U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-9) today voted in favor of legislation that would save taxpayers $617 million over the next decade by ending the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which currently provides federal tax dollars in the form of matching funds to candidates in presidential primaries. Luetkemeyer is a co-sponsor of this legislation.

“Washington has a very serious spending problem, and the last thing that taxpayers want is for their hard-earned tax dollars to be used to pay for political campaigns, especially at a time when so many folks are having a hard time making ends meet,” Luetkemeyer said. “We can no longer ignore our nation’s crippling deficit and debt, and we must start now by cutting the federal government’s budget and restoring the public’s trust that Congress can be responsible with the people’s hard-earned dollars.”

The Presidential Election Campaign Fund provides grants to qualifying presidential candidates in general elections, if they agree not to accept other contributions. The program also provides grants to sponsor national party conventions. Since 2000, some major candidates have chosen to forgo public financing. The amount of funding for the public financing system is determined by checkoffs on income tax returns, and taxpayer participation through the checkoffs has declined from 28.7 percent in 1980 to 7.3 percent in 2009.

This week’s spending cut was chosen by the American taxpayers through the YouCut website. On the YouCut website each week, Americans have the opportunity to vote on a spending cut, and shortly after all the ideas are processed, Luetkemeyer and his colleagues seek a vote on the most popular spending cut. Luetkemeyer is encouraging folks to visit http://www.majorityleader.gov/YouCut/, where people can vote on a spending cut.

Earlier this month, the House took a first step to cutting spending when the House passed a measure that would cut all committee, leadership and Member office budgets by 5 percent, and cut the Appropriations Committee budget by 9 percent. This measure would immediately save taxpayers $35 million. The House took another important step in reducing spending by $2.6 trillion by voting to repeal the new health care law. The House also passed legislation that would eliminate the mandatory printing of all bills for use in the House and the Senate saving taxpayers millions of dollars.

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