With the large federal deficit, some Members of Congress have become interested in institutional mechanisms that Congress has used in the past in attempts to address one component of this issue—federal spending. One of the mechanisms that has drawn interest is the Joint Committee on Reduction of Non-Essential Federal Expenditures, which existed from 1941 to 1974. The Joint Committee on Reduction of Non-Essential Federal Expenditures was established at the initiative of Senator Harry F. Byrd by Section 601 of the Revenue Act of 1941. (Section 601 appears as Appendix of this report.) When the Senate Finance Committee reported the Revenue Act of 1941 to the Senate, it recommended a committee amendment to establish the joint committee. The amendment was agreed to on the Senate floor and retained in conference. Senator Byrd chaired the joint committee from its inception until his retirement from Congress in 1965. During the 91 st Congress (1969-1970), the joint committee was renamed the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures. Its existence was terminated in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. This report traces the history of the joint committee and describes the subject matter of some of its principal work products. The report concludes with some considerations involved with the creation of a committee—the purpose of which is to assist Congress in reducing federal spending—and with a brief examination of committee oversight authority extant in House and Senate committees and of alternative mechanisms for cutting spending. Senator Byrd initially introduced S.Con.Res. 5 to create a joint committee in February 1941 in the course of debate on a measure to increase the federal debt limit. As proposed, the joint committee would have had a broader mandate than making recommendations on nonessential federal expenditures. The joint committee under the concurrent resolution was to investigate and make recommendations on "[meeting] Federal fiscal post-war problems from the current war"; "impounding in the Treasury … unexpended appropriations made for non-essential purposes"; and "revision of the Federal tax system as may be necessary in order to simplify and equalize the tax burden and to place the United States in such a sound financial condition as will enable it to make such imperative expenditures as may be necessary in order to adequately provide for the national defense." The concurrent resolution was referred to the Committee on Finance. Although war would not be declared until December 1941, Senator Byrd was concerned with impending war costs. He wanted to cut nondefense spending, reduce the public debt, and rationalize what he characterized as a "hodgepodge" tax system to make maximum resources available for national defense and to prepare for post-war economic adjustment. Later in 1941, in an amendment to the Revenue Act of 1941 recommended by the Senate Finance Committee, the duties and purposes of the joint committee were solely to "make a full and complete study and investigation of all expenditures of the Federal Government with a view to recommending the elimination or reduction of all such expenditures deemed by the joint committee to be nonessential." Duties for the joint committee related to taxation and post-war planning were not included in the amendment. The amendment was agreed to without debate or objection by the Senate and retained in conference. To accomplish its statutory objective, the joint committee was authorized to hold hearings, and to employ experts and staff to examine and assist the committee in order to make recommendations. The joint committee was also authorized to utilize the resources of departments and agencies of the federal government to assist the joint committee in formulating its recommendations to Congress. An appropriation of $10,000 was authorized and subsequently appropriated. The joint committee comprised 14 members: six Senators from the Committees on Appropriations and Finance, six Representatives from the Committees on Appropriations and Ways and Means, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the director of the Bureau of the Budget. The Joint Committee on Reduction of Non-Essential Federal Expenditures was a study committee, without legislative authority. Its recommendations on cutting or reducing nonessential spending were reported to the House and Senate and submitted to the Committees on Appropriations. Thereafter, the Appropriations Committees could use the work of the joint committee in their consideration of appropriations measures. Individual Members might also have been interested in the joint committee's work and have based arguments or amendments on the committee's recommendations. It is not possible to track the joint committee's influence over the course of its existence, although the provenance in 1974 of the Budget Committees' scorekeeping was the joint committee's scorekeeping reports. The joint committee was terminated by Section 202(e) of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974, and its functions and personnel were transferred to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The report of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee explained: Section 202(e) transfers the duties, functions, and personnel of the Joint Committee on Reduction of Federal Expenditures to CBO. The work of this joint committee, although not widely publicized, has been of excellent professional quality and tremendously helpful in providing a scorekeeping record of congressional action and its impact on the Nation's budgetary posture. The Committee's intent is to incorporate this expertise into the function of the CBO so that it can be further developed and highlighted as an essential part of the congressional budget process. Created to recommend potential savings in federal spending, the work of the Joint Committee on Reduction of Non-Essential Federal Expenditures was characterized by a dual narrative—one of genuine interest in reducing federal expenditures, and another concerned with projecting legislative control over spending in government programs. An example of the latter case is a 1947 report on postwar foreign assistance, which found that some foreign-aid spending had been "specifically defined and authorized, and that this ... may be compiled, verified, and estimated," but that other aid was not documented, could not be estimated, and was not monitored by Congress. In that report, and many others, the joint committee identified areas where government agencies were too autonomous from congressional control in determining how money was spent. While neither narrative is necessarily exclusive of the other, being aware of each helps to understand the joint committee's interests. On the eve of World War II, the United States owed $55 billion to its creditors. In two years, massive national defense requirements expanded the debt by nearly 50% to $80 billion, with the "prospect [of] a national debt of at least $200 billion by conservative estimates." While these figures may today seem modest, a $200 billion debt in 1942 represented 123% of gross domestic product (GDP), compared with current debt, which stands at 92% of GDP. For many policymakers, the debt was so high and the prospect of war so certain that immediate action was required to strengthen federal finances. This view was reflected on the pages of many of the nation's leading newspapers. A 1940 Chicago Tribune headline warned: "America Limps Financially As Arming Starts." The Los Angeles Times reported that the National Chamber of Commerce cautioned that even entering the war would bankrupt the country. Furthering the call for fiscal austerity was a quickly increasing inflation rate. Testifying before the Senate Committee on Finance in 1941, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau warned that a "strong fiscal program" was required to counteract an accelerated increase in prices and the cost of living. Fears of inflation as a result of the fiscal situation ran so high that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt considered price fixing to control rising prices. Marriner Stoddard Eccles, chair of the Federal Reserve, echoed these concerns in December 1940 in a special report to Congress encouraging higher taxes and reduced federal expenditures as an alternative to deficit spending to finance the war in order to "forestall the development of inflationary tendencies." Deficit reduction was seen as an essential component of war preparedness. These fears were not lost on Members of Congress, who began to discuss the federal debt as a national security concern. Just three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Senator Byrd, the joint committee's chairman, capturing the sentiment of the time, noted, "[B]efore the war, economy in nonessential spending was important. Now it is vital." Thus, the call for a reduction of nonessential federal expenditures served many purposes. Spending that was eliminated would save money that could be applied to the war effort. Additionally, it was argued, American taxpayers would be more willing to shoulder the high taxes needed to fund the war if they saw that the federal government was acting frugally. Finally, reduced federal deficit spending could help control potentially damaging rates of inflation. For the duration of the war, the joint committee was fairly active in identifying potential savings in the federal budget. The conclusion of the war, however, may have deprived both the joint committee and Congress as a whole of such a strong sense of urgency to control spending. The joint committee's interests narrowed as time passed, and Senator Byrd's retirement in 1965 further slowed the output of the joint committee. On December 26, 1941, the Joint Committee on Reduction of Non-Essential Federal Expenditures released a "partial report," in the nature of a working draft, largely limited to programs "established originally as depression measures." In this report, the joint committee pledged to determine which permanent agencies were essential to the operation of the government and how those agencies could operate more efficiently. In particular, the report singled out government corporations and the Department of Agriculture as prospective targets of scrutiny, and suggested immediately abolishing the Office of Education, Works Progress Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, and National Youth Administration, totaling $1.3 billion in potential reductions. A supplemental report issued in July 1942 followed up on each of these suggested reductions and claimed that $1.313 billion had been saved as a result of the joint committee's recommendations. A progress report issued in December 1943 claimed credit for approximately $2 billion in savings to-date. Debate and statements in the Congressional Record reflect only limited disagreement on the need to cut certain agencies.