Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, in this fiscal environment, we have to be better stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we have to scrutinize every program that we allocate money towards. We can't ever forget that every dollar that we spend is a dollar taken from our constituents' hard-earned paychecks. It is for that reason, Mr. Chairman, that I have offered this amendment to eliminate funding for the Open World Leadership Center--a program started in 1999 and housed in the Library of Congress with the purpose of bringing leaders from post-Soviet countries to the United States to learn about our legislative process.

The gentleman from California spoke passionately a few minutes ago about his belief that we need to have programs like this, but his comments ignore the fact that there are nearly 90 other similar or nearly identical programs throughout the government aimed at achieving this same goal. At the same time, this program has now spent more than $150 million towards that duplicative purpose.

So when you consider that duplicative purpose alongside a national debt of $18.2 trillion, we have got to honestly examine and reconsider whether this is the best use of taxpayer money. This is especially true when accounts and programs across the legislative branch have seen reductions in recent years, but yet not a single dollar has been cut from the Open World program despite the fact that, after this subcommittee's examination of this program, Chairman Graves reported that, ``In light of both the lack of quantifiable results from the Open World Leadership Center and its duplications of programs more appropriately offered by the State Department, the program has long outlived its short-term intent.''

Mr. Chairman, I agree with the chairman's assessment, which is, by the way, not a partisan one. In fact, this is the all-too-rare situation and opportunity where Republicans and Democrats, alike, agree that we can cut spending without hurting American citizens.

The American people have entrusted us with the responsibility of seeing that their tax dollars don't go to waste. And while Mr. Graves' bill allocates funds to the legislative branch to do the important work that we need to on behalf of the American people, the Open World program is one area where we can and should make this spending cut.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Graves), the chairman.

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