Transportation, Housing And Urban Development, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010
Floor Speech
TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (Senate - September 16, 2009)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, while we have an opportunity, there are some important comments I want to make about this bill.
We have heard from some people who are concerned about the deficit and the national debt. They are tremendous concerns. Any discussion of our overall economy must take into consideration the debt we are running up that will be on the backs of our children and our grandchildren. I have opposed many spending packages that have come through and many of the things that have gone on.
But when we are looking at priorities--which are funding ongoing programs which are within the budget of our committees--then we need to focus on spending that will prove beneficial for the American people and the economy.
The bill before us, the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill, funds infrastructure development for everything from roads, to bridges, to airports, which is critical to attracting businesses, creating jobs and economic growth in our communities.
The bill also provides funding to help the Nation's most vulnerable populations: the homeless, low-income families and seniors, housing for the disabled, and housing for our returning veterans who have served overseas.
This bill provides increased investment in the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA gets money for 200 additional safety inspectors. I have spoken on this floor about the need for safety inspectors because we have airlines flying with very subpar qualifications, and too often they get away with sending out people who are not qualified, should not be pilots, have not been properly trained. For all of us who fly and all of our constituents, that is a major concern. But we need to accelerate programs as well related to reducing congestion and increasing safety. That means getting us to the next generation air traffic system.
Nobody will claim this is a perfect bill, but it is one that provides needed funds for programs that not only make a difference in the lives of everyday Americans but also enables job creation, economic growth, and the kind of treatment we wish to provide for those in need, especially in the housing area.
I have asked my colleagues, and will continue to ask them, to support this bill. There have also been attacks--and there will be some more before we get out of here--on earmarks. Every year we have a debate about whether Congress should have a role in setting priorities or simply pass the buck to those in the executive branch of government.
Within my State are State and local experts I turn to, as well as people whose lives are inextricably linked to housing, transportation, and economic development. Most of these people know a great deal about these issues. They know a lot more about these issues and how they affect the people of Missouri than most folks sitting in a bureaucracy in Washington, DC, who may never have been there, do not know what the challenges are, do not know where the local people are putting their priorities, do not know what their plans are, do not know how they see their communities grow, their State grow. I think a lot of these people know more about housing, transportation, and economic development than people at OMB and those who ultimately produce budget submissions from their distant Washington offices.
We have heard a lot of talk about bad earmarks. I am opposed to bad earmarks, and people who abuse the system, who do so criminally, should be punished and put in jail, as they have been. There is no debate there. The debate is not what is written about, but it is who should earmark because every dollar that is spent by the government is directed by somebody. Who is making the decisions?
Some argue it should be a mix where Congress earmarks roughly 2 percent of discretionary funds, with the balance, roughly 98 percent, being earmarked by agency employees of the executive branch. I think you could make a good argument that it should be even higher.
However, under this scenario, with full disclosure, elected officials have a role in listening to and speaking for the people of their State, the leaders of their communities, the leaders of the institutions. We can make those recommendations, and the full Congress can look at them and the President can ratify them. This is reflected in the bills before us this session.
Others argue Congress should have no role; executive branch officials, elected by no one, should have 100 percent monopoly power over spending. Their position is people unaccountable to the voters should have this monopoly power. Congress can, however, and does set criteria, but the more criteria we set, the more it becomes a congressional earmark. The less criteria we set, the more it remains an executive branch earmark.
In executive agencies, people have their own agendas and political leanings. Their own political bosses--in either the Bush administration or the Obama administration--have their own agenda. I do not like monopoly power of the Obama administration on spending and I did not support it during the Clinton or either Bush administration as well.
I have to admit I find it puzzling to hear some of my self-professed conservative friends suggesting that the way to reform spending is to turn it all over to the Obama administration to earmark. I am not arguing they should have no role. I am arguing today that Congress should have a role.
The Constitution, in article I, section 9, says very clearly that it gives the Congress the power of the purse. It states:
No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of Appropriations made by law.
Guess what. That is what we are supposed to do, as stated in article I, section 9. I think it would be extreme, probably excessive, to suggest that Congress should earmark all money, just as I believe it would be extreme and wrongheaded to suggest that the Obama administration should earmark all money.
A bad earmark is a bad earmark, no matter who does it. Frankly, when I left the governorship of my State, one of the reasons I believed it was important to run for the Senate was to be able to exercise the voice and the views of Missourians in the spending process because I had seen too many instances where bureaucrats in Washington made very bad decisions.
They made bad decisions that absolutely turned the priorities around. They told us we had to spend all of our money for cleaning up wastewater, putting tertiary treatment on major metropolitan sewer systems, which would then have to put cleaner water into the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers than was already there.
The State's priority was to clean up many of the pristine streams in our State which had, in too many instances, raw sewage flowing into them--streams which were vital parts of our scenic rivers, our scenic waterways, places for hunters and fishermen, where people would like to swim and boat but could not.
But we have seen even more instances of bad earmarks. I thought it was a horrible Pentagon earmark to award an Air Force tanker project worth billions of dollars to a European company--a process which, under pressure, has since been subjected to review and will cost thousands of Missouri jobs if undertaken.
Fundamentally, I see this as a role of Congress and one that should be transparent, self-limiting, and subject to scrutiny. We get that scrutiny. I accept it. I am happy to argue with anybody who disagrees with my views, but at least we do so out in the open. When earmarks are made in the executive branch, nobody knows who did them. If you don't like a decision, you don't even know whom to yell at because it is somebody who is not appointed, not accountable, not obvious to the people we are supposed to serve.
A lot of people criticize me for putting out statements, news releases, when I get some funds for the State, which is another way of saying I was too transparent. I use this process to help empower local people who have local ideas on how best to improve their local communities after having set their own local priorities.
If a Senator doesn't want to request an earmark, that is fine. Some people request earmarks and then vote to strip them out. I think that is a little bit self-contradictory, but I will leave that to the Senators who choose to request them and then move to strike them. If a Senator thinks it is inappropriate or does not trust himself or his local leaders to establish priorities and petition Congress for funding, that is his or her business. But I do trust local officials who answer to their voters and neighbors, as I do, who invest their money and the tax money at the local level, and who understand their own conditions better than anyone else, over the geniuses at OMB who may or may not have had the privilege of traveling to Missouri, to Washington State, to Pennsylvania, to Minnesota, to wherever the Senator comes from.
In short, someone earmarks discretionary money, and I am glad that a small fraction of that earmarking is reserved for those who can be questioned and disparaged and voted out of office if people disagree. I disagree that earmarking and making all spending decisions should be a responsibility exclusive to the typically anonymous executive branch people.
I ask my colleagues to ensure that bureaucrats and politicians in the executive branch are not the sole source of power when it comes to setting spending priorities. In this case, local citizens outside of Washington who live with the project purposes and who are not agency officials should have a stronger voice in setting local priorities, not a weaker voice.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill and to oppose efforts to take away from Congress not only our constitutional power and authority over the purse but what I view as a high responsibility of someone who holds an office and carries out the duties of a U.S. Senator.
Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
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