SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 186 and ask for its immediate consideration, and I ask unanimous consent that any pending amendments be set aside.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Texas [Mr. Cornyn] proposes an amendment numbered 186.
Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in the Record of Tuesday, March 15, 2010, under ``Text of Amendments.'')
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, this is a very important amendment, which addresses the three critical issues that face our country today: too many people out of work, the Federal Government engaged in runaway spending, and our unsustainable national debt. This actually comes from a portion of President Barack Obama's fiscal commission report, which pointed out a Texas program that had been in place since 1977 and its impact on providing oversight and review of wasteful or no longer needed programs for spending.
That is what this amendment does. It establishes a bipartisan U.S. Authorization and Sunset Commission.
Actually, it would be composed of eight Members of Congress, who would go through programs that have spending associated with them but have not been authorized by the Congress, and who review redundancies and duplicative programs such as those pointed out most significantly by the General Accounting Office within the last week to 10 days.
As I said, this is modeled after the sunset process that my State instituted in 1977, which has been enormously successful. It has eliminated more than 50 different State agencies and saved taxpayers in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
I ask unanimous consent that Senators Vitter, Enzi, DeMint, Rubio, Paul, Ensign, Ayotte, and Risch be added as cosponsors to my amendment.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORNYN. This is what the President's own fiscal commission has said about such a concept. I know Members of the Senate and the political parties are divided about many things, but this is something that should be noncontroversial and should be bipartisan. I hope my colleagues will listen briefly and consider cosponsoring and joining us in passing this important amendment establishing this sunset commission. Again, this is what the President's own fiscal commission said about this concept:
Such a committee has been recommended many times, and has found bipartisan support. The original and arguably most effective committee exists at the State level in Texas. The legislature created a sunset commission in 1977 to eliminate waste and inefficiency in government agencies. Estimates from reviews conducted between 1982 and 2009 showed 27-year savings of over $780 million, compared with expenditures of $28.6 million. Based on the estimated savings achieved, for every dollar spent on the sunset process, the State received $27 in return.
We all know the challenges we face in Washington when it comes to proper oversight. Once programs are created--even so-called temporary programs--they tend to take on a life of their own. Indeed, I think that must be what Ronald Reagan was talking about in one of my favorite quotations, when he said that ``the closest thing to eternal life here on earth is a temporary government program.''
We all know what happens once a program is created. A constituency is created, and they come in and ask for a cost of living or other increase, and they grow and grow, and there is no one--I am not criticizing the standing committees, but there is not adequate time or opportunity given to looking at these programs to see whether they are still needed or whether their budgets are justified. So you see these programs growing and Federal spending growing and no real time and effort given to cutting out wasteful spending and eliminating programs that have not been authorized or which are duplicative or redundant, as pointed out by the GAO.
My hope is that when we soon have a chance to vote on this amendment, we can all answer this important call. I think in the process we can ask the single most important question Congress can ask when it comes to spending and programs, which is: Is this program still needed?
A sunset commission would help us do our job of oversight and accountability. It would help rein in runaway Federal spending and, hopefully, along with growth in the private sector and investments by the job creators and entrepreneurs, help us get past where we are now, where we have not only runaway spending but unsustainable debt, and a private sector sitting on the sidelines not creating new jobs the way we need them to do it.
I yield the floor and thank the manager.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Will the Senator yield for a question on his amendment?
Mr. CORNYN. Yes.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Most of the programs I am familiar with at the Federal level have built-in sunsets, because they have limited authorization. How does the Senator's amendment either override that or undercut that? Why is his amendment necessary?
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I am glad to respond to the question. As the Senator knows, many programs that are currently up and running are operating on the basis of an appropriation without an authorization by the committee of jurisdiction, and that is part of what the sunset commission would look at because, frankly, it hasn't been authorized, the kind of oversight that is needed in order to scrub the numbers and make sure the program is still necessary and the spending is appropriate doesn't happen.
This also is designed specifically to deal with what the GAO pointed out in the last 7 to 10 days, where we have dozens of programs designed to do exactly the same thing. In other words, rather than making sure that existing programs work, we tend to layer those on over time, forgetting that those existing programs are even there. So this would be designed primarily to do two things: one, to deal with programs where there is spending because there has been an appropriation made but no authorization; and it would also deal with that duplication.
If, in fact, Congress comes back and authorizes the program, that is one way they could respond to the report of the commission.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator. I will comment, and I know the Senator wants to genuinely root out the waste and duplication. I only say that for programs that are operating under appropriations only. The Senator will know that that authorization is only intact for 1 year under the general rules. When you appropriate money, it is only for 1 year at a time. It can only be extended by an act of this body every year. On the authorizing programs, to my knowledge--and I will get the committee to check on that--Homeland Security has jurisdiction over government operations. It is my understanding that every authorized program has a length of time and that each committee here is responsible for their own oversight.
If the Senator is suggesting that committees either can't, or don't, do their work and we need an extra commission, we will consider that. I understand what the Senator is trying to do. I will have the Homeland Security team look at it on our side and we will respond.
Mr. CORNYN. I don't think anybody believes the way things are operating now is appropriate. What this does is it seeks to bring a new set of eyes, particularly regarding the spending levels in programs--whether they are necessary. As the President's own fiscal commission pointed out, this is not a partisan issue. We know with that kind of increased scrutiny, we can begin to cut out duplicative and unnecessary spending and prioritize those that are important, such as homeland security.
Part of the problem we have is that the spending levels we have now make it almost impossible for us to decide what our priorities are and fund those because everything seems to be a priority. Well, everything can't be a priority, everything cannot be essential. This is a commonsense approach, based on an effective State model, that would allow Congress to do its job better and deal with the most important issues that face the country today, which is runaway spending and unsustainable debt, and too high unemployment.
I yield the floor.
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