The Coalition to Reduce Spending, a nonpartisan political advocacy group, announced an expansion of its Spending Tracker last week. The Spending Tracker assigns each member of Congress a spending score by matching voting records to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores for every bill affecting spending since 2009.





According to the Spending Tracker, during the 115th Congress, the average member of Congress voted to spend roughly $1.58 trillion. Five Representatives (Justin Amash, Thomas Massie, Jimmy Duncan, Raúl Labrador, and Morgan Griffith) and two Senators (Rand Paul and Mike Lee) voted for net spending cuts.





The lowest‐​spending Representative in the 115th Congress (and over his lifetime) was Michigan’s Justin Amash, who voted to cut roughly $165 billion during the 115th Congress. Nearly tied with Amash was Kentucky’s Thomas Massie.





Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee each voted to cut over $150 billion during the 115th Congress, with Rand Paul as the lowest‐​spending Senator. Surprisingly, democratic socialist Bernie Sanders voted to increase spending by the fourth‐​lowest amount, roughly $140 billion. By comparison, Republican Senator Marco Rubio voted for a net spending increase of roughly $330 billion, more than twice as much as Sanders.





Laura Nicolae co‐​authored this post.