Press Conference with Senator John Thune (R-SD) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Press Conference

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH SENATOR JOHN THUNE (R-SD) AND REP. ERIC CANTOR (R-VA)

SUBJECT: WORKING GROUP TO OVERSEE SPENDING OF STIMULUS FUNDS

ALSO PARTICIPATING: REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI); REP. DARRELL ISSA (R-CA); REP. KEVIN BRADY (R-TX); REP. JEB HENSARLING (R-TX)

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SEN. THUNE: Well, thank you all for being with us today. We're here to announce the formation of a working group, Congressional working group, that will help oversee the spending of the trillion- dollar stimulus bill that was passed a little over a week ago.

We believe that, when you are shoveling that amount of money out the door, that you are -- it is a recipe for waste, fraud and abuse. And we want to make sure that the dollars that were approved by the Congress -- even though most of the Republicans, all the Republicans in the House and most of the Republicans in the Senate, did not vote for it, we believe we have a responsibility as stewards of the taxpayers to see that those funds are used for the purposes for which they were intended and the way in which they were intended to be used.

And that is to create jobs and to make sure that there isn't waste, fraud, and abuse and frivolous spending and the sorts of things that I think would cause great consternation for the American taxpayers if they knew that it was going on.

And so we will -- this group, working group, House and Senate group, which my colleague from the House, Eric Cantor, is heading up -- we have a number of senators who are also involved with that effort, but it's bicameral. And we believe, the Republicans in the Congress, that it is our responsibility -- part of our responsibility -- to follow up and -- as -- so to speak, "follow the money" and make sure that we know where it's all going and it's not going toward things that, one, don't create jobs and, two, could be characterized as waste, fraud and abuse and create a lot of discomfort for the American taxpayers, who are going to be handed the bill.

Many of us took issue with the stimulus bill in the first place, for all the reasons that we have mentioned, not the least of which is we are borrowing this entire amount from future generations of Americans, which is -- changes a precedent that's been in effect in this country for well over 200 years now, and that is that each generation of Americans sacrifices and does without things so that the next generation can have a better life.

What we've done, in effect, is turn that ethic on its ear and asked future generations to sacrifice so that WE can have a better life, because we haven't been able to live within our means.

So bottom line is, great sums, vast sums of money being approved by the Congress, followed on by an omnibus appropriation bill this week in the House and next week in the Senate, to be followed with additional TARP monies. There's just going to be a whole lot of money. This is a spending spree that's unprecedented in American history. And, at least where the stimulus money is concerned, we believe we have a responsibility to the American taxpayer to see that those dollars are used wisely and efficiently and not frivolously.

The Senate and House will both be conducting different types of oversight activities. Lamar Alexander, our conference chairman, will be hosting some hearings, some oversight hearings, that he will be talking about at some point in the future. And I know the House intends to do the same thing. But we want to coordinate our efforts and make sure that we are working together on this, what we think is a very important undertaking.

So I wanted to introduce Eric Cantor, welcome him to the Senate, along with many of his House colleagues. I have to run and vote, but I will return and will try and answer any questions that you all have.

Eric Cantor?

REP. CANTOR: Good afternoon. Thank you, Senator, very much. I here -- I'm, too, here to announce the formation of the House-Senate Fiscal Responsibility Working Group, which is the official name that we have given this effort.

As the senator said, this effort has come out of the experience over the stimulus debate and the passage of the spending bill several weeks ago.

If you recall, House Republicans had a plan. We offered an alternative recovery plan that -- even applying some of the analysis of President Obama's economic team, we demonstrated that our plan and believed our plan could create twice as many jobs at half the cost.

And because of the series of events and the fact that the stimulus bill that we proffered wasn't included in the bill at all, we -- you saw a unanimous Republican vote in the House against the Democrat-formed bill.

Well, that vote had been taken, but we feel we have a constitutional obligation, we have a duty to our constituents, as the senator said, to make sure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. The mission of a stimulus bill is and should be -- and should continue to be -- the creation, the preservation and protection of jobs. And that will be our focus as this group gets up off the ground.

Now, we also see the trend, as Senator Thune said, that we are experiencing now. We had a $750-billion bailout bill in the fall. We had an additional $800-billion stimulus bill. We did almost a $500- billion omnibus in the House yesterday. That was a bill that, frankly, had 9,000 earmarks. Questioning -- we questioned the proper oversight of the expenditure of those moneys as well.

And I'm hopeful that this effort, once it gets underway, very focused on the stimulus bill, could also be mindful of the potential for waste. And perhaps we could come up with -- and we'll report to this administration on ways we feel we could stop the unnecessary spending and waste and, frankly, refocus that on job creation itself. Now we hear just today, as the announcing of the budget has come through, that we are in store for yet even more expenditures and more money to be flushed out of this town in rapid course -- if you look at the proposal of the TARP II money, an additional $750 billion.

The alarming statement made today by the speaker makes this group's work all the more relevant. When the speaker, Pelosi, said today that she would advocate raising taxes even quicker and more so than what's being advocated in the budgets, that gives us all a lot of concern. Because how is this money going to be spent on the part of the taxpayers of this country, the part of the American people?

Again we feel we have a constitutional obligation, to be mindful of the percentage of taxation that this government imposes on the families, each and every day, as they struggle up under one of the most extraordinary, economically challenging times that we've experienced.

We have assembled some of the group that is in the House that will be working in this effort. We're going to employ new technologies and innovative ways, to not only receive input from across the country, on this, but also to formulate the other information that we're going to have, in tracking the expenditure of the dollars.

First up is the ranking member of the Budget Committee, from Wisconsin, Paul Ryan.

REP. RYAN: Thanks, Eric.

We're about to spend a staggering amount of money. The federal government just, a couple weeks ago, passed a bill to pass $787 billion of spending. Throw on borrowing costs, over $1 trillion.

Yesterday, we passed a bill, $410 billion in new spending, with 9,000 earmarks. Today, we get a budget that brings the federal government to its largest size since World War II.

It's really quite breathtaking. These bills that have passed, through Congress, the stimulus was over 1,000 pages. No member of Congress read it. Nobody in the American economy, no taxpayer had a chance to read it.

This omnibus bill that passed, over 1,000 pages. No member of Congress had a chance to read it before voting on it. No American had a chance to see it and read it.

So we're going to shovel all of this money out the door, in a breathtaking and staggering amount. We know that waste will occur. The question is, where will we see it occur?

And so what we have decided to do, as stewards of the taxpayer, is to watch this money, insist on transparency, insist on accountability and make sure that we can do whatever we can, to make sure that taxpayer dollars are not going to get wasted.

And we fear though however, with all this money going out the door, this taxing, this borrowing, this spending at unprecedented levels is going to waste a lot of taxpayers' hard-earned money.

And so we are going to try and stand in the way of that, by making sure that there's accountability and transparency, so we can do our best to prevent this kind of waste, which we fear will occur.

Thank you.

REP. CANTOR: Thank you, Paul.

Also part of the House-Senate Fiscal Accountability Working Group will be Darrell Issa, the ranking member on the Oversight Committee in the House.

REP. ISSA: Thank you, Eric.

I'm not an appropriator. I'm not a budgeteer. I don't serve on Ways and Means. Since January 2007, when I took over the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of Government Reform, and now the full committee as ranking member, I've served on Government Oversight and Reform, a committee who does -- has no input as to how much money is spent, but after, in fact, it's appropriated and authorized, has an obligation to see if it's spent in the way that the legislation said it was to be spent.

Very clearly, my committee has a huge challenge going forward, along with all of us in the House. And that is that this money was thrown into piles so quickly that while the president says that the stimulus package has no earmarks, Senator Harry Reid says 6 billion -- no, 8 billion, I'm sorry, that it goes to his maglev projects to bring high-speed rail from Disneyland to Las Vegas.

Now, that's a problem. And it's a problem, like thousands of others, that our committee is going to have to figure out was that a hidden earmark. Can you call a train that will take decades to build, with in some cases technology that doesn't exist -- is that in fact timely, targeted and temporary? We have an obligation to do that. We look forward to looking at that and many other examples. Mostly, we hope to do it on a bipartisan basis.

We've made it clear, with trillions of dollars of taxpayers money either pledged or committed in actual dollars, we have an obligation to make sure that it not be wasted or, in fact, the smart people who took us down this road of ruin in the subprime meltdown don't in fact get richer, as we all saw happen when Merrill Lynch was bought out of B of A, and with the very money that these companies were being bought out with, which was our money, we saw billions of dollars worth of bonuses going out, something that smart people would do, government wouldn't be prepared to deal with. We hope to make sure that doesn't happen in the future. We're committed to do so. And we're committed to do so on a partisan basis or a bipartisan basis.

REP. CANTOR: Thank you, Darrell.

Also to be part of this effort is the Republican ranking member on the Joint Economic Committee, Kevin Brady.

REP. BRADY: Thank you, Eric.

The federal government is getting set to simply rain cash down upon America. We want to know where these dollars land and if it grows jobs, as promised.

Now the White House has set up a website to monitor itself. I'm not sure the American public believes the White House -- holding the White House accountable is really good enough for them. So we're going to create the type of tools that'll -- that let American taxpayers judge for themselves how these dollars are being used, if they're doing what they were promised to be used for, and if it creates results.

I'm looking forward to being part of this task force.

REP. CANTOR: I'd now introduce a former chairman of the Republican Study Committee, from Texas, Jeb Hensarling.

REP. HENSARLING; Well, the Democrats have just completed a trifecta of trillions: a trillion-dollar stimulus plan, a trillion- dollar appropriation bill and a trillion-dollar deficit. Rarely -- I cannot remember a time in American history where so few voted so fast to spend so much that our children and grandchildren will pay for, for generations and generations to come.

The Republicans had an alternative plan. We believe the road to recovery does not lead through the halls of Congress and the Washington, D.C., bureaucracy. We do not believe that the road to recovery leads through Wall Street. We believe the road to recovery leads through the small businesses of Main Street. That's why our economic growth alternative would have put capital in the hands of small businesses to preserve jobs and grow jobs. Our plan would have ensured that the family take-home pay is bigger. We would have level- funded the government and not sent the bill to our children and grandchildren. But we lost that vote. And so now trillions and trillions will be spent on behalf of the American people, involuntary contributions from taxpayers.

We want to work with the president to make sure that all of these expenditures are transparent and they're accountable and the American people can decide: Was it to have invested their money in government, or was it better to have invested their money in their jobs, their hopes their future and the American dream?

I look forward to the project.

REP. CANTOR: And then the gentleman from Kansas on the Appropriations Committee will also be a part of this effort, Jerry Moran.

REP. JERRY MORAN (R-KS): Thank you.

Very much pleased to join Senator Thune and Congressman Cantor, other members of the House and Senate in what I think is a critical, important oversight effort.

I've been worried about government spending since I came to Congress 12 years ago. I am a critic of government spending, overspending when it's Republicans in charge. I'm a critic when it's Democrats in charge. But I have never seen the magnitude of the volumes that's being spent. Certainly in the time I've been in Congress, it's -- this -- we are spending at historic levels.

And I think Congress does a poor job in determining its priorities in spending when we are methodical.

We do an even worse job when we are rushing to judgment. And in the cry for "do something about the economy" we have made tremendous mistakes, in my estimation, that will be detrimental not only to Americans today in their efforts to maintain employment and put food on their families' tables but also detrimental to the generations to come.

And so I'm pleased that this group is being formed for oversight. We need oversight under every circumstance, but clearly at a time in which it is estimated that this year's deficit will be $1.6 trillion, the largest -- three times the size of last year's; what a humongous increase in spending and debt. Our responsibilities as members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have increased dramatically, and we need to rise to the occasion to make certain that Americans are protected -- not only Americans of today, but our children and grandchildren.

So I'm pleased that the leadership of Eric Cantor and the leadership of Senator Thune has come to the forefront and this effort is now under way.

Thank you, Eric.

REP. CANTOR: Thank you, Jeb.

Q Did you reach out to any Democrats to join you on this oversight?

REP. CANTOR: No. We have embarked upon this -- as we said earlier, we had a plan, a stimulus plan that we felt was very focused, was smarter, was simpler, would have accomplished the mission of what a stimulus bill should be, which is to create, preserve, protect jobs. That is our mission here.

And we want this stimulus bill to work. And if it doesn't work, we hope that the president will meet with us, if we have suggestions on how to put this back on course.

Q You lost that initial battle. Why not work with them now, so do a -- (off mike)?

REP. CANTOR: Well, we -- this is exactly what we're doing. This is holding accountable the expenditure of these taxpayer dollars.

Q Question for Congressman Issa, if it at all possible. In the last week or so, President Obama's made a pretty big deal about oversight in the stimulus package and I guess given Vice President Biden a pretty prominent role in all that. How confident are you that President Obama's going to follow on his -- (off mike) -- effective?

REP. ISSA: Well, President Obama has been consistent since he was sworn in. You might remember, even in his inaugural address he managed to find a few words related to oversight. And he's consistently talked about reform of government.

He invited many of us on the dais here -- and we went -- on Monday to the White House to work on procurement reforms and talked at great length about, how do we get the system working better with the money we have available?

And how do we reach a goal of cutting the deficit in half in his four- year term?

That's wonderful, and we intend on supporting him. Now, we'd like to have the definition of the deficit to be January 3rd or so of 2007, when Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid took over. We'd like it to be half of what is was then. If not, then half of what it was last year. Not what it is this year divided by two.

So we have some areas -- and this is one of the reasons that this is going to be an -- us saying to them -- and they can respond -- we have to -- we have to be the voice for holding the president to what he says and then working with him to accomplish it.

And I actually think he's genuine. I think -- and this is just one member; I can't speak for the others behind me -- I think the president got rolled by Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid. I don't think he intended to have the kind of pork thrown into this project. He said "timely, temporary and targeted."

And quite frankly, it was timely. They've spent a lot of money very quickly. Some of it will not be disbursed for half a decade or more -- clearly not going to hit the target and not going to do what was intended.

So we're going to work with the president as long as he'll work with us. Right now, it looks like he'd like to work with us. We'd like to be the strong shoulder he can lean on when Speaker Pelosi starts packing things with pork.

REP. CANTOR: Any questions?

Thank you very much.

Q Can you take a question on the budget?

REP. CANTOR: Sure.

Q We're from Channel 5. We cover your district back home. A lot of people --

REP. CANTOR: What channel's that?

Q We're from Channel 5. We cover your district back in Virginia.

A lot of people in your district don't have health care, and the president's -- (off mike) -- say he was investing $(434 ?) billion as a down payment on (universal ?) health care. Are we in a position to be making down payments on -- (off mike)?

REP. CANTOR: Yeah, I heard even a larger figure than that.

So I don't know the details of his health-care plan for sure. I think right now the primary concern is whether families can bear up under the increased cost of health care. And we're seeing increasing numbers of families lose their jobs. If they lose their jobs, the way that the delivery system and insurance system is set up, you almost necessarily lose your health care.

We've got to address that first. People have to know because they lose their job or switch their job they're not necessarily going to be out of luck and unable to take their kids to the hospital, so -- or to the doctor. That's the primary concern. We'll have to deal with the overall cost question as quickly as possible.

Right now we are in dire economic times. We've got ensure that people understand that we are all working towards the goal of better access to more quality care.

Q Could I just follow up? When he hear Republicans coming forward and calling -- using words like "waste" and "flushing" and -- (off mike) -- it brings to mind unseemly images. Will Republicans be aggressive about coming forward with a health care plan that people can digest and understand, and simply not saying no to what the administration is proposing?

SEN. CANTOR: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, at the outset of this session we have said consistently that we are going to have alternative proposals if we cannot see eye to eye with what is being proffered in the House or the Senate. And so we intend for our proposals to be out there, hopefully will be considered, can be part of the mix and part of the solution.

Thank you very much.

END.

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