For his work in Congress, Spratt won praise from Columbia's newspaper The State, which called him "one of his party's most reliable 'bridges' to the Republican side." National Journal featured him on its cover as "a stand-out" in Congress, comparing his legislative skills to the "best infielders in baseball." In a Washingtonian magazine survey, Congressional staff voted him a "Workhorse" and "House Member I'd Like to See Win the Presidency in 2008." Spratt co-authored the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, putting the federal budget in surplus for the first time in 30 years. In 2003, Spratt engineered an amendment which shifted $30 million in the defense appropriations bill to the Airborne Laser program. In the 111th Congress, Spratt supported legislation such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, extension of unemployment benefits, increased infrastructure and labor workforce funding, increased federal financial aid packages, increased home foreclosure and small business assistance, reduction in estate taxes for 99.8 percent of estates, clean water legislation, health insurance reform, expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, reforming of medicare payment plans, clean energy legislation, pay as you go legislation, defense authorization for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, increased VA hospital investment. On March 21, 2010, Spratt joined a majority of his House colleagues in approving H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Senate version of the health care reform bill. As chairman of the House Budget Committee, he made the floor motion which led to the vote on the bill. "I was where the action was when the bill had to be called from the clerk's desk," he told The Herald, a Rock Hill, South Carolina newspaper. "It was like sharing a moment in history." On March 24, 2010, Spratt was appointed to the president's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. In reporting on the appointment, Dow Jones Newswires called Spratt "one of the staunchest fiscal conservatives among House Democrats." One of Spratts' last acts in Congress was helping compile a 65-page report on fixing the country's financial deficit. Political campaigns Spratt became active in Democratic politics at an early age, and was elected delegate to the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Spratt was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982, succeeding fellow Democrat Kenneth Holland. He was reelected 13 more times. Although parts of the district were becoming friendlier to Republican candidates