Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. DUFFY. Madam Chair, first, I want to commend the work of both Mr. Cole and Ms. Wasserman Schultz in producing a spending bill that doesn't actually increase spending. It doesn't actually reduce it, but it actually maintains it; and for this institution, I think that is a positive, and I commend you both for doing that.

I think it is important, when we talk a lot about our debt at $17 trillion--we have deficits at $1.5 trillion today, down to a little over $600 billion, I think it is important that this institution lead by example and look to places that we can cut, places that we can be more efficient, when we look at spending on operations here in the House.

When we do that, I think it is important to look at duplicative programs, programs that accomplish the same mission through multiple agencies.

I would submit to this Chamber that one of those is the Open World Leadership Center. This program--its purpose is to engage emerging leaders from post-Soviet countries by exposing them to American cultural institutions. I would argue it has outlived its usefulness.

Listen, it is great that we should engage others from around the world. We should engage their leaders. I think that can help bridge the gap.

The problem with this program is that, since 2000, it has cost the American taxpayer $150 million; but not only that, we have nearly 90 programs that try to accomplish this very same mission, just to name a few in the State Department: the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and USAID, all with this same mission.

So I think this is a space where we can eliminate this program. The mission can still be accomplished with other agencies, and we can move over $3 million to deficit reduction.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. DUFFY. Madam Chairman, with all due respect, to those who may disagree with this amendment--I am seeing some bipartisan agreement; I know I have some bipartisan disagreement with this amendment--but to my colleagues, there are 90 programs that are aimed at accomplishing the very same mission. When do we come forward and say: Listen, let's cut this back; let's cut it back a little bit? The bridge isn't cut off, but we have other programs that are doing the same thing.

Listen, we want to talk about what is going on in Ukraine and want to talk about what is going on in Russia. This program didn't exist in the 1980s. Ronald Reagan didn't have this program to tear down the Soviet Union. He did it with strong leadership. So to come to this institution and say: Listen, the $3.4 million in this program is going to stop the aggression of Putin, no. Strong leadership will, though. This is about when do we come together as an institution and find programs that are duplicative, programs that we can look and say: This can be scaled back and we can look to one of the other 89 programs to accomplish this same mission.

There is a constituency around every dollar. That is why it is so hard in this town to scale back because everyone will come forward and go: But no, no, no; this dollar is so important. And people come from our communities and go: No, don't cut back.

We are $1.7 trillion in debt. This is unsustainable. So let's come together and find this program that we can cut and look to the other 89 that can accomplish the same mission, which I think is a noble mission.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

The CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy).

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