages also slumped slightly for the Senate, to 46 percent in 2001 versus 47 percent the year before. The worst averages for the 25-year history of the comprehensive NTU scorecard were posted in 1988, when they plummeted to 27 percent and 28 percent, respectively, for the House and Senate. The highest marks were reached in 1995, when House and Senate averages were 58 percent and 57 percent, respectively. Averages had been rising for two years prior to 2001.
The ranks of top scorers designated as “Taxpayers’ Friends” remained thin. In 1995, 121 lawmakers attained scores sufficient for a grade of “A” (and hence “Taxpayers’ Friend”). The latest Rating identified far fewer Taxpayers’ Friends in Congress – 65 in all. Meanwhile, 235 Senators and Representatives earned the title of “Big Spender,” for posting “F” grades in 2001.
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) earned the dubious distinction of being the lowest-scoring member of the Senate in 2001, with a 3 percent. This is the worst score for a Senate freshman in their first year in office that NTU has ever recorded. Fellow New Yorker Charles Rangel (D) nabbed the “prize” for biggest spender on the House side, with a 6 percent score.
On the other end of the pro-taxpayer scale, the highest scorer in the House was Ron Paul (R-TX), with 88 percent. Paul has claimed the top spot in his chamber for the third year running. In the Senate, Wayne Allard (R-CO) earned the highest honor, also with an 88 percent score. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) finished just a fraction of a point behind Allard, with a rounded score of 88 percent.
“Ironically, lower-scoring lawmakers might have helped taxpayers more by flipping a coin when voting,” Berthoud observed. NTU computed a score for hypothetical House and Senate members, one in each chamber who simply voted “yes” and “no” in sequence on all of the bills in the Rating, and one in each chamber who voted “no” and “yes” in sequence. Each of the four “virtual lawmakers” would have posted scores (from 46 percent to 54 percent) equal to or better than the actual averages.
Unlike those of other organizations, NTU’s annual Rating does not simplistically focus on only a handful of equally-weighted “key votes.” For this reason, it has received praise from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Former Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) has said,
“[O]f all the Congressional roll calls published by outside interests, the NTU’s is the most comprehensive and the most objective. … In fact, it covers virtually every roll call involving federal money. …The strength of this annual roll call is that it makes no effort to provide a self-serving moral assessment.”
The Rating, which is based on every roll call vote affecting fiscal policy, assigns a “Taxpayer Score” to each Member of Congress that indicates his or her commitment to reducing or controlling federal spending, taxes, debt, and regulation. For 2001, a total of 155 House and 194 Senate roll call votes were selected.