Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, this amendment enacts a CBO recommendation to eliminate the trade promotion activities of the International Trade Administration to save almost $312 million.
What does the ITA do exactly? Well, it has some legitimate functions enforcing trade agreements and treaties. This amendment leaves these functions untouched.
But the ITA also does trade promotion activities. To quote from its own material, it ``provides counseling to American companies in order to develop the most profitable and sustainable plans for pricing, export, and the full range of public and private trade promotion assistance.....as well as market intelligence, and industry and market specific research.''
Well, this is all well and good, but isn't that what businesses and trade associations are supposed to do and used to do with their own money? Why should taxpayers pay for the profits of private companies?
If a specific business or industry is the sole beneficiary of these services, shouldn't it be the sole financier of them, either individually or collectively through trade associations?
True, this program has been around for generations, but Franklin Roosevelt, who was hardly a champion of smaller government, had the right idea when he slashed its budget in 1932 and closed 31 of its offices. The problem is that reform didn't take. ITA now has over 250 offices and several thousand personnel around the world.
The ITA's authorization lapsed in 1996--19 years ago. It has not been reviewed or authorized by Congress since then, but we still keep shoveling money out the door.
Although it hasn't been reviewed by Congress in all of these years, it has been thoroughly weighed by the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and the President's fiscal commission, and they have all found it sadly wanting. The Simpson-Bowles report summed it up nicely when they said:
``Services provided by ITA's U.S. Commercial Services and other divisions directly providing assistance to U.S. companies should be financed by beneficiaries of this assistance. While the agency charges fees for those services, its fees do not cover the cost of all of its activities. Additionally, it is argued that the benefits of trade promotion activities are passed on to foreigners in the form of decreased export costs.''
Simpson-Bowles then goes on to say:
``According to a study by the Office of Management and Budget, businesses can receive similar services from State, local, and private sector entities.''
This CBO option to eliminate ITA's promotion activities saves $312 million in 2016 and $3.5 billion through 2024.
Mr. Chairman, if the CBO, the OMB, and the President's fiscal commission all agree this is wasteful and Congress hasn't bothered to reauthorize it since it expired 19 years ago, why do we continue to spend money that we don't have duplicating services the beneficiaries of those services either don't need or are perfectly capable of funding on their own?
And if the companies that we are told directly benefit from these so-called ``essential'' services aren't willing to fund them, maybe that is just nature's way of telling us we shouldn't be fleecing our constituents' earnings to pay for them either.
And why would we tap American taxpayers to subsidize the export activities of foreigners, as Simpson-Bowles notes?
The rules of the House were specifically written to prevent this type of unauthorized expenditure, and they provide for a point of order to be raised if it is included in an appropriations bill. That is exactly what we have here. But alas, that rule is routinely waived when these measures are brought to the floor, making this amendment necessary.
This is a prime example of corporate welfare, and we ought to be done with it.
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. This amendment leaves all of those legitimate activities of the ITA intact. It still leaves $160 million of activities. All it does is to defund the trade promotion activities that the CBO recognized as being wasteful, as did OMB, as did Simpson-Bowles.
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I want to reiterate that this does not in any way affect the enforcement activities of the ITA. It does not in any way affect the measures that Mr. Poliquin of Maine just referenced. It affects only the trade promotion activities of the ITA that have been singled out time and again as being duplicative of what the companies profiting from these activities should be paying for themselves or are duplicative of other programs. It is only the trade promotion activities. None of the enforcement activities are affected by this amendment. I would ask for an ``aye'' vote.
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