Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. 2012

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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Chairman, I know that the Federal Government employs some 2 million executive branch, non-postal full-time and permanent employees; 850,000 of these employees hold jobs that are commercial in nature. Of the 850,000 commercial jobs, only a handful have been characterized as government employees or private sector workers who can perform these activities more efficiently and more cost effectively.

My amendment strikes the current insourcing language found in this legislation which, as drafted, would prevent the funds spent by this bill from being used to conduct public-private competitions or to direct A-76 conversions for any program, project or activity within the United States Department of Agriculture without a contracting report to Congress by the Secretary.

Two weeks ago, the House voted in favor of striking similar problematic and anti-competitive A-76 language from H.R. 2017, the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. The same change and reversal of bad policy which I undertook at that time should also be implemented in this legislation by striking this anti-competitive, free market language.

The A-76 process provides a valuable option for taxpayers and requires real competition. A former assistant director at USDA, Shawn Kingsbury, managed information technology programs at the Department. Mr. Kingsbury, in his tenure, implemented A-76 by transitioning to the first performance-based project management organization within the USDA, and it resulted in over $100 million in savings.

Without the ability to add competitive insourcing, ballooning deficits and out-of-control spending will continue in our government. It is time that Congress explores and gives all solutions to save taxpayers and the managers of the business in the government their hard-earned money.

The Heritage Foundation has reported that subjecting Federal employee positions which are commercial in nature to a public-private cost comparison will generate on average a 30 percent cost savings regardless of who wins that competition. Rather than preventing market competition that would improve service and lower costs, we should be encouraging agencies to find the best way to deliver services to citizens of this great Nation. The role of government should be to govern, not to operate businesses inside the government.

Our Nation's unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent. We must allow the private sector the ability to create jobs without an unfair disadvantage. We must get more results for our money.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this commonsense, taxpayer-first amendment and ensure cost-saving competition is available to the managers within this agency. Congress should be looking to use all the tools that it can find to help save taxpayer dollars.

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