Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

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By Mr. McCAIN (for himself and Mr. Coburn):

S. 1495. A bill to prohibit Federal agencies from obligating funds for appropriations earmarks included only in congressional reports, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, the bill I am introducing today, along with my friend from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn, is very simple. The Obligation of Funds Transparency Act of 2005 would prohibit Federal agencies from obligating funds which have been earmarked only in congressional reports. This legislation is designed to help reign in unauthorized, unrequested, run-of-the-mill pork barrel projects.

As my colleagues may know, report language does not have the force of law. That fact has been lost when it comes to appropriations bills and reports. It has become a standard practice to load up committee reports with literally billions of dollars in unrequested, unauthorized, and wasteful pork barrel projects.

According to information compiled from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the total number of earmarks has grown from 4,126 in fiscal year 1994 to 14,040 in fiscal year 2004. That's an increase of 240 percent. In terms of dollars, the earmarking has gone from $26.6 billion to $47.9 billion over the same period. The practice of earmarking funds in appropriations bills has simply lurched out of control.

At a conference in February, 2005, David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, said this: ``If we continue on our present path, we'll see pressure for deep spending cuts or dramatic tax increases. GAO's long-term budget simulations paint a chilling picture. If we do nothing, by 2040 we may have to cut federal spending by more than half or raise federal taxes by more than two and a half times to balance the budget. Clearly, the status quo is both unsustainable and difficult choices are unavoidable. And the longer we wait, the more onerous our options will become and the less transition time we will have.''

Is that really the kind of legacy we should leave to future generations of Americans?

Referring to our economic outlook, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified before Congress that: ``(T)he dimension of the challenge is enormous. The one certainty is that the resolution of this situation will require difficult choices and that the future performance of the economy will depend on those choices. No changes will be easy, as they all will involve lowering claims on resources or raising financial obligations. It falls on the Congress to determine how best to address the competing claims.''

It falls on the Congress my friends. The head of the U.S. Government's chief watchdog agency and the Nation's chief economist agree--we are in real trouble.

We simply must start making some very tough decisions around here if we are serious about improving our fiscal future. We need to be thinking about the future of America and the future generations who are going to be paying the tab for our continued spending. It is simply not fiscally responsible for us to continue to load up appropriations bills with wasteful and unnecessary spending, and good deals for special interests and their lobbyists. We have had ample opportunities to tighten our belts in this town in recent years, and we have taken a pass each and every time. We can't put off the inevitable any longer.

Here is the stark reality of our fiscal situation. According to the Government Accountability Office, the unfunded federal financial burden, such as public debt, future Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments, totals more than $40 trillion or $140,000 per man, woman and child. To put this in perspective, the average mortgage, which is often a family's largest liability, is $124,000--and that is often borne by the family breadwinners, not the children too. But, instead of fixing the problem, and fixing it will not be easy, we only succeeded in making it bigger, more unstable, more complicated, and much, much more expensive.

The Committee for Economic Development, the Concord Coalition, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities jointly stated that, ``without a change in current (fiscal) policies, the federal government can expect to run a cumulative deficit of $5 trillion over the next 10 years.'' They also stated that, ``after the baby boom generation starts to retire in 2008, the combination of demographic pressures and rising health care costs will result in the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security growing faster than the economy. We project that by the time today's newborns reach 40 years of age, the cost of these three programs as a percentage of the economy will more than double--from 8.5 percent of the GDP to over 17 percent.

Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office has issued warnings about the dangers that lie ahead if we continue to spend in this manner. In a report issued at the beginning of the year, CBO stated that, because of rising health care costs and an aging population, ``spending on entitlement programs--especially Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security--will claim a sharply increasing share ofthe nation's economic output over the coming decades.'' The report went on to say that, ``unless taxation reaches levels that are unprecedented in the United States, current spending policies will probably be financially unsustainable over the next 50 years. An ever-growing burden of federal debt held by the public would have a corrosive. . . effect on the economy.''

Where is it going to end? We have to face the facts, and one fact is that we can't continue to spend taxpayer's dollars on wasteful, unnecessary pork barrel projects or cater to wealthy corporate special interests any longer. The American people won't stand for it, and they shouldn't--they deserve better treatment from us. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

http://thomas.loc.gov/