FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY -- (House of Representatives - December 17, 2007)
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the recognition, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening to speak with our colleagues and certainly to have a conversation with the American people about what has transpired on the floor of this House today.
I know most families are beginning to look toward the Christmas season, and they are looking toward a winter holiday and spending time with family and with friends. And many of them have worked diligently to meet their deadlines to be certain that they have time set aside for such an observance.
Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say that the leadership of the House has worked that diligently and is focused on meeting those deadlines so that we would all be spending that time with our families. But indeed, we have found that is not the case. In unusual moves and through an unusual process, we are still at work, because we find that a budget has not been passed that should have been done before the 1st of September but didn't.
So, what happens with this the process when you don't get your work done, when you don't meet your deadlines, when you disregard what you are charged to do and the duty that you are to fulfill? You find that you get backed into a corner. And, Mr. Speaker, when that happens, then you have to start working your way out of it.
Well, in the House of Representatives, when we are backed in that corner and we are unable to fulfill our work in a timely manner, instead of passing our appropriations bills and funding our government one bill at a time, we decide we are going to roll it all together, and then we have what is called the omnibus. And it is a great big spending bill, a great big spending bill, Mr. Speaker, where you throw everything into this that your heart could possibly desire. It is better than any Santa sack in town.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to be certain that everyone realizes this big bill, this 3,565 pages of bill that weighs 34.4 pounds is indeed a Santa's sack loaded with pork and with earmarks, over 9,200 earmarks.
In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, I think that it is fair to say that this also is a symbol. It is a symbol of the broken process that this House has gone through in arriving at a budget. It is a symbol of the broken priorities that exist. And, indeed, it is a symbol of the broken promises of the leadership of this House to not only the body of the House but the American people.
I have some colleagues joining me tonight to talk a little bit about what we find in this 34.4 pounds, 3,565 pages. And, Mr. Speaker, I know we are going to talk about energy and the environment. I am saddened to know that we have had a lot of trees give their life to print these bills this week.
I would like to recognize the ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin, for some remarks on this legislation.
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for coming and speaking. We are members of the Republican Study Committee. If you want to find out a little more about what is in this bill, you can go to our Web site, which is House.gov/hensarling/RSC, and find out a little bit about the details in this bill.
As the gentleman from Wisconsin pointed out, this is serious business. We are responsible for the budget process of the House. The House holds the purse strings for the Federal Government; and it is a duty that we, many of us, take very, very seriously.
Mr. Speaker, it is of tremendous concern to us when a bill is filed at 12:30 a.m., the dark of night, this bill gets filed and within 24 hours this 3,565-page bill is voted out. And as the gentleman said, there is no funding for our troops on the ground in Iraq who have been making steady, consistent progress. What a disservice to the troops and to the American people.
I want to recognize the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), who is chairman of the Republican Study Committee. His Web site, House.gov/hensarling/RSC, that is where you can get a copy of what is in this bill; the $515 billion that is contained in here, plus you can find out where some of those gimmicks, budget gimmicks are; plus, you can take a look at some of the emergency/nonemergency spending that is also in here just so that the majority can spend a little bit more money.
But I would like to yield to the gentleman from Texas who chairs the Republican Study Committee, Mr. Hensarling.
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman and I thank him for his comments on this.
Mr. Speaker, I think that it is just one of these occurrences that has happened tonight that you just find almost inconceivable, that the majority could have filed a 3,565-page bill in the middle of the night and then bring everybody back to Washington and vote it.
Now, as the gentleman from Arizona said, the fiscal year started September 1. This is something that should have been done last summer. But, instead, they wait until Christmas week. They file this bill in the middle of the night. They don't give people time to read it. And then, as we do begin to read it, we find what we thought at first was going to be about 7,000 earmarks, read a little more, the number is growing to 8,000. Then, Mr. Speaker, lo and behold, we get up to 9,000. Then it goes to over 9,200. We find that 300 of those earmarks had not been discussed by anybody. They just appeared out of thin air, like magic. They just appeared and got written in to this bill that passed the House tonight.
That is not fiscal responsibility. That, Mr. Speaker, is what you call fiscal irresponsibility. It is the symbol of a broken process, with broken priorities, and it is broken promises. That is something that is very troubling to us as we are here this Christmas week hard at work defending the American taxpayer. And the American taxpayer has no better individual standing to defend them than the gentleman from Georgia. Mr. Westmoreland has worked with and chairs the Floor Action Team for us in the minority and does a wonderful job in that capacity. He is an active member and a part of the leadership of the Republican Study Committee. And I yield to him for his comments on the legislation.
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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.
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and you know, I think it is so important that, once again, I remind individuals at house.gov/hensarling/rsc you can get a little bit of a summary of the bill.
Of course, you know, it's one of these things where, Mr. Speaker, we have had it for only a very short period of time because it was less than 24 hours ago that it was even put up on-line for Members to be certain that they had the chance to look at it. I was one of those Members up. I was at home working away, trying to get things finished to get some of my Christmas cooking done and my Christmas ironing done and ready for the holiday season with my family. And I will tell you, it is of such concern to me that we see the manner in which this has been constructed and pulled together.
I do hope that the American people will sit down and look through some of this and see where this money is going. My goodness, when you see $11 billion for emergency designated spending and then you see that the budget's criteria for emergency spending is sudden, unforeseen, temporary, urgent, et cetera, and that is where you see some of the gimmickry begin to come in.
Of course, these are things that we all agree with. There's money for drought relief, which that's been very difficult, but $20 million for farm service agency salaries and expenses, that should have been something that was anticipated.
Eight million dollars for Department of Justice administrative review and
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appeals; $10 million for legal activities, salaries and expense; $7 million for U.S. attorneys, salaries and expenses; $15 million for U.S. marshals, services, salaries and expenses; $143.5 million for FBI salaries and expenses; $2 million for Drug Enforcement Agency, salaries and expenses; $14.5 million for Court of Appeals, salaries and expenses. Mr. Speaker, salaries and expenses should be something that was anticipated. I'm not certain that meets the criteria of emergency. Emergency should be something that is unforeseen, that we didn't know was going to happen. Now, if we have people on our payroll and we do expect them to get a paycheck, then that salary and the related expenses and benefits are something that we should be planning for.
Then there's the $10.5 million that the gentleman from Georgia and I have discussed where you set aside the money for illegal immigrants to be able to have attorneys to defend them. And then there's the ruse of the border fence with the money that's being appropriated but then you can't get to it.
There's $300 million for wildfire suppression and $195 million for the Minnesota bridge accident, which occurred many months ago.
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And here is $100 million for Presidential security at political conventions.
Mr. Speaker, it may be a news flash. This may be totally new to many people, but we have a political convention every 4 years. This is something we should be planning for. It should not be an emergency expense that we are going to have to have Presidential security at the political conventions. Cities go to great lengths to bid to get these conventions, to be able to hold them. We know that every 4 years we are going to have a Presidential election. This is something that is anticipated. It is not an emergency that is unexpected.
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. And that is what we will hear from our constituents.
And the list goes on and on, as you can see. I have got plenty of pages that we could flip through. We even have title X and family planning money that is increased by $300 million. And I find it so very interesting that they go in and they increase the title X and the Family Planning money, but guess what? What they didn't do was to increase the money for the abstinence education program. Now, how about that, Mr. Speaker? That funding was held level. It was held level. And Family Planning and Planned Parenthood will get big increases, but abstinence education will not.
Well, Mr. Speaker, as I have said several times tonight, budgets are about priorities. Budget documents tell you where you want your emphasis to be. And what we see from this majority is a budget process that is broken, with priorities that are broken, and promises that are broken. And we have a 3,565-page bill that weighs 34.4 pounds when you print it out. It contains over 9,200 earmarks. There are lots of pet projects, lots of pork in this big Santa sack. What is missing is funding for the troops on the ground in Iraq.
I find it very sad, very sad indeed, that it is the men and women who defend this great Nation who are left out in the cold this Christmastime. They are the ones that should be at the very
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top of the list, Mr. Speaker. We should think of them first. We should honor them in the way that we do our jobs. We are a Nation at war. We know that. That is something I think most people in this body agree with. And we pass a budget that does not include them and does not include the funding to meet their needs.
Mr. Speaker, you and I would not be able to stand in this Chamber and have this debate if it were not for the men and women of the U.S. military. We should honor them. They should have been Title I, Page 1. And instead they are nowhere to be found in 3,565 pages. That is a serious oversight.
And, once again, we can talk about all the other things. We can talk about the illegal immigrants being able to get funding for attorneys. We can talk about roadblocks to having the borders secured, things that are purposely placed there; but the most egregious oversight is the fact that it does not fund our troops.
As I close, I will say God bless those troops. God bless their families. And, Mr. Speaker, my prayer is that this House will reverse itself and will put them first in this budget document.