Senator Warner, in his role on the Senate Budget Committee and as chairman of the Task Force on Government Performance, continued his efforts to establish better accountability measurements and reduce wasteful government spending through a set of amendments to the FY2011 Budget Resolution.

During a mark-up hearing of the Budget Committee last week, Senator Warner received broad, bipartisan support for amendments that would require performance and accountability measurements to more closely monitor stimulus spending and to track the progress of the healthcare reform initiative.

Senator Warner said in a press release:

“The health care reform package will be one of the largest implementation challenges our government has ever seen,” said Senator Warner. “We have to ensure that we effectively measure the immediate and long-term benefits of these reforms, and maintain the focus on controlling health care costs.

"Our second amendment will help us keep better track of stimulus dollars to make sure the funds are being spent responsibly and managed carefully."

A third amendment would urge Congress to cut spending on unnecessary or wasteful programs that have been identified by the Office of Management and Budget under both the Bush and Obama Administrations.  Any savings from the elimination of these programs would designated for deficit reduction.

Congressional Quarterly describes some of the programs that would be eliminated:

The targets include an Agriculture Department program launched in 1962 to build community leadership skills and a Commerce Department grant program intended to ease the recently completed conversion to digital TV broadcasting. Spending on the programs totaled $997 million this fiscal year, a mere pittance in a budget of nearly $4 trillion. ...

“It’s almost impossible to end funding for an existing program. We need better performance data to show which programs are achieving results,” he said in a statement after the markup. “If we had that information, I believe it will become much harder to defend a program that simply is not working.”