NEW FISCAL YEAR -- (House of Representatives - October 01, 2007)
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Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Tennessee for yielding and for her leadership on this issue, and I am pleased to join my friend from Texas, as well as my good friend from North Carolina, who is yet to come. I appreciate her bringing great focus to this issue, because, Mr. Speaker, if the casual observer were to give you a description of what they thought was going on here in Washington, they would say, Oh, well, they are being much more responsible. They are not spending as much money as they have in the past. All sorts of wonderful things are happening. They would say so because this new majority has captured what I have called ``Orwellian democracy.'' They are talking the talk, Mr. Speaker, but they are not walking the walk.
So I appreciate my friend from Tennessee for taking the leadership and making certain that we bring focus to what truly is happening here in Washington under this new leadership.
Our good friends on the other side of the aisle, as you say, this is the first day of the new fiscal year. It is a great opportunity to look back and see what has happened over the last fiscal year that they have been in charge and to look forward. But if what has happened to date is any harbinger of what is to come in the future, Mr. Speaker, we have got real problems, because, as you know, Mr. Speaker, not a single appropriations bill of the 12 annual appropriations bills has made it to the President's desk yet, and we are done with the last fiscal year. The new fiscal year has begun today.
They didn't make it to the President's desk because this new majority has picked up right where they left off when they were last in the majority back in 1994 with more taxing and more spending. It is the spending that has our attention tonight, and through so many different areas.
This new majority is interested in spending over $23 billion in new money, new Federal money, and that is just the beginning. That is just the beginning. That is what they have appropriated, not what they have authorized to be spent, which is truly hundreds of billions of dollars.
But $23 billion is what separates responsible spending from the new majority, which is why we haven't gotten any of the appropriations bills to the President's desk and signed.
What we are talking about tonight is a portion of all of that, and that is the issue of earmarks, the issue of special projects, the issue of spending that gets into bills, oftentimes late at night and oftentimes behind closed doors; little projects that one Member or two in Congress make certain are inserted into bills. It is an earmark process, it is a special project process that we on our side, when we were in the majority recognized, albeit a little late, but recognized that it had significant potential for huge abuse. Some of our former colleagues, in fact, have different residences right now because of that abuse. They violated the law and were held to account.
So what we did as a majority before the end of last year was to pass a rule that said that all earmarks, all special projects, had to be disclosed. Whether they were in tax bills, whether they were in authorizing bills or whether they were in appropriations bills, every one of them had to be disclosed: who asked for it and how much did they ask for.
Mr. Speaker, that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? It is called sunshine. Sunshine for earmarks, we called it. It is what the American people desire. It is what the American people deserve. It is what my constituents home in Georgia say that is what we want. We want to know who is asking for these things.
We instituted this program. One would have thought, given the talk that we heard from this new majority, that when they took over that would have been one of those commonsense reforms they would have continued. That would have made a whole lot of sense.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, as you know, that is not what happened. In fact, there was to be no disclosure of individuals who requested earmarks, as my friend from Tennessee knows; and we fought, Republicans fought tooth and nail to make certain that disclosure occurred in appropriations bills before any were passed. This happened in May and June of this year.
Finally, finally, the new majority relented and said, Okay, we will allow for disclosure of who is asking for those earmarks, but that is not true for authorizing bills or tax bills. So what we see in these bills, as my friend from Texas cited, is these projects that get pushed into these bills that have special rewards for certain Members of Congress and their districts. We see it in all sorts of bills.
Mr. Speaker, as you will remember, last week we passed in this House of Representatives the SCHIP bill, the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill. One wouldn't think that you would need to sway Members' votes on that from a majority standpoint. Just let the bill stand or fall on its merits. The issue of those merits is another debate. But what we saw in that bill were earmarks, special projects for Members on the majority side to sway their vote.
Mr. Speaker, that is not what my constituents want; it is not what the American people want.
That might not even be so bad if they were disclosed, if people knew what was happening; if the Member had to stand in this Chamber before his or her colleagues and offer the justification for those programs, if they would stand before their constituents at home and offer justification for those programs.
But one of the things that really gets in the craw of my constituents, and I know those of my good friend from Tennessee, is the arrogance with which this new majority has fashioned these programs, the incredible arrogance, once again, saying one thing and doing another.
As my friend from Tennessee, Mrs. Blackburn stated, you can get this kind of information at CQ.com, Mr. Speaker, if you like. You may not have seen it. I would ask you to look it up.
They had an article today, as a matter of fact, asking: ``Do you want to know how your tax dollars are being spent in Washington?'' And the response is: ``Tough (expletive).'' They are quoting a very powerful Member of the majority party.
That is what is so distressing, Mr. Speaker. There is an arrogance about this majority. There is an arrogance that exceeds anything that anybody has ever seen in this Chamber, and there is a culture of excessive Washington spending that I believe the American people are sick and tired of.
So when you see this kind of activity going on in the committees, in the authorizing committees and in the tax committees and in the appropriations committees, where Members of this Congress are attempting to hide from their constituents and from other Members of Congress what is in these bills, who is asking for it, how much money and how do I identify it, and when a reporter in fact asks a very senior Member of the majority party how to find out ``how much money for which projects are in this bill,'' that Member of Congress says, ``Tough (expletive).''
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Mr. Speaker, that is not befitting of this House. That is not befitting of the institution that you and I were elected to hold a seat in. That is not befitting of the responsibilities that our constituents desire us to have when we come to this House of Representatives.
So what is the solution? Mr. Speaker, the solution at this point in time for this issue is H. Res. 479. We have a resolution that we would like to get debated on this floor, to have a debate on this floor that says just what we have talked about, to disclose who is asking for these special projects, who is asking for these earmarks, whether it is in appropriation bills, authorizing bills or tax bills. It is a resolution that sits in one of the committees controlled by the majority side. There is an opportunity for all Members of this House to say we ought to be voting on that. It is called a discharge petition. There we have 193 Members who signed to bring that resolution to the floor and debate it and vote on it. It takes 218, which is the majority here. So it is going to take some Democrats. So 193 Members have signed that discharge petition. Not a single Democrat has signed that discharge petition.
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So, Mr. Speaker, I challenge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who said during their campaign and even come to the floor of this Chamber and say now: We want earmarks disclosed. We want people to know who has been asking for these special projects. So sign the discharge petition, and it will give us a great opportunity to debate this issue on the floor of the house during a legislative session, during a time when we are talking about adopting legislation and making certain that sunshine is present for earmarks.
So I want to commend my friend from Tennessee for her leadership on this issue, for bringing this issue into focus, and for making certain that we fight day in and day out on behalf of the American taxpayer whose money it is that we are given the responsibility for.
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