On Thursday, a bipartisan coalition of about 80 members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will unveil a package of nine bills aimed at making government more efficient and bringing together Democrats and Republicans.
It is the first legislative package by the group No Labels, which numbered 43 Democrats, 37 Republicans and one Independent as of July 17 and whose ranks include Rep. Jim Himes, a Greenwich Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.
Among the proposals is one that would expand strategic sourcing, which involves the joint procurement of products and services by multiple government agencies and has saved the government hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several years.
Himes said the bills are deliberately noncontroversial, saying the primary goal is to foster better cooperation between the opposing parties.
“Most of these bills are about efficiency, as opposed to ‘should we spend money on defense or food stamps?’ Those larger issues bring all kinds of partisan dispute,” he told the Business Journal in advance of the bills’ release. “I think the real benefit that will come out of this is that the very act of working together is going to create some muscle memory that will be very important” when it comes to weightier issues.
Himes said there’s “no question … we have a hesitant economic recovery and unfortunately the Congress is working against that recovery.”
He pointed to the sequester, which has resulted in job cuts by defense contractors in Connecticut and across the U.S., and the recent farm subsidies bill passed by the House of Representatives, in which funding for food stamps was cut by House Republicans to ensure passage in the face of dissent from the party’s more conservative faction.
Of No Labels, Himes said, “It’s a group of people who come from both sides of the aisle who have committed to work with each other. It’s absurd that that should be a big deal, but in today’s ridiculously polarized environment, it is.”
