... that the average Democrat in Congress sponsors more savings bills than the average Republican.

National Taxpayers Union Foundation's BillTally program examines the cost or savings of all bills introduced in Congress and cross-indexes this data with all of the bills that each Member of Congress sponsors or cosponsors. We just completed a review of the savings bills introduced and scored so far in the 110th Congress.

Members of the House introduced 39 savings bills through August of this year -- the most since 72 were introduced to kick off the 106th Congress. Among individuals, 3 Democrats and 31 Republicans sponsored or cosponsored zero savings bills, while 123 Democrats and 33 Republicans supported at least 5 or more bills to reduce spending.

On average, a typical House Democrat sponsored 5 spending reduction bills, versus 2 for the typical Republican.

Roughly one-third of the Senate, including 24 Republicans and 8 Democrats, did not sponsor or cosponsor a single one of the 17 savings bills authored in that chamber. Only 2 Senators, both Democrats, sponsored 5 or more spending-cut bills. Democrats sponsored an average of 1.6 savings bills each, while the average Republican sponsored 0.7.

On the other hand, each House savings bill was outnumbered over 20 to 1 by bills to increase spending. For each bill introduced in the Senate that would reduce federal spending, there were over 30 bills to raise spending -- an improvement from the ratio of nearly 37 increases for each cut in the first 8 months of the 109th Congress.

A list of the savings bills identified in Congress through the August recess is available as an Excel file.

A complete NTU Foundation BillTally report on the spending and savings bills will be available soon after Members' offices have a chance to review their data. Previous reports are available here.