The Consequences of Government Overspending

Floor Speech

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, last week in my hometown, thousands of families experienced their first week of a 3-month cut in pay.

These hardworking families aren't unaware of our Nation's fiscal problems. We all see that our Nation is rapidly approaching $17 trillion in debt. But a few years ago, Washington denied that this path would lead us the way of Europe and we would not experience pay and benefit cuts to solve our problems like Europe has. Well, here we are. Families are living on much less today as a direct consequence of government overspending for so many years and the mandate to get our economy back in balance.

In the past 3 years, Federal spending has been reduced, taxes have gone up, and the economy has actually experienced some rebound; but we're still overspending almost $700 billion a year, just this 1 year. That's down from $1.5 trillion in overspending 4 years ago, but it's still $700 billion in new debt that our Nation will take on this year.

We have to deal with the economic realities that we currently face because the spreadsheet where we see the negative numbers, those numbers represent families and people that face the negative consequences of our inactivity.

The GAO has identified multiple areas of government redundancy that waste money and where we fail to get the job done, but we seem to just nibble at the edges of fixing what is obviously in front of us.

Social Security disability is now 2 years away from insolvency, but no one seems to notice that if we don't fix disability insurance and get the people off disability that are using it just as unemployment, the most vulnerable in our society, the truly disabled, will face benefit cuts along with those folks that are just gaming the system.

The defense acquisition processes increase costs dramatically. Here's how it works. You get a prime contractor who pays a subprime, who pays a subprime, who pays a subprime. By the way, all of those are all the way through the path, and the last person has actually been someone who has done that job for years and years, and everyone knows it. Everyone knows the game, and everyone knows that in every part of that system there's a markup. The taxpayer is the one who loses on it. Let's fix that, because this affects families and lives.

Multiple defense procurement programs in the past several years have failed to produce a final product at all and have again cost taxpayers billions. Usually, our Federal civilian workforce can tell management exactly where we're wasting money, but sometimes no one's listening to them.

Those opportunities to save go untouched, costing more money in the long run and increasing our debt. Debt has a price for all Americans, but especially for the people working for our Nation.

So what does government debt look like today? For thousands in my district facing furloughs, families are cutting back on food, home repair, gas in the car, and every other expense.

A family I spoke with this past weekend will not have a summer vacation because of the furlough. That may not seem like a big deal to some people, but that's a lost significant family moment that they will never get back. Another family with two kids in college is currently trying to determine which kid won't go back to school this fall.

In some families, both parents are furloughed, making the problem twice as large. A single mom that experiences the furlough has a huge decision. This fall and just a month away, they're going to have to buy school supplies and clothes.

It's a serious problem. They're not a person just sitting at home living off Federal welfare, bemoaning the meager size of their check. They're members of our Federal family who work and give their lives to serve the warfighter.

As you would expect in our community, the community is stepping up. Tinker Federal Credit Union is working with families on their loan repayments, churches are providing school supplies, the Regional Food Bank is giving additional food and is working to step up their provision. Many people, my family included, are giving financially to take care of people in need in this moment. Oklahomans are tough and we're caring, but I'm incredibly frustrated that it's come to this.

Regardless of your thoughts on the number of Federal workers on the payroll, surely we can agree that the families currently employed should be protected as much as possible. These families have carried the stress of this pay cut for a year now. For months they have wondered when and if it would come, and now it's here.

I've written numerous letters to the Department of Defense, asking them to exhaust every option in sequester before they reduce worker time and pay. To their credit, they've replied to all of my correspondence in writing within days, something other agencies in this executive branch could certainly learn from.

I've personally spoken face-to-face with Secretary Panetta, with now-Secretary Hagel, General Dempsey, and Comptroller Hale to find out about other opportunities to save money, like the unobligated balances in the defense budget. I asked for their reconsideration of operations that function on working capital funds. If you're not familiar with that, some departments pay other departments to do their work. Those departments should not be directly affected. The cuts have already happened in the other department. We're cutting twice when we hit on the working capital fund locations.

I asked Secretary Hagel to give more authority to individual installations to make local decisions on spending reductions rather than mandating cuts from the Pentagon.

Congress has already worked with the DOD to reprogram funds and to give maximum flexibility to the Pentagon to protect workers, just like we did with FAA and Homeland Security.

I'm grateful, I am, that the Pentagon has found a way to reduce furloughs from 24 days to 14 days and now to a maximum of 11. But I want to find a way that we can end these furloughs all together for our civilian workers as soon as possible. Three months with a 20 percent cut is tough.

In my last conversation with Senator Hagel, I was pleased to hear that he's still working on these ways. I urge him to continue to cut waste, not worker pay. It's time that we get this issue resolved.

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