SHAMOKIN - U.S. Rep. Tom Marino (R-10) hopes he, along with other lawmakers, can help cut the federal deficit through leading by example.
For Marino, it starts with his own office budget, which he said he and his staff cut by $103,000 in 2011.
"We cut about 5 percent out of the past year's budget, and we are going to work to cut 6.5 percent this year," Marino said.
during a recent interview with The News-Item.
"The government is dumbfounded that I want to send back leftover money."
Marino asked the Congressional Budget Office to apply his surplus to the national debt. He doesn't expect it to happen.
"They are going to look at the letter and throw it out, but I say, 'Why not?,'" he said. "Why do we have to use this money somewhere else? Why can't we apply it to the debt?"
The color of carpet
Marino, who recently began his second year in office, said he got his first taste of wasteful spending when asked about decorating his office upon arrival in Washington.
"They said we could redecorate the office, and I wondered why we would do that," he said.
Marino, who noted he is colorblind, was asked if the blue carpet in his office should be switched to red to correspond with the occupant's change from Democrat to Republican.
Otherwise, "I simply told them that the furniture was fine and the curtains were fine; just shampoo the carpet, and paint the one wall because it was looking pretty beat up," he said.
"When they asked me what color I wanted it (for the wall), I told them to do the same color as before," Marino said.
The only piece of office equipment he had to replace was a copier, since the other one "disappeared" before he got there, Marino said.
This year, Marino said he will stick with his frugal ways.
"I'm not leasing a car again this year. I do not have a driver, and my staff is smaller than my predecessor, and their salaries are smaller than my predecessor, but they deserve to get three times more," he said, glancing across the room with a smile at his communications director, Renita Fennick.
The lack of a vehicle lease, fewer staff and using the same furniture and furnishings make up a majority of the $103,000 savings, he said.
"We all have a budget and if I go over that, I am personally responsible for it," he said. "You have to run your office within a budget, and if you can't, you don't belong here."
Hiring freeze proposed
Marino has introduced legislation to incorporate a hiring freeze of government workers, with the exception of law enforcement, the military or in a national emergency. He wants to cut the size of government through attrition, which he said would amount to thousands of positions each year.
"There are retirements every year, and I want to see some kind of cutting, at least until we get the debt under control. I don't want people fired, but to freeze hiring. Now if you have an office of 10 people and nine leave, that's different," he clarified.
Marino also wants to see money come from the defense budget, but not to weaken it.
"We need to start looking at equipment that we don't use and equipment that has not come to fruition like we want it to be," Marino said. "If its not working and we don't use it, why do we continue to make it?"
He also would like to see Congress look at the number of bases the country keeps around the world, the number of top military brass and sub-contractors.
"We look at how we buy things and what we pay for them. We had a function where they figured out the price of things and the muffins that were their cost $11 (each)," he said. "That's the thing we need to stop doing to help get this country out of debt."