Republicans Ready to Work

Floor Speech

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would like to join my distinguished colleague from Tennessee who recently was elected to the leadership on this side of the aisle. His responsibility and mine is to help try to find a way to work together, not by sacrificing our principles but to try to find that common ground rather than what divides us.

But first let me also express my congratulations to our new colleague from Mississippi, Senator Wicker, who had a distinguished career in the House of Representatives and comes here, I know, with a lot of hopes and aspirations. I look forward to working with him as he represents his State and as I represent my State, the State of Texas, and as we all work together to represent the United States, hopefully, to provide for the aspirations and dreams of the American people to make it possible for them to live their dream. That is what the United States has always been; that is what it should remain.

I cannot help but reflect, returning from our holiday recess, I had somebody this morning in the cafeteria say: Welcome back from your vacation.

I said: Well, I prefer to call it the alternate work period because it was not entirely a vacation, although I did get some time off, as did my colleagues. But I trust that we all came back refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to take on the challenging work that lies ahead.

I have to say, if I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times as I traveled the State of Texas, people are frustrated with Washington, DC. They think Washington is broken. They do not hear about those occasions when we work together to pass legislation on a bipartisan basis. They hear the conflict and the divisiveness and the partisanship, and they do not like it. I had to tell them, each of my constituents when they mentioned that: Well, I do not like it very much either. I did not run for the Senate and I do not serve in a position of public trust to come up and pick fights.

Everybody knows in politics it is always possible to pick a fight, but it does not take any particular genius to do that. What we ought to be doing, and what it takes hard work to do, is trying to find common ground. There is plenty of common ground.

Senator Alexander mentioned a number of tremendous bipartisan accomplishments--the America Competes Act. There have been a number of opportunities for us to work together in a bipartisan way. I am particularly proud of some legislation that Senator Pat Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and I were the cosponsors of that the President signed into law in December, the first reform of the Freedom of Information Act in perhaps as much as 25 years.

I think perhaps the best anecdote to public skepticism about Washington is greater transparency because I believe giving the public information about how their Government works is a way to empower them to hold elected officials and Government accountable. When things happen in secret, behind closed doors, that does not happen. So I am delighted there are plenty of opportunities for us to work together. I think we should embrace them, not run away from them or look for opportunities for us to pick fights and to feed that skepticism and really the sense that I think many people expressed to me that they feel as though Washington is increasingly irrelevant when it comes to dealing with the challenges that affect our lives.

The economy is one that has, of course, come roaring to the forefront as an issue on which we need to work together. I was pleased to hear Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid say they wanted to work with the President to come up with a stimulus package that is timely, targeted, and temporary, something that would hopefully get the economy moving again as it has been for roughly the last 4 years, where we have seen an unbroken record of growth of the economy, increased number of jobs, some 9 million new jobs created.

Frankly, the way that happened is because we allowed the American taxpayer and small businesses to keep more of what they earned so they could invest it, they could spend it on the education for their children, they could do whatever they wanted to with it because it is theirs. Sometimes I think it is helpful to remind ourselves that the money that hard-working Americans earn is their money. It is not ours. It is not the Federal Government's money.

Sometimes I think when people are in Washington too long they begin to think of this as revenue pay-fors, ways to raise funds so that Government can grow bigger and spend people's money. Well, the American people understand there are some things they cannot do for themselves and Government has to do, such as the common defense, and they are willing to pay their taxes for efficient Government that delivers a particular result that Government only can provide.

But we ought not to use this stimulus package, the downturn in the economy, as a way to burden the American people with more taxes or find new ways to grow the size of the Federal Government. So I hope we can continue in a careful and judicious and thoughtful way to find common ground to work on a stimulus package that the President will sign and that will enjoy bipartisan support.

Now, there is a lot of skepticism, as I said, about Washington. Part of it is that the Government does not spend the tax dollars well, efficiently. I have to tell you there is good evidence of that. There is a Web site associated with the Office of Management and Budget called expectmore.gov. I hope people will look at that.

What I discovered when I looked at it is that the Office of Management and Budget has reviewed 1,000 different Federal Government programs and found 22 percent of them either ineffective or the Office of Management and Budget cannot tell whether they are serving their intended purpose.

I am not sure which is worse. Either they are proven ineffective or else you cannot tell. Either way that is unacceptable and we need to find a way to deal with those wasteful Washington programs that need to be eliminated. I proposed a Federal sunset commission that is modeled after many of the States, such as my State, the State of Texas, where you have periodic reviews of those programs, and every once in a while the bureaucrats have to come in and justify the reason for the program's existence.

If circumstances have changed, the program is no longer needed, it can be eliminated or the budget, rather than securing an inflationary or cost-of-living increase in the size of that program each year without any real scrutiny or oversight, they start out with a zero-based budget and have to justify each dollar of that budget.

So I think a national sunset commission would help us eliminate more wasteful Washington spending. As I said, I am proud of the work that Senator Leahy and I were able to do in a bipartisan way to reform the Freedom of Information Act to give people more information about their Government so they can hold Government and Government officials accountable. But I think there is more that we need to do. Recently, earlier this month, the Government launched a new Web site called www.usaspending.gov which allows Americans to search for Federal grants and contracts. I am going to propose legislation--I am eager to find colleagues on the other side of the aisle with whom I can work; I am sure there will be a number of them--to build on this Web site and allow taxpayers to see how the Government spends their tax dollars.

Now, I wish I could say I thought of this on my own, but the fact is, our comptroller in the State of Texas--may I inquire how much time remains?

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am proud of the work that is being done by the State comptroller of Texas, Susan Combs, who has created a Web site wherethemoneygoes.gov. We need to use greater transparency and the accountability that goes with it to restore public confidence in how Government works. I look forward to working with our colleagues across the aisle and hope to find common ground, not to pick fights and find out where we differ but to find where we can move this country forward and solve some of the problems that confront us.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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