Fiscal Irresponsibility
Floor Speech
FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY -- (House of Representatives - December 17, 2007)
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Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank the lady from Tennessee for her leadership in this and for her taking this late hour to come and be part of a group, the Republican Study Committee, that believes in fiscal conservatism, and are willing to stand up and fight, to be called names in this body. In fact, I think the lady and myself and others that have spoken here tonight have been called the fringe because we stand up and want to debate these issues and want to bring the truth to the American people. And to the lady from Tennessee, I just, you know, I think that we need to clarify to the people and let them understand what kind of position, not only us, but this whole House was put in today because less than 24 hours ago, at about 12:30 this morning, this bill, over 3,500 pages was filed.
Now, I don't know about the rest of you, and I'm sure the gentlelady from Tennessee, but I was in the bed then, sound asleep, as I'm sure most people were. I got up this morning and got dressed and got on a plane and came to D.C., but the first time this bill was debated and just the rule on this bill was about 5:30 tonight.
So put yourself in this position. Your financial officer for your company comes in and hands you a bill like this and says could you look at this and let me know if this is okay to finance this company for the rest of the year, and I need to know by about 8 o'clock tonight. Now, I think it would be impossible for them to do it. I think it would be impossible for any of us to do that.
It's been impossible for us to take 3,500 pages, something that weighs over 34 pounds, and try to consolidate that into information that we can base a vote on. It's impossible.
Talking about $515 billion. Now, when I was in the Georgia legislature, our State budget for 9 million people was a little over $16 billion, and I thought I realized how much $1 billion was but it was not until a friend of mine, Naomi Morgan, sent me an e-mail today, in fact, and pointed out several things to me.
One billion, if 1 billion were seconds and we went back 1 billion seconds, we would be in 1959. 1959 is 1 billion seconds from right now. And when you're talking about that, we just got through passing a $515 billion bill in less than 24 hours, that's scary, isn't it? And.
The other thing is 1 billion minutes, if we went back 1 billion minutes from now, Jesus would be walking the earth. Jesus would be walking the earth 1 billion minutes ago.
Sometimes we lose perspective. We've been up here too long when we just throw around the word ``billion,'' but we were asked today to vote in less than 24 hours on a 3,500 page bill, weighs over 35 pounds, and contained $515 billion worth of spending.
You know, that shows me that the process is broken, and when the process is broken, the product is flawed. This process has been broken.
Now, we were lied to or misled. I'd hate to think that they purposely lied, but I think they misled us and the American people, the majority party, on the first day when they talked about a new open process, a new bipartisan spirit. See, I represent about 700,000 people, as every Member in this body does, and those 700,000 people want to have some type of input into the situation, and you know, unfortunately, I've not had any input in this bill. There has not been any amendments to be allowed.
We could not look at all the 9,000 or so earmarks in this bill to see if they were justified, but I do want to tell the American people, because one of the things other than spending too much of their money has been illegal immigration. Now, that is a high topic, and I want the American people, and I think this is very important because every town hall meeting I have and I don't know about you, every town hall meeting I have, every teleconference I have, the hottest topic that we have is illegal immigration. Now, this should really at least let the public know the priorities that the majority party has.
$10 million in this bill in that 3,500-page bill over there, $10 million of it went for emergency spending for defense attorneys for illegal immigrants. $10 million of that bill goes for defense attorneys in emergency spending for illegal immigrants; yet we did not fund our troops in Iraq one dime.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I think that this is such an important part of this bill because we have talked a good bit about our troops in Iraq not being funded in this bill, and then when we talk about the gimmickry, and just I hate to even use the term. It's almost like a sleight of hand.
Mr. WESTMORELAND. Smoke and mirrors.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Smoke and mirrors, it is indeed, where they come in and they're going to make it very difficult to build the fence.
You know, they have $2.7 billion for border security funds in the homeland security accounts, and then they have another $225 million for GSA related to the border fence. Then they turn around and there is $10.5 million for defender services for illegal immigrants. And we know that what they've done is to go in and make it very, very difficult.
The bill releases $650 million of this funding for the border fence only after, and that is where they're setting up roadblock, only after the Appropriations Committee is satisfied with the Department of Homeland Security's expenditure plan and that 15 conditions listed in the bill are met.
Now, as the gentleman knows, every time we do a town hall meeting people are so concerned about the loss of this Nation's sovereignty, about the loss of security in our communities. Because the illegal immigration issue is not addressed, every State's a border State, and every town is a border town, and now we see that they're playing tricks. They're going to say, well, we're going to go under emergency money and we're going to put it in here that it could be released if we decided it was an emergency, and oh, by the way, we're going to release part of it only after the Appropriations Committee is satisfied.
Well, what's satisfied one person's requirements may not satisfy another because it is subjective, and that will be released at that time. And then you have got 15 conditions. Well, you can make it impossible to ever satisfy a list of conditions, Mr. Speaker, if your goal is to block something. If your plan is to fail, you can develop a plan to fail, and that is what we see in this 3,565 pages of a budget document is how to fail.
And I yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. WESTMORELAND. I was going to say, and trust me, what you were just talking about as far as meeting these requirements, trust me, this $10.5 million that we're spending on these defense attorneys for these illegal immigrants, trust me, they're going to law you up and keep us from building that fence.
And you know, now when my constituents say, Congressman, why aren't we building that fence, why aren't we securing the border, then I've got something I can tell them now. I can give them that 3,500-page bill, of course there's no telling what it would cost them to get a copy of that, 35 pounds of paper there, and say it's in this bill that we will build the fence but only under certain conditions.
And I think the gentlelady from Tennessee, or anybody that's had a town hall meeting, would agree that these people do not care about the conditions. The only conditions they want is they want a fence. They want a border. They want a secure country because no country without secure borders is secure.
And so that's what the American people want, not stumbling blocks and not something big enough to hide $10.5 million in for defense attorneys in emergency spending. Now, this is emergency spending for the illegal immigrants. We've got some true emergencies, but it's not in defending them. It's in allowing them to come here.
So I just hope that the American people, that tonight somehow that we have made a difference or maybe had at least some eye opening with some of the information that we've given them about this bill over here that we were asked to vote on today, and I hope that they will understand that this is not an easy process.
But the process is broken, and I will be honest with you, it was broken when we were in charge, but it's lost another wheel. We may have only been one wheel short when we were in charge, but trust me, both axles are broken right now, and it's just being drug along the ground. It is broken. The product is flawed.
We need to start over. I would hope that the President would veto this bill. I would hope that he would veto this bill and get us back to the table so we can take some of these things back out, save the taxpayers some money.
But I do appreciate, again, the leadership of the gentlelady from Tennessee and her willingness to come here this late at night and try to explain some of this to the American people so that they can have a better understanding of some of the challenges that we're faced with and some of the opportunities that the majority party is taking with smoke-and-mirror bills like we passed today.
So I want to thank the gentlelady.
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Mr. WESTMORELAND. Will the gentlewoman yield?
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I will gladly yield.
Mr. WESTMORELAND. You just told me something new when you were reading out those salaries in there under emergency spending. So we are paying district attorneys and judges and other people these salaries in emergency spending, but yet we are not funding our troops in Iraq. Is that what you're telling me?
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Reclaiming my time, that is what we have found. That is all a part of the emergency spending component. That's why I think it's so interesting when you go through and read the summary on this bill because you find that in order to carry out the ability to spend a little more on programs where they want to spend more, what they have done is to shift the cost. And so if you can put it under emergency spending and then not have to submit it to the PAYGO rules, then it allows you to be able to spend a little bit more.
Mr. WESTMORELAND. So this is more smoke and mirrors, is what you're saying?
Mrs. BLACKBURN. It is more of the smoke and mirrors, and I am sure it was concocted in a smokefilled room. But it just doesn't make good sense, and it's just not common sense in the way it ought to be done when you look at your different allocations and your different lines. And certainly there are many people listening to this who sit on county commissions and city councils and they are in State legislatures and they are listening to this and they are pulling down this budget document and they are saying, We could never get away with something like this.
Mr. WESTMORELAND. The funny thing is if we had corporate officers that were running their companies like that, we would have them in front of the Government Reform Committee and having a hearing on them. It's embarrassing that we are running our government the way we are running it, and yet we are having hearings about these corporate officers that are doing things in the dark of night and in smoke and mirror, phony documents that they're doing.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Yes. Reclaiming my time, the next segment that I have here is after the emergency spending, which I was reading through, then we get into the budget gimmicks, and you see how they have pulled in $10.2 billion in gimmicks that are being used to artificially lower the cost of the bill. And it goes through this with some transportation funds; the crime victims fund; advanced appropriations, which sounds just a little bit sneaky there. It increases some funding for the BRAC account, and there's a way that's kind of shifted and moved around.
And then following that we get into each of the individual Departments, each of the appropriations bills, with the Agriculture bill, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy and Water. We go through each of these and list where some of the provisions are and some of the increases. There is an increase in here for salaries and expenses at the Food and Drug Administration from $1.57 billion to $172 billion. An increase for conservation programs. The Legal Services Corporation, the LSC, it gives $350 million for them, $1 million over the fiscal year 2007.
Now, the Legal Services Corporation is free legal aid. They represent individuals that sue the government. So we are going to increase their funding, but we are not going to fund our troops, and we are not going to get that fence built and secure that border. So in here is increased funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs from $1.47 billion to $1.72 billion.
Mr. WESTMORELAND. Fuzzy math.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. And there again you see that we are increasing that. We are increasing the Department of the Interior programs, but we are not funding our troops. We see increased funding for the IRS. They are going from $10.60 billion to $10.89 billion, and it is an increase of $295.3 million or 2.8 percent over their fiscal year 2007 numbers. So we are going to increase money for the IRS, but we are not going to get that money to our troops.
Mr. WESTMORELAND. Will the gentlewoman yield?
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I will gladly yield.
Mr. WESTMORELAND. I don't know how your constituents are going to feel about that, but when I go home and tell my constituents that we increased the IRS spending more than the normal 4 percent, or whatever it is, we have increased it double, and yet we didn't want to give any money to our troops in Iraq, they're going to be kind of mad about that. But then when I tell them they put up roadblocks about building the fence and we didn't fund our troops in Iraq, they're going to be upset about that. And then when I tell them about the $10 million in emergency spending for defense attorneys, I think they are really going to be mad about that.
I hope the American people get a good grip on this.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. When I go back and say they were going to increase funding to the IRS and it would be $10.89 billion, my constituents are going to say that's why you need to get rid of the IRS, and that's why we need to have a fair tax.
Mr. WESTMORELAND. Absolutely.
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