Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Chairman Graves, thank you for yielding the time, and thank you for the great work.

This is the first bill that Chairman Graves has brought to the floor of the House. He is the newest cardinal that we have, one of the 12 subcommittee chairmen--they are called cardinals--and this is his first bill.

I want to congratulate him and Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz for putting together what I think is a pretty high standard for fiscal responsibility for the House, freezing funding at last year's level, $3.3 billion.

That is the third year in a row, Mr. Chairman, that we have frozen the budget of the House of Representatives, making good on our promise to rein in spending and do more with less.

This level maintains the 14 percent reduction in House funding that began when Republicans took control of the House 4 years ago.

In addition, we have continued the freeze on Member pay that has been in place since 2010. We believe that in order for us to ask others to sacrifice throughout the government, that we have to sacrifice, ourselves, first; and that is what this bill does.

The bill includes numerous provisions designed to guarantee that the House and its support agencies are spending their tax dollars appropriately and to keep them accountable to the taxpayers. This includes enhancing oversight of the Cannon building restoration project and making sure that Congress approves any large-scale construction project.

These steps will help ensure that this type of major undertaking stays on time and on budget and are especially important given the historical significance of our buildings and the importance of their use.

The $3.3 billion this bill provides for the House is directed to support the most important functions of our legislative branch: keeping our Member and committee offices open for business, protecting the safety of those who work in and visit the Capitol complex, and improving the way we support our agencies--and the importance of doing just that.

For instance, the Capitol Police budget has been increased by $21 million to ensure our men in blue have the resources needed to protect this hallowed building and its grounds. And where we have seen issues in the agencies funded by the bill--for example, IT infrastructure challenges at the Library of Congress--we have taken the steps to make sure that these will be fixed moving forward.

Again, I want to thank Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and this great staff that has worked hard on this bill. They have demonstrated their love of this institution and these grounds by the hard work and devotion they have put into making this bill possible. So we want to thank the staff on both sides of the aisle for putting together this small but mighty bill. So I thank them for all of their work.

Mr. Chairman, I am proud that the House can lead by example when it comes to restoring fiscal discipline to the operations of the Federal Government. This bill will allow the House to fulfill its core duties within a responsible, realistic budget and preserve the democracy that makes this Nation so great.

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