SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011 - Continued
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment, No. 186.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Ms. LANDRIEU. I will object. I know the Senator is very interested in offering this amendment, and we are very interested in hearing about it, but we have now six amendments pending. So if the Senator would like to go ahead and speak about the amendment, explain the amendment, and when we can get an agreement about how we should proceed with these amendments, we will move forward.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I am sorry the Senator from Louisiana objects to my calling up the amendment and getting it pending. I was told--and, indeed, I think everyone is operating under the impression this is going to be an open amendment process--we would have debate on important issues. This happens to be relating to the establishment of a sunset commission, such as that which was recommended by the fiscal commission appointed by the President of the United States and which enjoyed broad bipartisan support.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Will the Senator yield for a clarification?
This most certainly is an open process. What I was trying to explain to the Senator is there have been about a half dozen other Senators who have come to the floor during the day--such as Senator Hutchison, who came down earlier--and we are trying to be accommodating in the order the Senators come. So if the Senator doesn't mind explaining his amendment, I commit to him that Senator Snowe and I will try to get a pending list as soon as we can.
Mr. CORNYN. Well, Madam President, I have been waiting all day, as all my colleagues, and I am on the Senate floor to offer an amendment. I am sorry the Senator thinks it is necessary to object. I am not sure what harm it causes to get another amendment pending, and I am happy to vote on any of these amendments as the majority leader determines to set the votes, or the bill managers. But I will speak just briefly on amendment No. 186, which I will call up at the appropriate time.
All of us can agree the Nation faces the greatest fiscal challenge in its history, with growing deficits and record debt. Currently, the deficit is roughly 9.8 percent of our gross domestic product, and the debt is north of $14 trillion--so high that, in fact, we will be asked sometime in the spring to consider voting on lifting the debt limit, in effect raising the debt limit on the Nation's credit card because it is maxed out.
According to the two Cochairs of the President's own fiscal commission, the Nation could be facing a debt crisis, a loss of confidence that we would actually be able to pay back our debts, and that crisis could come as soon as in the next 2 years.
That is why the amendment I am offering today, which I hope will enjoy broad bipartisan support, establishes, indeed, a bipartisan U.S. Authorization and Sunset Commission that will help improve oversight and eliminate wasteful government spending. The amendment is modeled after the sunset process that was instituted in Texas in 1977, which has over the years eliminated 50 different State agencies and saved taxpayers more than $700 million. That may not seem like big money in Washington terms, but that is a substantial savings in Texas.
This is what the President's own fiscal commission had to say about such a concept:
Such a committee has been recommended many times and has found bipartisan support. The original and arguably the most effective committee exists at the State level in Texas. The legislature created a sunset commission in 1977 to eliminate waste and inefficiency in government agencies. Estimates from reviews conducted between 1982 and 2009 showed a 27-year savings of over $780 million, compared with expenditures of $28.6. Based on savings achieved, for every dollar spent on the sunset commission the State has received $27 in return.
This commission under my amendment would be made up of eight Members of Congress who would focus on unauthorized programs that continue to receive taxpayers' money. As the chair knows, one of the biggest problems we have when it comes to unsupervised spending is the fact that the authorizing committees do not necessarily authorize a program, but yet the appropriators for one reason or another have appropriated money, and those are never given the kind of oversight that is really necessary. This means Congress has dropped the ball--spending without authorization--when it comes to doing the hard work of figuring out if these programs are working, but the spending nevertheless continues.
As Ronald Reagan famously said, the closest thing to eternal life here on Earth is a temporary government program--there is no such thing here in Washington, DC.
The Congressional Budget Office regularly finds that billions of dollars are being spent in unauthorized programs.
In addition, the commission would focus on duplicative and redundant government programs annually identified by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO, as we all recall, recently found that billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on duplicative and redundant government programs. For example, the Federal Government has more than 100 different programs dealing with surface transportation issues--100; 82 monitoring teacher quality; 80 for economic development; 47 for job training; and 17 different grant programs for disaster preparedness. I think common sense would tell us that kind of duplication and overlap is not efficient and it is not an effective use of taxpayer dollars.
Under my amendment, the sunset commission would review each program and submit the recommendations, which must be considered by Congress under expedited procedures like we use under the Budget Act. In other words, it could not be filibustered; it would have to be voted on. Congress would not be able to ignore the commission's reports.
The amendment provides expedited procedures that would force Congress to consider and debate the commission's work. Congress would have 2 years to consider and pass the commission's recommendations or to reauthorize the program before it would be abolished by operation of the law. In other words, the program is abolished if Congress fails to reauthorize it 2 years after the commission completes its review and analysis of the program.
This commission would help force Congress to do the necessary oversight to make sure every taxpayer dollar is wisely spent. While we all do our best to ensure that proper oversight is given to each program, we simply do not have the tools currently available to monitor and review every program. This sunset commission would provide Congress with those tools. It would improve government accountability and provide for greater openness in government decisionmaking.
We know programs that have simply outlived their usefulness or failed to spend taxpayer dollars efficiently are a burden on the American taxpayer and should be eliminated. We simply do not have the means to get there from here. Congress has a spending process in place, and we should put together a sunset process for streamlining and eliminating government waste. That is what this amendment would do.
The commission would supplement the work of the congressional committees that are already in place that I know mean well and intend to do the oversight but simply never seem to get around to it. It will not replace the work of those committees; however, it will supplement--and I would say improve and strengthen--their oversight work. It will serve as another set of eyeballs, keeping a close eye on the wallets belonging to taxpayers.
This commission will help Congress answer a simple but powerful question: Is this program still needed? Is this program still needed? A sunset commission would help us make many programs more effective by giving them the attention they deserve and exposing their faults to the light of day. It will improve government accountability and provide for greater openness and government decisionmaking. Programs that outlive their usefulness or fail to spend tax dollars efficiently are a burden on the American taxpayer and must be eliminated or reformed.
As we continue to face the mounting deficit and a struggling economy, shouldn't we be doing everything in our power to spend smarter and spend less? Imagine the tax dollars that could be saved by reviewing and revamping outdated and inefficient programs.
It is my hope that our colleagues will join me in supporting a governmentwide sunset commission, and I urge all my colleagues to support this amendment so we can start setting our spending priorities straight.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I know Members are following this debate carefully, and their amendments. Let me bring everybody up to date. It is about 5 after 5. We hope to have a vote around 6 o'clock, potentially two votes. We have about five amendments pending. Senator Cornyn would like his amendment pending, Senator Hutchison is here to speak about I think two amendments she may want to have pending, and Senator Barrasso is on the floor to speak on the underlying McConnell amendment.
I will ask unanimous consent in a few minutes to try to get one or two votes set up for 6 o'clock, potentially get these other amendments pending, and set a time for votes tomorrow so we can move through it. We want to have as open a debate as possible, but we also really want to focus on the bill at hand, which is the Small Business Reauthorization Act and related measures. Many of these are somewhat related to jobs and the economy, so we are trying to be liberal in our views here. But we do want to try to be as orderly and as appropriate, as Members have come down to the floor, in the order they have come.
Why don't we turn now to Senator Hutchison, and Senator Cornyn--we will get back to the Senator as soon as we can about getting his amendment pending, if we can do that before the night ends.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am going to object to any unanimous consent requests until we have some understanding about when I will be allowed and others will be allowed to offer their amendments.
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