Deficit Reduction Act
DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT -- (House of Representatives - November 02, 2005)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his words of wisdom and for the commitment that he brings to protecting the Federal budget, just as he does the family budget. I appreciate the diligence as he goes about this, whether it is Operation Offset or Washington Waste Watchers. He has certainly worked very, very hard on this.
I was talking about his good work in my district one day in one of the town halls and talked about how he felt like we should watch the Federal budget like the family budget and some of the information that he brought to us.
One of my constituents raised his hand; and he said, ``Mrs. Blackburn, I tell you, I really appreciate that. You know, sometimes I think the Federal Government does get out of hand. It does need to be reined in.'' He said, ``They need to take a lesson from some of us.'' He said, ``Sometimes, you know, I have too much month left over at the end of my money. And when that happens, we have to just sit down and work things a little bit differently.''
Well, Mr. Speaker, I think that that is the kind of wisdom we need to put on the table here in Washington. Maybe we have too much year left over at the end of our money, which means it is time for us to prioritize and to focus and to do things a little bit differently.
We know that government does not have a revenue problem. Government has a spending problem. And we also know that the government is never going to get enough of the taxpayers' money. They are never, ever, ever going to get enough of the taxpayers' money. Never happen. Because there is always going to be one more program, one more activity, one more department, one more need, one more something that they feel like needs that money.
Now one of the things that we have done here is to talk about the Deficit Reduction Act, and that is a piece of legislation that is going to come before this body soon. The majority here in the House has worked diligently on the Deficit Reduction Act. Many of our colleagues across the aisle are fighting us tongue, tooth and toenail. Every time we turn around they are just fighting us every step of the way on this.
Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, I think there is a reason for this. With over 40 years of Democrat control of this body, they have really built a monument to themselves; and that monument is a huge enormous bureaucracy. What it comes down to is that they would rather support bureaucrats in buildings and trust them to make decisions for the average American family and for taxpayers than to trust individuals and families to make those decisions. Their focus is putting the attention on preserving that bureaucracy and growing that bureaucracy.
As the gentleman from Texas has said, fiscal responsibility is what our work focuses on: How do we rein this government in? How do we slow the growth? How do we begin to work toward reducing spending, reducing the deficit and being certain that this Nation remains a free and productive Nation for our children and our grandchildren? That has brought us to working out the budget, the Deficit Reduction Act, that we are bringing forward this year.
My colleague from Texas mentioned a few things about waste, fraud and abuse; and we have put some attention on that this year here in the House. I want to highlight a couple of things. When we hear our colleagues from across the aisle say, well, there is nowhere to cut. We cannot find any savings. We cannot reduce these programs. My goodness, what would they do if we slowed their growth and did not let them have more money this year than they had last year?
Well, I just want to highlight a few things that when we talk about we have reduced the deficit by $50 billion, an additional, additional $50 billion this year, I want to highlight a few things where we have found waste, fraud and abuse. We have only done a drop in the bucket, and we have had to fight every step of the way to get this, but just listen to some of these things that we highlight that we know are there.
From 2003, the Federal Government cannot account for $24 and a half billion that it spent. We think that accountability is important. A White House review of just a sample of the Federal budget identified $90 billion spent on programs deemed ineffective, marginally adequate or operating under a flawed purpose or design, $90 billion. Well, already if we could get support for going after these dollars we would be well over $100 billion.
Housing and Urban Development, $3.3 billion in overpayments in 2001, which accounted for over 10 percent of the Department's total budget. Now many of us have supported across-the-board cuts, Mr. Speaker; and I was joined by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) in filing bills that would call for either a 1 or 2 or 5 percent across-the-board reduction in spending.
Most folks would look at their budget and say, you know, I can find 1, 2, or 5 percent by just getting in here and cleaning up some of my operations. Well, HUD had overpayments that accounted for over 10 percent of their budget. If they just cleaned up their books and cut out the overpayments, there would be 10 percent right there.
Duplication. The gentleman from Texas mentioned duplication of programs, and there is a lot of that here. We know that when you have a big Federal program you have a bureaucracy, you have bureaucrats in these great big shiny buildings all around Washington, D.C., and all around our country that run the programs. We have on the books 342 different economic development programs, 130 programs serving the disabled, 130 programs serving at-risk youth, 90 early childhood development programs, 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities.
Mr. Speaker, we are simply saying, let us put the money in the programs where it is going to do good in local communities. Let us get rid of the bureaucracy. Let us streamline some of this. Let us get rid of redundancies and duplications and be certain that the money is going for what it is intended: helping individuals in the communities.
Washington spends $60 billion on corporate welfare every year versus $43 billion on homeland security. Priorities. They are important. Farm subsidies go to several Members of Congress and celebrity hobby farmers such as David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Scottie Pippin, and former Enron CEO Ken Lay. Something to look at.
Medicare programs that pay eight times as much for the cost of drugs as other Federal agencies are paying for medical supplies. This needs to be dealt with.
Food stamp overpayments that are costing taxpayers $600 million annually, many of those payments going to individuals who are not in the country legally.
School lunch program abuse has been estimated by the GAO to be at $120 million annually.
Mr. Speaker, these are all examples of waste, fraud, and abuse that have been documented by the OMB, the CBO, and the GAO, agencies of the Federal Government. These are agencies that work with Congress to say go back and take a second look and look at how this money is being spent. Exercise your oversight. And that is what we are doing as we move forward on fiscal responsibility and accountability and as we bring forward the Deficit Reduction Act.
I thank the gentleman from Texas for allowing me to join him tonight. I thank him for his diligence and his leadership on this effort, the leadership that he gives to the Republican Study Committee and that he gives here to the entire body of the House.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the gentlewoman for her insight and leadership on this subject. Mr. Speaker, she brought up just a number of different examples illustrating the point that, again, there is so much waste and there is so much fraud and there is so much duplication and low-priority spending in this budget, yet Democrats do not want to work with us to try to reform this.
Mr. Speaker, we have 10,000 different Federal programs spread across over 600 different agencies, and we have many pressing needs, but we owe it to the American people to bring some accountability here.
Now, again, as my able colleague, the gentlewoman from Tennessee, talked about, we know what the Democrats will say about these different programs. Well, wait a second, that is really massive cuts in spending.
Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, anybody in this body is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. Let me talk a little about what the facts are, and then we will go back and talk about even more waste and fraud in this budget.
When they talk about massive cuts in the Federal budget, let us put this in perspective. If we are, among other things, besides trying to reduce the deficit, if we are trying to pay for the hurricane damage, so far that bill for the Federal Government has totaled about $62 billion. Yet the Federal budget over this same 5-year period is $13.9 trillion. Mr. Speaker, as I do my math, we are talking about less than half a cent, less than half a penny, and this is called some type of massive cut?
What it tells me is that, as we are trying to fight the deficit, all we hear about from the Democrats is tax relief, we hear about massive cuts, and yet we are talking about half a cent. If we cannot find a half a penny of savings on the dollar in a $13.9 trillion budget, well, we are just not looking.
Any small business in America, any family in America would laugh in our face if we told them, well, there is just no way that we can find a half a cent of savings on the dollar to protect your family budget. No, we are going to have to increase taxes, or maybe we will just pass debts on to your children. Mr. Speaker, that is just totally, totally unacceptable.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman will yield.
Mr. HENSARLING. Yes, I will be happy to yield to the gentlewoman.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. To the gentleman's point as he is talking about the budget and what we would do with making some adjustments within that budget, Medicaid is an issue that we addressed in the Energy and Commerce Committee last week and looked at some forms and some redesigning and revitalization of Medicaid, being certain that we preserve access to health care for Americans. In this process, we looked at the annual expected growth rate of Medicaid, which is 7.3 percent per year. And by looking at pharmaceuticals, making adjustments there, rooting out some waste and fraud and some abuse, closing some loopholes, addressing some inefficiencies, we were able to slow the growth from 7.3 percent to 7 percent growth per year.
But, in liberal lingo, the gentleman from Texas knows that that is described by our colleagues across the aisle as a cut, when all we have really done is to say, let us get the fiscal house in order and be certain that we are using the technologies and availing ourselves of the efficiencies available.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HENSARLING. I yield to the gentlewoman from Tennessee.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the gentleman to go back to one point on Medicaid. I think it is so important, and many of our constituents and many members of this House, I think, would be interested in it. I would love for him to talk one more time briefly about the health opportunity accounts, because this is something that will give individuals ownership over the decisions that they make and have to make in their health care choices.
Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I could not agree with the gentlewoman more. Because there is one thing that I really have an aversion to, and that is somehow Washington knows best, that somehow we are going to provide a one-size-fits-all blanket solution to health care. And she is right, these health opportunity accounts get away from that. They allow individuals to determine the fate of their health care and how that will be provided, and that is exactly what these health opportunity accounts do.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think this is something that is so very important because what it says is every individual has the right to go in there and have that ability to make decisions, establish that relationship with that physician; and if they take responsibility and if they take ownership, then here is a great way that they can do it.
In addition, we are going to see the flexibility that many of the governors have said we need, flexibility in order to be certain that health care remains viable and accessible for all of our citizens.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
http://thomas.loc.gov