Department Of Labor, Health And Human Services, And Education, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008
Floor Speech
DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - July 18, 2007)
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Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I certainly thank him for his leadership in this institution on this very, very important subject.
I will be supporting, I suppose, the chairman's amendment. He said he was not interested, I believe, in biasing the decision; so he will vote present, although I think that the distinguished chairman had voted against the gentleman from California's amendment yesterday on another bill. So I am not sure if the outcome hasn't already been prejudiced.
Be that as it may, I have not been opposed to all earmarks. I understand the opportunity and constitutional responsibility that this body has. But as I have observed the process, the process, I believe, more often than not, has led to bad results. And particularly the bad result that I see and why I commend the gentleman from California for his leadership in this area is that I believe, more often than not, we help teach people to become more dependent upon the Federal Government. People who never thought about receiving a Federal earmark now come to their local Member of Congress. There was a time when many individuals would compete in the marketplace of ideas and compete in the marketplace for business and compete in the marketplace for charitable contributions, and now they are being taught they need to compete in the halls of Congress.
I recall dealing with a large major medical research institute in my hometown of Dallas, Texas, that does world renowned science who was always happy to come and compete in a competitive bid process for research dollars at the National Institutes of Health, but they woke up one day and many other institutions instead were receiving earmarks; so now they went out and invested their money in a Washington lobbyist and they started receiving earmarks. I do not necessarily view this as a good thing.
And I wish I had coined the phrase, but our colleague in the other body, the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, once said that earmarks are the gateway drug to spending addiction. That may not be true in all cases, but it is certainly true in many cases. And more often than not, I fear that they represent a victory of special interests over the general interest. They represent a victory, often, of secrecy over transparency. Even now we are having trouble trying to put the dollar amounts with the Member, with the earmark. Certainly, I don't see the transparency that I thought that we would have seen from the committee on this matter.
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Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chairman, we have had a number of debates this evening over the subject of earmarks. I have been heard on that, and I have been happy to have been heard on this particular debate. And again, I know there are many worthy expenditures of funds when it comes to earmarks. I do not necessarily believe that they are all bad.
And I must admit, until coming to the floor, I wasn't completely certain what the Minnesota Digital Public Media Archive was. Fortunately, the gentlelady from Minnesota was kind enough to come to me and explain to me exactly what the purpose of the earmark was. I enjoyed our conversation and I appreciated her courtesy, and I want to stipulate this is not a debate on whether or not the gentlelady has a noble purpose for these funds. As explained to me with her enthusiasm, I stipulate there is a noble purpose for these funds.
I am not necessarily going to engage in a debate on whether or not the Twin Cities public television station in St. Paul can make good use of the money, the half a million dollars. I am sure they can, as explained to me by the gentlelady from Minnesota.
And so I want to again make it very clear, and we don't have the time to debate each and every earmark, but every time we expend these funds we have to look at, number one, where is the money coming from, and number two, what is the fiscal health of our Nation. Already the Federal Government is spending over $23,000 per American family. This is only the second time since World War II that the Federal Government has spent so much money.
And right now with just the Federal Government that we have, we are on a collision course to double taxes on the next generation. Don't take my word for it. Go to the Office of Management and Budget, the Congressional Budget Office, or the conservative Heritage Foundation or the liberal Brookings Institute. They will all tell you the same thing.
So we are sitting here with an explosion of spending. Some will say, relatively speaking, this is a small amount of money. Relative to the Federal budget, it is a small amount of money. I am happy to stipulate that. But I still believe that earmarks, although a small portion of the Federal budget, tend to be a large portion of the culture of spending.
Again, I have no doubt this is a worthy project, but I do note that the PBS television station, I believe, gets almost 85 percent of its funding from donations and other public grants. I am led to believe, and if I am incorrect, I invite the gentlelady from Minnesota to correct me, that they receive rather generous support from the taxpayers of the State of Minnesota. But I don't quite know what the compelling Federal purpose is, Federal purpose, money from Federal taxpayers, to fund the Minnesota Digital Public Media Archive.
Look, this isn't a debate on whether or not this is a noble purpose for the money. It is not a debate on whether or not the gentlelady's public television station could do something good with the money. But let's remember where the money is coming from. As long as this Nation is running a deficit, which it is, is this money going to come from raiding the Social Security trust fund yet again, even though I have introduced and supported legislation that would protect that trust fund?
If we run a deficit, we are still borrowing money from the Social Security trust fund. Or as we know in the Democratic budget resolution passed earlier this year, we have the single largest tax increase in American history, over 5 years ramping up to an average of $3,000 per American family.
More spending fuels more taxes. Are we going to increase that greater tax burden on present American families or are we going to pass on more debt to our children? Government will be paid for. This earmark will be paid for one way or another.
And so the question is not whether or not there's a noble purpose. The question is not whether or not they make good use of the funds, but is it a compelling Federal purpose, worthy of sending debt to our children, worthy of taking money away from the Social Security Trust Fund, worthy of being a part of the largest tax increase in history, and I respectfully submit to my colleagues that I believe it is not.
And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chairman, I do have a number of comments I would like to make about this particular earmark. But before I do, I do feel compelled to address some of the comments by the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I think the way to paraphrase what he just said is: You guys spend too much, so we will spend even more. I am not exactly sure about the logic of that particular argument.
I also heard complaints about the war, something that has been debated on this floor, should be debated on this floor, will be debated on this floor. But I would note that the gentleman's party controls both the House and both the Senate; and if his party wants to end funding, they can do that tomorrow. His party is in control of this now.
Last, but not least, the distinguished gentleman complains about tax relief. Last I looked, don't take my word for it, go to the United States Treasury, we are awash in tax receipts. Tax relief has brought us in more tax revenue, because when you let the American people save more and invest more, they go out and they create and they grow the economy. So I think the gentleman's comments were very much misplaced.
Speaking to this particular amendment; one, this particular amendment would eliminate the earmark of $300,000 in funds to the West Los Angeles Times College. From the certification letter, this is to establish a first-of-its-kind entertainment industry craft and technician college job training program to respond to the film and television industry's immediate need for new trained employees.
Previous to coming to floor, I did know a lot about this particular earmark. The sponsor of the earmark, the gentlelady from California, was kind enough to share with me information about it, and I became convinced of a couple of different propositions:
Number one, that she has a very noble purpose for this earmark. Again, I want to stipulate to that.
Number two, I came away, as I did with the last amendment, knowing that not only is there a noble purpose, I have no doubt that some good things could be done with this money.
But like in many of these earmark debates, there tends to be great focus on the good that can be done with this money, but we don't spend a lot of time talking about the harm that can be done with this money. And I know that the gentlelady from California feels that low-income people within her district could benefit from this program. I have no doubt that that is true. But I might point out that there are very many worthy community colleges, for example, in the Fifth Congressional District, who could benefit from this money as well.
Eastfield College, we need a lot of people trained for our high-tech industry, for jobs with companies like Texas Instruments, companies like Raytheon. These monies could be used by Trinity Valley Community College. There are several locations within the Fifth District of Texas. They could help in our burgeoning nursery industry. It is a very agricultural part of my district. So, again, education is good. But the education is going to the one particular district in this particular case, not going to the Fifth Congressional District of Texas. So there are many worthy competing goals for this particular money.
But I really want us to focus upon the fact that although I have no doubt that good things can be done with these funds, all of government must be paid for. And so, again, I think we should use this debate as an opportunity to focus on who is paying the bill. And, again, as long as this Nation is running a deficit and it is down, thanks to the fact we are awash in tax revenues due to tax relief, we are still running a deficit. That means that any earmark, not just the gentlelady's from California, but any, is going to be raiding the Social Security Trust Fund as we continue, unfortunately, a practice from both parties of raiding the Social Security Trust Fund.
In addition, we know that more spending fuels more taxes. And I hear from constituents in my district who have to pay the bills for all these earmarks no matter how worthy they are. I hear from somebody like the Flores family in Garland, Texas. She writes, ``Dear Congressman, I am a divorced mother with a child in college and a child in daycare. An increase in taxes would wipe out hope of the first college graduate in the family. Please don't let this happen. Let's hold the budget down. There are a lot of things I can't afford, so I don't buy them. I need government to take the same attitude.''
Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chairman, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?
The CHAIRMAN. Thirty seconds.
Mr. HENSARLING. Again, I appreciate the gentlelady and her purpose for her amendment. When she spoke about the term ``wealthy,'' if there is an industry in America that is wealthy it is obviously Hollywood. I would hope that they would be able to train their own people. But as I spoke about earlier, Rose Flores of Garland, Texas, doesn't consider herself wealthy, and yet she is staring at an average increase in her taxes of $3,000 a year as she tries to put a child through college, the very first one in her family to ever graduate from college.
Again, we must focus on the cost of these earmarks.
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