SCHIP and Earmark Reform
SCHIP AND EARMARK REFORM -- (House of Representatives - October 17, 2007)
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Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, I thank my leadership for allowing me to lead the time during this next hour. And my intention, Madam Speaker and my colleagues, is to talk about something that is hugely important in this town, in this body, and across this country, and, of course, that is the issue of earmarks.
But, Madam Speaker, before I get to that, I couldn't help but hear my colleagues on the other side, the freshmen Democrats, who just spoke about the SCHIP program. I will say this, Madam Speaker: they spoke well. They spoke in a very articulate manner. I commend them for their sense of presence in this body. They are all doing a great job.
But, Madam Speaker, talking about overstating and being over the top on some of the comments that were made that I just heard over this last hour listening to my colleagues, it's amazing.
The gentleman from Minnesota was critical of the President, overstating the issue of the SCHIP program in regard to covering children from families up to 400 percent of the Federal poverty level. I don't necessarily argue with the gentleman over that point. But then the doctor from Wisconsin went on to make a comment, and I think I am accurate in quoting him. He suggested that the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States, went to Iraq over lies. Then he went on to say that the country needs more than a President who refuses to obey the rule of law.
Now, you talk about overstatements and embellishing and really getting entirely off the subject. So I just want to remind my colleagues, let's do indeed stick to the facts.
The facts, Madam Speaker, in regard to the State of Wisconsin, my good friend, the good doctor, the allergist from Wisconsin, I would quickly point out to him that in his State, he showed that picture, that kind of heart-rendering, tugging-at-your-heart-strings picture of the mother and child, the mom, Wendy, and the child, Cassidy, and sort of making his point that we need to expand this SCHIP coverage by 140 percent to cover 6.4 million children that we are covering under the current program, but to increase that to over 10 million children.
Well, not only that, Madam Speaker and my colleagues, but the gentleman from Wisconsin, in his State 66 percent of the people that are covered under the SCHIP program are the Wendys, not the Cassidys. Mom and dad that have maybe one child that are in that income bracket, 100 to, I think, in Wisconsin it goes up to 180 percent of the Federal poverty level. Not only are the children covered but the parents are covered as well such that in that State, 66 percent of the total people covered are adults, not children at all. And Wisconsin is not the most egregious State, Madam Speaker. There are a number of others.
The State of Minnesota, the gentleman from Minnesota was leading the time. I think probably 70 percent in Minnesota are adults.
And if my colleagues want to come down, I will yield to them if they want to dispute those figures and we will talk about it. I would be proud to have them interrupt me and get in a colloquy, in fact, about this.
So I am here tonight during this Special Hour, Madam Speaker, to talk about earmark reform, and we will get to that. But I think this is just really
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important because this is a historic vote tomorrow. This is a historic vote. And colleagues on both sides of the aisle will have an opportunity to say do we want to reauthorize a good program, you might say even a Republican program with Senators like Senator Hatch back in 1997 when this program was started. Not an entitlement program, Madam Speaker, no. Not an entitlement program. A block grant lasting 10 years, spending about $1 billion a year on the program to cover 6 million children. And, yes, we Republicans, we fiscal conservatives, and the President of the United States have a compassion, and we understand that Biblical phrase ``suffer the little children'' that the Speaker likes to use over and over again in trying to make her point.
But we want to make sure that we cover those children that have the greatest need, those children between 100 and 200 percent of the Federal poverty level. And there are almost 750,000 to 1 million of those kids, those children, in those families who have fallen through the cracks. The States have not done a good enough job of finding them.
Madam Speaker, I am very, very proud of my State of Georgia. I represent the northwest part of that State, District 11. We have lots of children in this program. In fact, in Georgia we are covering about 280,000 children. And we still are missing a few. But they are not children and families making 300 percent of the Federal poverty level. That's $63,000 a year. And if you allow that, as this new Democratic expansion does, as a matter of routine, and then you also say not only do the children, each child in that family, one, two, five, whatever, but their parents also get coverage, well, that's why I'm just trying to make this point.
I love my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. These four freshmen Democrats are outstanding Members, and they speak very well, as I said. They just speak facts that are not factual and they embellish their points, and I think that the truth needs to be told on this.
The truth is that we in the minority now, we want to expand this program. We voted for the continuing resolution so that it did not expire. We will vote to sustain the President's veto tomorrow because we don't need to raise the spending, Madam Speaker, on this bill 140 percent and cover 4 million additional children.
I think it was Mr. Walz from Minnesota who had this nice poster showing the amount of money that we spend every day, every month in Iraq trying to defeat this Islamic extremism, to fight this global war on terror, and saying that, well, you know, if we had 37 days' worth of spending in Iraq and Afghanistan that we could use on this SCHIP program, we could cover 10 million additional children, give them health care, dental care, Cadillac coverage. Well, he is right about that. There is no doubt we could. And what good would that health care coverage for those children do if some Osama bin Laden look-alike came into this country and blew them to smithereens?
So let's get our priorities straight here, my colleagues. Let's get our priorities straight. We need to protect the children. We need to protect the adults. We need to protect hardworking men and women in this country and not let 3,700 of them be slaughtered in a 20-minute period of time, in the blink of an eye, because we were not willing to defend this country against global terrorism and Islamofascism.
So this is not a matter of either/or here. And, again, numbers are great. You use your statistics and you make your points. But I hope, my colleagues and Madam Speaker, that I have made my point well in regard to priorities. So let's get this real. Let's sit down with the Democratic leadership. The President I know will do that after we sustain his veto.
Hopefully, there will be some Republicans, Madam Speaker, at the table. Our colleagues keep talking about the bipartisan bill and they keep saying Senator Grassley and Senator Hatch. Well, okay, Senators Grassley and Hatch. But we have got, I think, 47 other Republican Senators in the other body. And, yes, they may have a few Republicans on this side who they have scared into supporting this massive expansion.
But we don't need to do that. The President can sit down with, hopefully, our leadership, both Democratic and Republican. Minority rights here. Let Mr. Boehner in the room. Let Mr. Barton in. Let Mr. Deal in. Let our ranking members from the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. McCrery, let them in the room too and sit down with the President, with Democratic leadership, with the Senate, with the Republican Senators. I'm sure they will be there.
And say, look, we made a proposal. Initially, the President said we are going to expand this program 20 percent. You say it's not enough. All right. Well, let's get to the table. Let's leave our guns at the door, if you will, Madam Speaker. And maybe it does need to be a 35 percent increase, possibly even 40 percent. That would increase this program over a 5-year period of time by $10 billion. But not $35 billion when what you cover in those additional 4 million children are those whose families are making a pretty darn good income at $63,000 a year and they are already on a health insurance program, a private health insurance program. But, Madam Speaker, wouldn't you, if you got the opportunity to drop your private coverage for your kids and those monthly premiums, say, Manna from heaven, we're now going to get on the government public trough? Wonderful. Wonderful.
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And I go back to that, talking a little bit in response to, again, my physician colleague, I think most of my colleagues know that that was my profession, too, before coming to this body. But the doctor from Wisconsin was showing those pictures, that picture, again, of Wendy and Cassidy. Well, Wendy, if she needs public coverage for her health care, should get it under the Medicaid program. But guess what? The State has to pay more under the Medicaid program, significantly more, probably, I would guess that that's absolutely true in Wisconsin, than on this SCHIP program. So it's a better deal, obviously, to cover her under SCHIP than under Medicaid if she had a waiver, if Wisconsin had a waiver, could cover her income level. You see my colleagues, you get it? This is simply a matter of fact, the truth. Maybe sometimes the truth hurts, but connect the dots here, connect the dots.
Mr. Speaker, I don't think the Democratic leadership wanted to give the President a bill that he could sign because there's a lot of politics in all of this. And there is always, well, you know, ``these cruel Republicans.'' These cold-hearted, they don't care about the children. They don't care about the veterans. They don't care about the hardworking men and women of this country, so let's stick it to the rich.'' And of course the rich is anybody making more than $75,000 a year.
So, Mr. Speaker, it wasn't my intention to talk about this, but I think you can see, my colleagues, that the previous hour kind of stirred me up a little bit, and I wanted to get the facts out there. Because this is a historic vote tomorrow, and I plan to vote to sustain the President's veto.
Mr. Speaker, my main purpose tonight in this hour, and I think some of my colleagues will be joining me a little bit later in the hour, is to talk about something that I can talk about in a very, very bipartisan way, and that is, the need for earmark reform. This problem with earmarks, a lot of people say that's the reason, that's part of the reason. Maybe there are two or three things that you can point to, I won't spell them out. I think most people understand that we lost our majority. ``We,'' I'm talking about now the Republican Caucus. We had the majority in this House for 12 years, and in November of 2006, obviously, we lost it. And a lot of people would say, the political pundits and folks back in my district, the Republican base, you guys, why in the world did you not rein in spending? You know, you had an opportunity, you had a Republican President, you had control of both the House and the Senate. Of course, control of the Senate, I think the Democrats are finding out right now that control of the Senate by two votes doesn't get you very far, and of course that was certainly a problem for us in the majority. But it is without question, in my mind, that this prolific spending really caused us some serious problems at the ballot box. And some of it has to do with these so-called ``Member initiatives,'' earmarks, a lot of people just flat out call it ``pork.''
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So, I think it's a problem. Clearly, it's a problem. The American public perceives it to be a problem; therefore, it is a problem. And if you ask people in red States or blue States, they'll tell you the same thing: It's not right.
Now, there are Members who will stand up here and very staunchly defend Member initiatives. They will make the argument that, well, each Member, 435 of us, 100 in the other body, knows our people, knows our State, knows our district, understands what the needs are. People come to us, whether it's a school or county or city government or an individual entrepreneur that's got a new product that can save the lives of our soldiers injured on the battlefield, and that's a good thing, that's an appropriate thing for us to point out. Maybe the departments that we fund in this $933 billion discretionary spending pot that we divide up among all these different agencies and departments of Federal Government, that they can't know, they can't get into each and every State, although they may have regional offices. So, it's good, it's good that Members, Mr. Speaker, are able to bring that to the attention of the appropriators and make a request and get what's called by the general public and by the watchdog groups ``earmarks'' or ``pork.'' We like to refer to them as ``Member-directed initiatives.''
And I'm a little bit torn about it. I do believe that Member initiatives can be a very good thing if Members do the right thing and there is no quid pro quo in regard to trying to grant a favor, if you will, for a constituent for a worthwhile, needy project that would ultimately help everybody, not just a very narrow group of people.
But this system, Mr. Speaker, has really gone amuck. Now, I've only been here 5 years; I'm in my third term. Have I asked for Member initiatives for the 11th District of Georgia? Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, I have done that. I have learned how to do it, not nearly as successfully as some of my colleagues. Some people are absolute experts at it, but we all kind of learn the process. It's not part of our orientation, by the way. If it was such a good thing, it seems like they would include it in the orientation manual for new Members. But you just kind of learn this on the slide. You know, you talk to your senior colleagues who have been around here for a while and you find out how the system works. And so, you do. And I like to feel that I can shine the light of day, Mr. Speaker, on every single one of those Member initiatives that I've asked for; certainly not gotten them all. In fact, the ones that I have been granted, usually it's far less than the request. So, we've been doing this for a long time and we've talked about reforming it for a long time.
When we were in the majority, Mr. Speaker, and I say ``we.'' You and I are Members of this body proudly, but I'm talking about ``we'' the Republican Members. When we were in the majority, I think we finally recognized that something needed to be done and we tried to put some sunshine on the process. And we said, look, at the very least, let's make sure that when Members put these projects, these earmark projects in a bill, not just the appropriations bill, but also an authorizing bill, or maybe a narrowly drawn tax bill, all those tax bills, of course, originate in the House through the Ways and Means Committee, but if it's a tax advantage that affects just a handful of people, that's kind of a special deal, that's a special favor, and that has to be justified.
So, we recommended in our ethics reform package in the 109th Congress, let's make sure that all of those Member initiatives are written in the bill and in the bill's report. And it specifically says who the Member was making the request, from what State, what the project is, how much money is going to be spent. And that particular earmark could be challenged by another Member. Another Member, during an appropriations vote and discussion, a Member could stand up and say, ``I have an amendment to strike such and such an earmark.'' I would hope that Members would do that in a bipartisan way and that Democrats wouldn't just attack Republican earmarks and Republicans attack Democratic earmarks. If you're truly sincere about the process, you would look at it without any view of whether the earmark has an ``R'' or a ``D'' behind it, Mr. Speaker, and you would challenge it on its merits and then would have an up-or-down vote. That's good, that's a good thing.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, when the new majority took over, that language in earmark reform was changed such that it's not required that the light of day shine on earmarks and authorizing bills or tax bills, just in the appropriations process. But that's not enough, that's not enough.
In the next few minutes I want to talk about something that I have introduced, a bill that I think would take us a lot further down the road toward, if you will, Mr. Speaker, cleaning up this process.
Now, I'm going to ask our good, young page who is here tonight, as they always are, working hard for us late at night, to bring the easel up. I've got about three posters, and I want to share some quotes with you. But while he's doing that, Mr. Speaker, I see that one of my colleagues, my classmate from the great State of New Jersey, I believe that's the Garden State if I'm correct, is with us on the floor. And the gentleman I'm talking about, Representative Scott Garrett, is also my colleague on the Republican Study Committee, and I thank him for joining me tonight.
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Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. I hope he will be able to stay with us throughout the hour because I do want to segue back and forth with him as we delve more deeply into this issue. But at this point I want to ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle tonight, focus on these three charts, posters, if you will, that I've got because I think this is so telling in regard to why I said, at the outset, when we started talking about this problem, that this is bipartisan. This is a bipartisan problem. It needs a bipartisan solution.
When we were in the majority, maybe doing the exact same thing, business as usual in regard to what the gentleman from New Jersey just pointed out, and in the way these earmarks are handed out with sort of, first, if you are one of the fortunate 65 that sit on the Appropriations Committee, whether you are in the minority or the majority, especially if you are in the majority, you get a much, much, much, much bigger bite at the apple, the earmark apple, than some rank-and-file Member on either side of the aisle that is part of the ``obscure caucus'' that sometimes we refer to. That is not right. That is absolutely not right.
Listen to what Ms. Pelosi, the minority leader in the 109th Congress, said, and I think she was absolutely dead on right when she said it. Here is the quote, Mr. Speaker, ``If you are going to have earmarks and you are going to have transparency, you have to do it in the appropriations bill and in the tax bill, and in the authorizing bill. I would put that in writing.'' That is a quote from the gentlewoman, the distinguished current Speaker, then minority leader from California, Speaker Pelosi, minority leader at that time. She made that statement in September of 2006, exactly September 7. I guess campaign season. That was a good thing to say.
I think the public paid attention to it. I think it might have helped the Democrats regain the majority as they now enjoy in the 110th. I don't know what has happened with the Speaker. Right now, the minority leader, JOHN BOEHNER, the gentleman from Ohio who has been in this body since, well, I don't know when. He is still a young man. But he has never asked for an earmark. Do you think it is because Ohio or his district doesn't have the need? No. I think he thinks or he feels there's too much temptation for quid pro quo and corruption and he works very diligently to try to get through the regular process of applying for grants and helping his district know how to do that, that that is the better way.
Well, he has dropped a bill in this Congress, in the House, to do exactly what we tried to do under the Republican leadership, Mr. Speaker, in the 109th, do exactly what Madam Speaker Pelosi said on September 7, 2006. Do you know where that bill is? It is buried. It could have a hearing. It could be brought to this floor. Gosh, we could do it this Friday. That was another pledge that the Democrats made, Mr. Speaker, that we were going to work 5-day weeks and I bet you we will be leaving here on Thursday night. Heck, we could bring this bill up. The leadership just has to agree to do it, and we could be voting on this very issue on Friday. But, no, it is buried. It hasn't seen the light of day. So we Republicans, maybe hopefully some like-minded, good Democrats, maybe the Blue Dog Coalition, maybe the Congressional Black Caucus who is sick and tired of getting the short end of the stick in regard to this earmark process would sign that discharge petition and let us get 218 signatures so that we can immediately bring that bill that Ms. Pelosi recommended to the floor. That seems pretty straightforward to me. Let's do what she asked us to do.
Mr. Speaker, the next line is another quote from our now current Speaker, and she said this, if she were to become Speaker in the next Congress, Pelosi said she would press to severely reduce earmarks. And this is a quote. That was what the reporter wrote in the Wall Street Journal. But this is a quote that the current Speaker gave to him. ``Personally, myself, I would get rid of all of them,'' she says. ``None of them is worth the skepticism, the cynicism the public has and the fiscal irresponsibility of it.'' That was in the Wall Street Journal.
Yet, Speaker Pelosi, she herself is on track to take home $100 million this year in the earmark member initiative category.
That just astounds me. That just astounds me. What she said here, my colleagues, is so true. ``None of them is worth the skepticism, the cynicism, the public has.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleagues to pay attention to an article that was written today, USA Today, quick read, easy read, Wednesday, October 17, front page, should have been above the fold, below the fold, but here is the byline on this article, my colleagues: Timing of Gifts Stirs Earmark Debate. And then the subtitle: Donations Made After Funding Added to the Bill.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to read the first paragraph. The article is short, but I am not going to read the entire article. But this is what it says in the first paragraph:
``Days after a Senate committee approved $1 million for a Woodstock, New York, concert museum, the project's Republican billionaire backer and his family contributed $29,200 to help the
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Democrats who requested the money, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer.'' A $29,200 contribution from this billionaire and his family. Within the limits? Sure, within the legal limits. I am sure it probably was him, his wife and his kids, adult children who are permitted to make contributions. Maybe Senators Clinton and Schumer have leadership PACs and they can get $5,000 a chunk to those PACs.
Then the article goes on and says:
``It's neither illegal nor unusual for contributors to benefit from congressionally directed spending known as earmarks, but the timing of the June donations is grist for critics who see a link between legislative pet projects and campaign money.''
Now, I am going to tell you, I don't want to say that that is the proof of the pudding, but it is mighty suspicious. And I don't think it passes the smell test.
I am not being overly critical of these two Senators. The problem is on both sides of the aisle in both Chambers. What really called my attention to it, Mr. Speaker, was an article about a month ago in CQ Weekly in the title, the front page, Playing the Earmark Game and How It is Done, and how certain Members get, as I pointed out earlier, a much, much bigger bite at the apple. I will tell you, my colleagues, you know this. I hope the American public knows it. It is going to be members of the Appropriations Committee. It is going to be the party leaders, possibly on both sides of the aisle, or it is going to be Members who have had a tough election in a very competitive district, and we run it every 2 years and they are going to have a tough reelect, be they Republicans or Democrats, and, therefore, those Members are going to be granted a lot more. Mr. Garrett talked about the average of $8 million. Maybe those are the ones that get $25 million worth of a bite at the apple so they can appear to be doing more for their district. They are a great Member, so let's reelect them. They are bringing home the pork. They are bringing home the bacon.
But you know what happens with that process, Mr. Speaker, and there are several articles in this magazine. This one is titled, Gaps Along Racial Lines. What happens to Members of this body who may be from minority majority districts or Latino districts or inner city districts and they easily get elected. They are very popular in their district. So they don't need any shoring up to get reelected. So they get maybe $1 million instead of $8 million, and somebody else, some powerful Member gets $180 million for their district. That is flat wrong. Because, Mr. Speaker, those Members that I just described, whether they are members of the Congressional Black Caucus or the Latino caucus or they represent a rural district in Georgia, they have 670,000 people that they represent, and they have poor towns and poor counties and poor school systems that need the money, that need the project, and they don't get it. It goes to the fat cats. That is just flat wrong.
We are going to try to change that. Some Members think that the solution to this problem, Mr. Speaker, is a nuclear option, and that would be to totally eliminate all earmarks tomorrow. No more earmark Member initiatives and we stop all this temptation that any Member could fall prey to, any Member, including myself.
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So I can concur and understand that feeling that we might need to completely, totally stop the earmark process. But then, again, many Members have pointed out to me that, you know, Congressman, we don't mind putting our earmarks out there for the light of day, we don't mind them being challenged, but don't take them away from us, because we are doing it right. Don't ruin a process that could be good because there are a few rotten eggs in the basket. I understand that argument as well.
My proposed legislation, and I appreciate Mr. Garrett from New Jersey still being with me because I want to yield some time to him and get into a colloquy about the bill, Mr. Speaker, but what it does is this. It says, look, in 2006, the high water mark of earmarks, when $29 billion worth of discretionary spending, about 3 percent of the overall discretionary spending was earmarked by House and Senate Members, well, let's do this in my bill. It says to cut that amount by 50 percent.
Mr. Speaker, that is also almost a Pelosi quote. What was called for by the Democrats when they were in the minority trying to seek the majority, let's cut these earmarks by 50 percent in one fell swoop. So that is what my bill does; it cuts that $29 billion to $14 billion. Then you do a little arithmetic, not calculus, but a little bit of arithmetic, and you divide 535 into that $14 billion number and you come up with a figure of $27 million. The bill says no Member, no Member from Pennsylvania, no Member from California, no powerful Democrat, no powerful ranking member, no appropriator, nobody who needs help propping up them for the next election, nobody can get more than $27 million worth of earmarks for their district.
Now that doesn't mean they have to take them. If Members like Mr. Garrett and Mr. Flake and Mr. Boehner and Mr. Hensarling and a total of 12 Republicans stand strong on principle and say that earmarking is wrong and I want to say that my $27 million should go back to the taxpayer and subtract that number from the 302(A) allocation, as we call it, that is some real money. The first thing you know, you might have 100 Members doing that, or 300 Members on both sides of the aisle saying ``I want to end this process.'' That opportunity is there. The money wouldn't be spent by somebody else.
Mr. Speaker, but, on the other hand, if a Member had something that they felt very strongly about, whether it was a road project or repairing a bridge infrastructure, obviously the State of Minnesota knows what I am talking about, or widening a port so that these large container ships can come in that are now going to be able to come in through the Panama Canal, there's merit. So a lot of Members would say, you know, I really need this. Maybe one year $15 million; possibly the next year, the max; maybe the next year nothing, in which case the taxpayer would benefit from that as well. That is what this bill is all about. It's about putting some fairness, restoring some integrity to the process, and also controlling spending.
Mr. Speaker, my thinking on this is really twofold, controlling spending, and also ending this climate, if you will, of corruption, where Members on both sides of the aisle, and I don't think there is a Member of this body that comes here without a great deal of integrity and honesty. I don't believe they could look people in the eye in their district and get elected. It is hard to get elected to the Congress, to the House or the Senate. I think people come here with good character. But I think, unfortunately, the process will adversely affect a few. We can name some bodies that are littered and strewn about this place, that actually some of them are now spending time in the Crossbar Hotel, as my dad used to say.
So this bill, I think, would help. It would be a great start; not just a little move, but a fairly draconian move. A lot of Members are not going to like it. I have already begun to accumulate cosponsors, and every day we get several more, and hopefully this is something that we can accomplish.
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Mr. GINGREY. And we should go further. But I would tell my colleague, Mr. Speaker, that in a way it is analogous, and forgive me for using medical analogies, but I spent 31 years of my adult life doing that, of trying to wean someone off heroin, a drug addict. Mr. Speaker, you can't do that cold turkey. It would kill the drug addict, so they go through a detoxification process, if you will, and that is not a pretty thing to see. Then they are gradually weaned off and switched over to a drug called methadone. It is a heroin-like substance, an analog. It can take sometimes a couple of years, even when a drug addict is cooperating and wants to be cured of their addiction.
I think I am not overstating it. I don't think I am embellishing here when I say this Member-initiative earmark process has become an addiction. I truly believe it has. And it is tough. So to cut it in half in one fell swoop and put caps on it, and, as Mr. Garrett, the gentleman from New Jersey pointed out, shine the light of day on it so that you can see it and you can find it, obey not only the letter of the law, but, for goodness' sake, obey the spirit of the law and not make it difficult for watchdog groups or other Members or John Q. Public to look in the Congressional Record or read these bills and find out what is in there.
So there is no question that Mr. Garrett is right, that after we get this done, go through the detoxification process, if you will, we will then try to wean this body off of this process, because I think we ultimately need to do that.
I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Just a point that comes to mind. One of the issues that we will be dealing with this week is SCHIP. There is a piece of legislation you wouldn't think would be prone to earmarks. If you listen to the other side, they would tell you, hey, there are no earmarks in there.
That is one of the peculiarities of the rule, the way the Democrats have written it as far as providing transparency. All you have to do is take your bill, that could be chockfull with all of your favorite pet earmarks from the cardinals and the chairmen of your committees and all your other friends, and the ones requested by lobbyists and what have you, and all the Democratic majority has to do is say, we hereby say there are no earmarks in here, and that is it. You and I can come to the floor and rail about it all we want and say, yes, there are. Look at page 72, line B. Here is an earmark.
That is exactly what happened with the SCHIP legislation. They said there are no earmarks here. Lo and behold, there are. There are literally billions of dollars in earmarks in that going to special projects and special hospitals across the country, and you and I would not know about it if we were just to trust them and take them at their word.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. As we talked about earlier in the hour, as we are approaching the culmination of our time, this earmark that is described in the USA Today on the front page talks about $1 million for some Woodstock museum.
Some of us who grew up in the deep south who remember reading about Woodstock and seeing the video clips were somewhat appalled about what went on there, Mr. Speaker, so I am sure that that would be an earmark that Mr. Flake or Mr. Hensarling or Mr. Garrett or myself would like to stand up and say, I don't care if it is to some billionaire Republican making the request, and then the next day writing a check in the aggregate of $29,200 to the two Senators from New York. Maybe that is within the legal rights to do that, but it sure doesn't pass the smell test.
That is where we are. I have talked to my colleagues about, well, how could we possibly take this a step further, those colleagues who really agree with me that this process is totally out of hand, and maybe phase out earmarks over a 3- or 4-year period of time.
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Obviously another way to approach it would be to say drop a bill that says we totally eliminate, or drop a bill that says we are going to have a 1- or 2-year moratorium. I could support either one of those.
But if Members still feel very strongly that a Member-directed initiative done correctly have merit and value, then the bill, I think, I am presenting will put some fairness into the process.
I yield to my friend.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. None of these things, as good as all these ideas are, are going to happen unless the majority party, the Democrat Party, Speaker Pelosi agrees they are actually the right thing to do and are willing to move the legislation.
Your bill that would move in the direction that the American public wants us to move, to rein in excessive spending, to rein in earmarks, to put a clamp or a lid on them, to move in the direction of moving them out entirely
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or at least scaling them down, will not move unless the Speaker, Speaker Pelosi, says that is a good idea and she will post the bill.
The legislation that you spoke about at the top of hour regarding the discharge petition that the Republican leader has that would expand earmark information to not just appropriation bills but also to authorizing legislation, to clean up some of the areas that have given them the latitude to actually continue to hide this information from the American public. That piece of legislation will not move unless the Democrat Party and Speaker Pelosi finally hear from the American public and realize this is what the American public wants us to do and wants us to move that legislation.
It is still early in the evening. It is only a quarter of 9. I am sure Speaker Pelosi is in her office or somewhere in the Capitol as we speak. I would invite her to come to the floor right now and join us with either one of those pieces of legislation. Maybe you could recite the words right back to her that she said some time ago, and remind her of what she said when it comes to the issue of giving transparency and openness. I would invite her to come to the floor and join us in this debate this evening, to say she will move these, will move these things in the next days, weeks. Just before the winter holiday so when we leave here in the next several weeks or months, they, we can say in the first session of the 110th Congress we finally gave the American public what they were promised when the Democrat majority came into Congress. I will eagerly await her arrival here.
Mr. GINGREY. The gentleman is exactly right. The Speaker could say forget about Minority Leader BOEHNER's discharge petition, we are going to bring it up under regular order. We are going to do the right thing. We are going to do what I, Madam Speaker, said she would do in September of 2006.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight and I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) for taking this hour and to say to colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I think most of my colleagues would agree, even though I had to rebut the four outstanding freshmen Democrats that had the previous hour regarding the SCHIP program.
I think most of my colleagues would agree that I am not a real partisan Member, and I enjoy comity. That is the way I think it should be. But we have a problem here in River City, whether it is Republican leadership or Democratic leaders.
Mr. Speaker, I truly believe that the party, if it becomes partisan, the party that will take hold of this idea and pledge to the American people that we are going to do something about it once and for all, and as Mr. Flake has said to me often, it is one thing to air out our laundry, but we need to clean it. We don't need to just air it, we need to clean it up. I agree with him completely. Again, I think the party that will adopt that or fight for it is the party that either deserves to keep their majority or regain their majority.
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