Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is very straightforward. It would simply reduce the overall funding for the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Transportation by $389,000.

This office is one of 13 in the underlying bill which are slated to receive increases for administrative expenses, despite the fiscal emergency that we're currently facing. The passage of this amendment would simply bring this account back to fiscal year 2012 levels.

I see my good friend from Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee. She knows we have fought together very hard for civil rights and civil liberties here in this House, in committee as well as on the floor, and believe very strongly that we need to protect our civil liberties and our civil rights. But the simple truth is that we're broke as a Nation, and this amendment would just simply keep funding at the current level instead of raising it. It would just turn it back--what's proposed in the underlying bill--to the current level of spending, but not reduce any functions of this office. It would not prohibit this office from doing any of its work. It would help, in a small way, to put us back into a more realistic fiscal state as a Nation because, Mr. Chairman, we just have to stop spending money that we don't have.

It's across the board. Every bureau, every office, every bit of the Federal Government needs to not have increases in their costs to the taxpayer, not have further borrowing of money that we just don't have. We've just got to stop spending money we don't have. This simple amendment keeps funding at our current level. That's all it does.

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Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Chair, my amendment would simply reduce funding for administrative expenses within the Federal Railroad Administration by $5,404,000.

This office is one of 13 in the underlying bill which is slated to receive increases for administrative expenses, despite the fiscal emergency that we're facing as a Nation. This, like many of the amendments that I'm bringing, would just reduce funding back to current levels, back to the FY12 levels.

We have many sections of this bill that are slated to be increased. But as we face an economic emergency as a Nation, as we're spending money that we don't have--40 cents of every dollar we're spending is being borrowed--we just have to stop the outrageous spending that's going on here in Washington.

This amendment would simply bring the administrative expenses for the Federal Railroad Administration back to current levels. It would not reduce the functions of the administration. It would just keep funding at the current levels.
It makes sense to just stop increasing, so I urge support of my amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Chair, my amendment would reduce funding for the administrative expenses for the Maritime Guaranteed Loan program by $10,000. That's all. It doesn't sound like much, but it freezes spending at the current levels.

I believe very firmly that we ought to cut spending in this House. We've cut our MRAs, our own operating accounts for our own administrative expenses by 11 percent. What this amendment does, it freezes at the current fiscal year '12 levels. It is a minor amount of money to most folks, but still, $10,000 is a lot of money to this old Georgia boy.

So I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Chair, this, like many amendments I'm offering tonight, would freeze spending at the FY12 levels. We've just got to stop spending money we don't have, Madam Chairman.

I recommend adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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