Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. STUTZMAN. I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Chairman Dreier and the entire Rules Committee for ruling this amendment in order and for allowing it to be heard today.

This amendment asks the Government Printing Office to take an additional 4.3 percent cut that, if passed, would bring the total reduction of the GPO for fiscal year 2012 to 20 percent. The additional 4.3 percent cut would mean a total reduction of nearly $5 million. This may not seem like a lot here in Washington, but the American people demand government to make the same sacrifices at our offices and here in Washington as the families and small business owners make at their homes and places of work. It is our duty to manage our own House in a fiscally prudent manner. Let me lay out some numbers that may put this amendment's small reduction to the GPO in proper perspective.

The GPO spends over $28 million a year on the Congressional Record program alone. Over $8 million of that amount goes to the printing, binding and distribution of our Congressional Record. This includes payment for 4,551 copies of the Congressional Record despite the documents having been available digitally since 1994.

I don't know about you, Mr. Chairman, but spending $28 million to see and print what is said in Congress seems to be a raw deal. It really seems like a subsidy for a magazine that no one really wants to read. I have a couple of examples I'd like to share just to show the printing that goes on within the printing office.

Many of these documents show up in our offices and go straight into the recycling cans. One in particular that I found interesting is this document from the CBO, ``Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options,'' which has been printed en masse and is sitting around many of the offices on Capitol Hill. I think that this is a very appropriate measure we can take. When a small business is struggling, it must do without certain luxuries or conveniences. A business may cut marketing and printing costs in turn. A doctor's office might stop its magazine subscriptions it places in its waiting room. They expect us to do the same.

In May of this year, the Public Printer of the United States, who testified before the House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee, cited nearly 100,000 square feet of wasted government space. He also asked that GPO be taken out of the security business. I would have never guessed that the Government Printing Office spends $13 million a year on security.

My overall point is that there are creative solutions in order to make this small additional reduction to bring the reduction of the GPO to 20 percent. I applaud the recent internal efforts of Representative Lungren of California and Representative Gingrey of Georgia asking Members to opt out of such waste. However, I don't believe that that goes far enough in reducing the spending in this agency.

Mr. Chairman, let me finish by saying that a further 4.3 percent reduction in an office that prints unnecessary publications is not too much to ask. Let's take action. Let's do without as many words, and show Americans we can keep and make cuts of our own here in Congress.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. STUTZMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

I do appreciate the points about the responsibilities of the GPO and that they are required by law to print certain documents, but let me give you several examples. And again, let's remind ourselves that all of these--this is actually an environmentally friendly bill. This is an amendment that would actually reduce the cost and the amount of paper that we print many of these words on.

These are all available to any American on the Internet, and especially to each one of us as individuals of Congress, Members of Congress, and to our staff. But we have the Congressional Record, the Congressional Directory, the Senate and the House Journals, memorial addresses of Members, nominations, U.S. Code and Supplements, laws and treaties, envelopes provided to Members of Congress for the mailing of documents, House and Senate business and committee calendars, bills, resolutions and amendments, committee reports and prints, committee hearings. All of these are obviously very important documents, but I believe in the day and age that we live in, all of these can be done electronically and digitally and would actually save dollars for the American taxpayer.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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