[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 8, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1820
 
       OUR GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE RUN ON A MORE BUSINESSLIKE BASIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. McInnis] 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Madam Speaker, it has been very interesting here in the 
last couple of days to see all the publicity and so on about the 
administration's budget proposal. I thought this evening would be a 
good time to visit with you a little bit about something that I think 
is very important in regard to that.
  First let me tell a little story: This fellow was at school one day, 
and the schoolteacher came up to this young fellow, and she says, ``I 
want to know how good your math is. If I gave you $2, and your father 
gave you $4, how much money would you have?'' The child looked at the 
teacher and said, ``Well, I would have $2.'' The teacher says, ``You 
don't know you math very well.'' The young student looked up at the 
teacher and said, ``You don't know my father very well.''
  This leads into what I wanted to talk about tonight, and that is how 
well do we know the Government? How well can we depend on our 
Government not to come up with a budget, with programs, but to come up 
with efficient and effective business operations, to manage the 
Government, to manage your taxpayer dollars?
  Let us talk about the difference between Government programs and the 
private marketplace. We all know from basic economics 101 that in 
private business you are in business to make a profit. You are in 
business to provide a product, and you hope that the demand for your 
product exceeds the supply, so that you could make the maximum amount 
of profit.
  But if it is vice versa, if the supply exceeds the demand, you have 
to run your business in such a way that you can continue to operate 
your business, but you need to run your business, you need to tighten 
down, make cuts, you need to have a fine-tuned operation in order to be 
able to survive the kind of scenario where the supply exceeds the 
demand.
  In the Government side of it, the Government does not need to do 
that. The Government does not need to make a profit. Now, granted, the 
Government in some programs where it was never intended that the 
Government make a profit, nonetheless in those programs where the 
Government was never intended to make a profit, those programs need to 
be run in an efficient, businesslike operation.
  Now, Government was never intended, nor should it, compete with the 
private marketplace. When you talk about a product that you can make a 
profit on, the Government has never been very successful in doing that.

  Take a look, for example, at the U.S. postal operation. Compare that 
to the United Parcel Service or to the Federal Express or some of these 
other agencies in the private sector. Take a look at the difference in 
the business operations, take a look at the difference in who needs a 
profit and who does not need a profit.
  Well, tonight let us explore a little Government business operations 
because I think, as the President talks about his budget, as Congress 
begins to look at the President's budget, that we need to say and ask 
of every agency, ``What kind of business operation do you have? Do you 
have the kind of operation where the dollars that we put into your 
agency, that we take, by the way, from the taxpayers of this country, 
the dollars that we take from the taxpayers and transfer through the 
bureaucracy to your agency, are we getting the bang for our buck?''
  In most cases, I certainly think all of you and certainly our 
constituents would probably say ``no.''
  You know, if we were able to run our Government's business operations 
in an efficient manner, in a manner comparable to businesses that have 
to operate for a profit, I do not think we would have a deficit. I 
think the waste that we would have been able to save over these years 
because we ran an efficient business operation would have us out of the 
problem that we face today with our deficit. That deficit, which is 
accumulating at the rate of about $37 million an hour--$37 million an 
hour of the taxpayers' money--we are spending that number more than we 
are bringing in. Is that an efficient business operation? Of course, it 
is not.
  Let us look at other programs, let us look at entitlement programs. 
The entitlement programs, a lot of those are good programs. A lot of 
those had good intent when they were first proposed, when they first 
materialized. But do you know how much more good we could do for the 
poor people who need those entitlements, how much more we could give to 
them if we simply had efficient business operations? And we do not. It 
would be interesting if you could, however--and by the way, I do not 
think you can, through the complexity of the Federal budget--but if you 
could track a dollar from a taxpayer, transferred through the different 
Government bureaucracies, off to Washington, DC, transferred back 
through the Government bureaucracies back to your home State, for 
example, and see how much of that dollar originated in your State, went 
to Washington and came back through the entitlement program maze, how 
much of that dollar really goes to the needy person or to the person 
who is designed to receive that entitlement?
  Take a look at our entitlement programs. Any of you who question my 
logic--and, well, it is not my logic, but it is basic logic found in 
business courses, even high school business courses--but if any of you 
have any question about the efficiency of the entitlement programs, for 
example, go stand in the grocery stores for an hour and a half and see 
how confident you feel about the delivery of food stamps in this 
country, how confident you feel in the business operations of the 
distribution of food stamps.
  Take a look at other programs. I saw an interesting statistic today: 
$109 million in new Federal loans to students who had already defaulted 
on their old loans.
  Now, how many banks out there, through their business operations, 
continue to loan that kind of money to customers who have already 
previously defaulted on prior loans? It does not happen. Or, if it does 
happen, the bank does not stay in business for a very long period of 
time.
  Let us take a look at some other things. Let us look at the events of 
the last 2 weeks, if you want to talk about business operations. I have 
a good example here, the earthquake in Los Angeles, CA. There is not a 
person on this floor, there is not a person in this country, who is not 
willing to go out to somebody who really needs help, somebody who 
really deserves. There is nobody I know that would deny it to them. But 
how many of you out there are aware, for example, of the kind of 
problems that we are having in the business operation of the 
distribution of the earthquake relief money?
  We had to close down food stamp lines because they were just handing 
them out, just handing them out. Nobody asked for qualifications.
  I have right here a document from the Immigration Service, and the 
essence of the document is that the INS, the Los Angeles district 
office of the INS, states that the agency will not, will not play any 
role in identifying the immigration status of anyone applying for 
assistance. Here is a Federal agency charged with business operations 
and charged with the responsibility of helping other agents determine 
whether or not the individuals who come to these other agencies and ask 
for benefits or ask for eligibility, they are to help them determine 
whether or not they are eligible.
  For the earthquake, what they have decided to do was to turn their 
head the other way, ``Come one, come all. It doesn't matter whether you 
are qualified.''
  How many businesses out there in the private marketplace, through 
their business operations, could take that kind of philosophy?
  Do you know why it is easy for the Government to take 
that philosophy? Because it is not our dollars, it is your dollars, the 
taxpayer dollars. It is a lot easier to spend somebody else's money, a 
lot easier to turn your face the other way on eligibility requirements 
when it is not money coming directly out of your pocket, it is coming 
directly out of the taxpayers' pockets. That is where our problem on 
business operations takes place.

  Mr. President, we can make this budget work if we spend some good 
time, some real good time on looking at the business operations of 
governmental agencies.
  You know, I could go through lots and lots of examples. Let me tell 
you how I think particular programs lose their business operation 
aspect point of view and are kind of overshadowed by emotions and other 
issues. Take, for example, the great war on poverty. Some of you can 
remember when President Johnson, with good intent, not will ill 
intent--and by the way, I think a lot of these programs are not bad 
programs necessarily, they are just ill-administered. Most of these 
programs start with good intent.
  But look at the program in 1964, the great war on poverty, the war on 
welfare, we are going to eliminate poverty. When that first--let me say 
it this way: Since 1960 we have spent on an annual basis seven times, 
our spending has gone up seven times, and, you know what, we have just 
about the same level of people in poverty.

                              {time}  1830

  How can that occur? What would any other business--how could they 
operate like that? If a business, for example, if a business is making 
$10 products at a cost of $10, and then the cost the next year, and 
then several years, they are still making $10 products at a cost of 
$70, somebody in that business operation, in that private business, is 
going to say, ``What's going on here? We can't survive. What's 
happening to our cost of the product? What are the costs of goods sold? 
Why that expense? Why is it triple?''
  Well, I can give my colleagues an example in the Government. Our 
costs have gone up sevenfold. The number of people in poverty remains 
relatively the same--not exactly the same, but relatively the same. But 
take a look at what we do.
  I say to my colleagues, ``First of all, when you start a program in 
the Federal Government, you get a lot of special interests, and you got 
a lot of emotional special interests.''
  Let me tell you, ``If you stand up to the earthquake in California 
and say, `Wait a minute, I want to question the business operation of 
how we are going to contribute the relief funds for the earthquake 
victims,' not questioning the intent of the people who really need 
help, but questioning the business operations and the distribution, the 
first thing that happens is that the parties opposing you will say, 
`How--the guy is without heart. He doesn't care about the people that 
need help in California. He's ruthless. How could he dare stand up and 
question earthquake relief for people in California or back in the 
floods? How could it possibly happen?'''

  Madam Speaker, that is because the interests back here in Washington, 
DC, are so immense that many times to the political structure and to 
the bureaucratic structure they force those of us who are responsible 
for the business management of this Government, they force us to put 
business operations aside and let emotions and other factors, politics, 
drive the results.
  It would be OK, I guess, if the results were positive results, but 
the results are $37 million an hour, every hour of the day, that we go 
in the hole. It does not work out.
  As my colleagues know, in a lot of these programs, if we decided, 
``Let's don't go through the distribution problem, let's don't go out 
and hand out benefits like this; let's just give everybody who is 
eligible, let's just give them some tax relief,'' we would save lots of 
money if we just gave the tax relief instead of trying to set up the 
bureaucratic nightmare of business operations and distribution in these 
funds.
  Then we got, not just special interests, but we also have, and I do 
not know what to call it, programs that are expanded. For example, the 
Small Business Administration expanded to include other programs that 
no one in this country ever had any intent for that program to cover.
  Let us look at the Small Business Administration. The Small Business 
Administration has the purpose of going out for, as it sounds, small 
business, encouraging small business and making available to small 
business capital in the hopes that the backbone of our country, in 
regard to the business field, which is small business, has access to 
capital and that the mom and pop operation has an opportunity to 
expand, has an opportunity to employ people. That is the theory of it.
  Well, take a look at the Small Business Administration budget. Take a 
look last year at the amount of money that the Small Business 
Administration was supposed to, under the intent of the concept of the 
small business agency, was supposed to use for small business loans and 
instead got an item put in our budget to use to plant trees.

  Now, Madam Speaker, planting trees is not a bad idea. A lot of us 
understand that planting trees is a good idea. But should the Small 
Business Administration be spending tens of billions of our dollars, of 
the taxpayers' dollars, to plant trees?
  I ask, ``Do you know what? That each dollar that was spent for 
planting trees, do you know what that would leverage on the street as 
far as small business loans?''
  The ratio on minority loans, where our leverage is the highest, is 1 
to 20 for every dollar that the Small Business Administration was using 
to plant a tree. They could leverage that for $20 worth of loans on the 
streets for small businesses of America.
  And I ask my colleagues, ``Is that an efficient business operation? 
Is that what a business in the private marketplace, which hopes to 
survive, is that something, a practice, that they would do?'' Of course 
it is not. It cannot be.
  Madam Speaker, I say to my colleagues, ``You can't operate like 
that--well, unless you're the Government; let me take that back, and 
unless you've got what seems like an endless resource of revenue coming 
in.''
  I say to my colleagues, ``You know, if you have an automobile 
dealership, your source of revenue depends on a couple of things: No. 
1, what you have to pay for your product; No. 2, what you're able to 
sell your product for; No. 3, what are your overhead costs, what does 
it cost you between the time you get the car, and the time you sell the 
car, and service the car down the road. You have to look at each of 
those very carefully because the money that you are spending usually is 
your own, and, if it is not directly out of your pocketbook, you have 
got property that you own leverage with the bank, and it will 
eventually come directly out of your pocketbook. So, your business 
operation, just by the consequences of the result if you don't succeed, 
are pretty efficient, your business operations. They have to be or 
you're not going to be in business.''
  However, Madam Speaker, the Government pulls its money from the 
taxpayer, and, if things do not go right for the Government operation, 
they just pull more money from the taxpayer. And, if things do not 
continue to go right, they just pull more money from the taxpayer, and 
the minute that the taxpayer stands up to complain, then the special 
interests that are impacted or receive benefits from the money that we 
are taking from the taxpayer and distributing out onto the street, then 
those groups who have--who, by the way, have use of that money and 
those resources to come back here and capitalize, lobbyists in the 
Nation's Capital, rise and have a public outcry. How could Congress 
dare increase the business--I mean make the business operations more 
effective?

  Of course they do not use those words. They say, ``How could Congress 
dare cut this program? How could Congress dare ask us whether or not 
entitlement dollars are really going to the people that need 
entitlement dollars? How could Congress dare question the bureaucracy, 
and the tree planting, and the Small Business Administration?''
  Well, Madam Speaker, let me say I think there are some solutions that 
we can put into place to help the U.S. Congress and to help the 
Government, the guardian of the taxpayer dollars in this country. I 
think there are some things that we can put into place that will help 
us at the Government level make sure that the operations that we have, 
the taxpayer dollars that we use, are used effectively and in the same 
type of operation that private business would conduct.
  Let us go over a couple of them. First of all, what about privatizing 
collections? ``It is amazing,'' I say to my colleagues, ``if you owned 
a business, and let's go back to the car dealership. You have got a car 
dealership in Glenwood Springs, CO, and the owner of the car dealership 
is a fellow named Kohler, and Kohler sells these cars, and Kohler, when 
he brings in, he has an accounts receivable, an accounts receivable, 
meaning money that is owed to the dealership. Somebody comes in, buys a 
car, does not have the cash to pay for it. So, Kohler says, `All right; 
you owe me. You owe me $10,000.'''
  Well, as my colleagues know, what happens is Kohler has to make sure 
that he collects on that $10,000, and every month, probably every week, 
he gets a printout that says, ``Here's how much money is owed to you, 
but it's not in the cash register. You're not able to use it. It is 
owed out there.''
  Kohler has got to make sure he has got good credit risks, and he has 
got to make sure he can collect on the money.
  The Federal Government operates much the same way.
  I say, ``Your income tax, for example; everyone in this room pays 
tax. Everyone across the country is supposed to pay taxes although we 
have millions, and millions, and millions and millions of taxpayers who 
have not paid their taxes, who the Federal Government knows where they 
live. They know what they do, but they have not gone after him to pay 
the taxes which, of course, increases the burden on all the rest of the 
taxpayers.''
  In other words, Madam Speaker, the Government is absolutely lousy, 
lousy, in collecting the debts owed to the Government.
  Now do not feel sorry for the people that are not paying their debts 
because those people that are not paying their debts are putting an 
additional burden on those who are.
  Now, granted, if we have somebody out there who, because of a 
disability is not able to pay their debts, we have got plenty of 
programs through Government agencies to help them out.
  So, we need to privatize collections, Madam Speaker.

                              {time}  1840

  Mr. McINNIS. Let us talk a little more. What are some other 
solutions? Sure, I can get up here and criticize Government business 
operations. But what are some other solutions?
  First, we talked about collections. Let's talk about management of 
personnel. One of my local communities, Grand Junction, CO, they took a 
look and they compared the pay of Government employees with the pay of 
private employees. That is a step in the right direction. You have to 
make sure that your Government employees are being treated much the 
same as your private market employees. You have got to have a hand on 
personnel.
  I would challenge any of you to show me a Government agency that has 
terminated, not retired, early retirement, not transferred out, but 
terminated more than a handful of employees. It doesn't happen with 
Government.
  Now, take a look at any town in this Nation and any number of 
businesses, and most of those towns, you are going to find businesses 
that have to terminate people. One, maybe because the people aren't 
performing. Two, maybe the car that they are selling is not bringing in 
what the car costs them. They can't continue to operate. Or in the 
transaction between buying the car and selling the car, the overhead 
costs are out of line. But the Government doesn't do that. The 
Government needs to improve its management of personnel.
  Let's take a look at what charities do. Remember the big fraud of the 
charities back in the early eighties? And everybody was saying, gosh, 
you know, we give $1 to so and so charity, and that so and so charity 
uses about 98 cents for administration, and 2 cents of it goes to the 
person who the charity said it was going to go to, the whole dollar was 
going to go to.
  People started across this country to get very upset. The Federal 
Government is no exception. Take a look at what happens to the dollar 
the Federal Government takes from you the taxpayer and what percentage 
of that goes for administration, for bureaucracies, for unnecessary 
paperwork, before it goes to where it was supposed to go or before it 
was targeted to go.
  What we did with the charities, somehow we exempted ourselves, but 
what we did with the charities was say, ``Hey, you need to start, if 
you wanted to be successful as a charity, you have to start telling 
people what percentage of the dollar that they give to you, that they 
donate to you, what percentage of that goes to administration costs, 
and what percentage goes to the recipient.''
  I was privileged. I got to hear a discussion at a rotary club 
recently from United Way of Pueblo, CO. The first thing they say is 
here is the percentage. I think it was, I don't know, 5 percent, maybe 
8 percent, here is the percentage that stays for administration. So 92 
cents out of every dollar that you give to us goes to the recipient you 
intended, and 91.5 cents stays local. They have to go out there, and 
one of the first statements in their presentation, is how your dollar 
is being effectively used.
  But that is not what you hear from the United States Government or 
probably for the most part from most governmental agencies. They don't 
stand up to you on April 15 and say all right, we are going to take a 
dollar from you in taxes, and here is what percentage of that dollar 
goes to the entitlement programs, for example, and by the time it gets 
to the person on the street that needs that entitlement, here is the 
percentage of the dollar that they get.
  Try and find that some time in that Federal budget. So I think that 
we need to demand that when the Government takes a dollar from the 
taxpayer, the taxpayer has every right to know exactly what percentage 
of that dollar goes to the program that the Government has promised.
  Let's talk about what other businesses do. Performance audits. Not 
just financial audits, but performance audits.
  Now, we have performance audits in the Government, but not to the 
extent that well-run businesses have them. And it is interesting. A lot 
of the performance audits, even financial audits, have two different 
reports, one report for an agency or for the bureaucratic, and another 
report for public disclosure. And then a lot of these performance 
audits give the agency the opportunity to refuse to follow the 
recommendations.
  Take a look at the Grace Commission. That is not a performance audit 
by a government agency on a government agency. That was an independent, 
bipartisan group of people who had to operate business at a profit, who 
knew something about business operations and effectiveness of business 
operations.

  In their performance audit, they made 2,500, that is a guess, 
recommendations. That is pretty close, 2,500. And the Federal 
Government followed less than, what, 500 of them? What is the 
explanation for the other 1,500? Why didn't you follow that performance 
audit? We have every right to demand that the U.S. Government have 
performance audits on its operations.
  Let's talk about some other basic things. Let's talk about budgets. 
When Kohler's Automobile Shop, or pick another example, Carol's Gift 
Shop down in Colorado, when Carol's Gift Shop at the end of the year 
closes its books and prepares for the next year, they have to do two 
things. One, when they close their books, they have to be accurate. And 
they have to be complete. Because the Government, Uncle Sam, has 
something called the IRS, that comes in and makes sure Carol's books 
are complete and are accurate.
  Carol has to do something else. She has to budget for the next year, 
that is, if she is going to stay in business very long. You have got to 
anticipate. You have got to budget.
  Well, when she makes a budget, when she puts together a budget, she 
includes everything in the budget. She includes her income, and she 
includes her projected expenses.
  What would happen to Carol's budget if all she did was include the 
income, but only put on the budget half of the expenses? In other 
words, well, I am going to have $10 in income, and I am going to have 
$10 in expenses, but I am just going to put on my budget $5 in 
expenses.
  Who does she fool? She fools herself. She needs to put the accurate 
expenses on there. She may feel better that she shows $10 in income and 
only $5 in expenses, although in reality she has $10. She can look at 
that and say I feel great. I am going to have a $5 profit next year. 
But as next year comes, she will have fooled herself.
  What does that have to do with the Federal Government? I will tell 
you what it has to do with the Federal Government. The Federal 
Government has something called off-budget. I heard a newscast last 
night. Social Security, part of the expenditures, part of the 
additional expense of the budget is because of the Social Security.
  Folks, the Social Security is one of those items they can leave off-
budget. What do I mean off-budget? There are two different budgets for 
the American people.
  One budget is the budget where you think you know where your taxpayer 
dollars are being spent. That is one budget. The other budget is really 
kind of nonexistent out there. It is items like Social Security, the 
trust fund. We all know about the transfer of trust funds to help the 
operating costs and so on.
  So what people say, this is the true deficit. When we look at our 
income statement, that is what we are losing, $37 million an hour. But 
they are not even including the items they have got off the budget. You 
can't get away with it as a taxpayer. Your constituents can't get away 
with it as taxpayers. And the Federal Government should not either.
  Thank goodness today, thank goodness today, the Congressional Budget 
Office told the President of this country, hey, your health care reform 
package must be on budget. Can you imagine that the President, the 
administration, their recommended health care plan was going to be off-
budget?
  Now, whether you like the plan or not is irrelevant at this point. 
What is relevant at this point is that every taxpayer in this country 
has an absolute right to know what any particular governmental 
expenditure or agency is going to cost him. And they have that right of 
disclosure. And any attempt to keep a number off budget denies that 
very fundamental right to you the taxpayer.
  So we have to push and pressure our elected officials to keep budget 
items on budget, that when the Government gives you an expenditure, an 
income and expense statement, that all of the income is on there and 
all of the expenses are on there, so that we can judge, we can judge at 
that point in time, hey, this health care plan may be a good idea. We 
look at the budget, just like Carol at the gift store. She looks at the 
budget and says, hey, I can afford to spend that kind of money, because 
I am bringing in this kind of income.

                              {time}  1850

  ``This is the right priority.''
  We need to do the same thing. We need to also look at that budget and 
say, hey, something is not adding up here. We are spending $37 million 
more an hour. Most of you out there figure your budgets on how much 
more you may spend per month bringing in or spending it. We have to 
calculate it by the hour. We spend $37 million an hour more than we 
have.
  Somebody has to look at that income statement, income and expense 
statement, and say, the expenses do not equal the income.
  And that brings me to my next suggestion. How interesting it is that 
your elected officials stand in front of the American public and say, 
we are good at bringing down the deficit. We are reducing the deficit. 
We are reducing the growth rate of the deficit. Boy, do not ask me to 
sign on to that balanced-budget amendment.
  Let us talk about the two things. Let us talk about the deficit.
  First of all, the statements that the deficit is slowing down are in 
fact true. Remember that these statements do not calculate the transfer 
from trust funds like Social Security for general operating costs. But 
overall, the growth of the deficit is reducing. But is that because of 
the newfound discipline of this body or a newfound discipline there at 
the White House or over in the Senate chambers? No. It is not because 
we have a newfound discipline back here in Washington, DC. It is 
primarily due and directly correlated to the fact that the interest 
rate is low. And because the interest rate is low, our carrying cost 
for our own debt has been dramatically reduced. That is your biggest 
contributor to why that deficit is not growing at the same rate.
  What would help us reduce that $37 million an hour that goes out or 
money that goes out more than money that we bring in? What would help? 
It is called a balanced-budget amendment.
  Folks, every citizen in this country, if they are a law-abiding and 
responsible citizen, they are expected by their peers, they are 
expected by their banks, they are even expected by their Government to 
keep their own balanced budget. Their family is expected to operate 
with a balanced budget. If you do not, our society declares you 
bankrupt, and you have to go to court and go through bankruptcy. Or if 
you write a check on an account that you do not have enough money to 
cover the check, you could commit a criminal violation.
  You are expected to keep a balanced budget; that is, you cannot spend 
more money than you bring in. You cannot spend more than you bring in. 
That is what a balanced budget means. That is pretty simple.
  Does the Federal Government live by its own standards that it 
requires of you? Absolutely not. Do most State governments live by that 
standard? Yes. Do most local governments live by that standard? Yes.
  Do most county governments live by that standard? Yes. Does the 
Federal Government? No. Why not? What is wrong, Government? What about 
an effective business operation? What about your responsibility to the 
taxpayer? What about your responsibility for those people who need 
entitlements? Do they not deserve the most, the biggest bang that the 
Government can get for its buck?
  You can help out a lot more people if you run an effective business 
operation. Koller can sell a lot more cars if he runs an effective and 
efficient car dealership. Go out in your own areas, to my colleagues 
here, go to your own hometown, go to any business and say to that 
business, how long will you be in business if you operate your business 
without a balanced budget? ``Probably the first month,'' and they laugh 
at you. They say, ``Come on, get serious.''
  You want to know why a lot of people have doubt about what goes on in 
Washington, DC? Not because my colleagues here come here with ill 
intent. They do not. There are a lot of hard-working, well-intended 
people out here. The problem, I think, the fundamental problem is not 
the few cases where we have had abuse by an elected official. The 
fundamental problem out there is people do not trust you with something 
that is very important in their lives. And what is that something? It 
is money. They know how they have to manage money, and they do not 
trust us with their money. Because they see we do not even follow the 
basic management philosophies that we require them to follow on their 
own management of money. We need to have a balanced-budget amendment.
  Let us talk about another solution. What else can we do to assist 
effective business operations of the Government?
  We need to go out there and reward the people that are doing a good 
job. We have a lot of Federal agencies, believe it or not, we have a 
lot of them out there that are doing a good job. We have got a lot of 
Federal employees who work very hard to do a good job.
  And frankly, they do not get a lot of recognition.
  We can always name the bad ones. We can find plenty of agencies that 
do not have good operations, business operations. But there are a lot 
out there that do operate effectively.
  What do we do? If we have an agency that operates effectively and 
works within their budget, we go into their budget with any money they 
have left, and we take the money that is left from the agency that is 
well managed. We take the surplus money from that agency and give it to 
the agency which has not been managed properly, which is run in the 
hole, which needs the money to break even--break even is almost a dream 
to the Federal Government--which needs the money to help supplement 
their losses.
  It does not make sense. It is like going to an auto dealership on 
Main Street and saying, ``The money you make in profit I am going to 
give to your competitor right down the street, who has a lousy business 
operation. We are going to give them this money to help him get 
through, instead of closing it down, instead of demanding on that other 
dealership that they run their operations as efficiently as Koller has 
to run his.''

  We are just going to take Koller's profits and give it to the other 
business. That is what the Government does with its agencies. It goes 
to an agency that runs it well, takes their money and gives the money 
to an agency that does not. No wonder you get a statistic, a statistic 
like this.
  In the last 2 months, I am not exact on this, but I am very close, in 
the last 2 months, agencies spend 40 percent of their money. The last 2 
months of a fiscal year, they spend 40 percent of their money. What 
drives that kind of statistic? Because they know if they end the year 
with a surplus, they get penalized.
  Ask Federal employees what their activity, their purchasing activity 
is like in the last couple months of a fiscal year. Ask them to be 
straight with you, if they have not witnessed in the Government the 
kinds of words, ``Hurry up, we have to go out and spend this money, we 
only have 2 months left to spend it. If we do not spend it this year, 
we will get our budget cut next year. We have to be able to show that 
we need the money or we will not get money next year.''
  You cannot do that in business. You are not going to be in business 
very long, if it happens, and neither should the Federal Government.
  Let me conclude with saying what I think. There are lots of other 
recommendations we could talk about, line-item veto, balanced budget, 
term limitations.
  One of the other things that I think we should visit a little about 
is do not be afraid, to my colleagues here, to the American taxpayers, 
do not be afraid to demand of your Federal agencies accountability on 
their business operations. Do not forget about it.
  How many people in the country remember about a very popular program, 
remember the audit we got 13 weeks ago on NASA. What did NASA audit 
reveal?
  It revealed billions of dollars in cash over the years that they 
cannot account for. Somebody ought to be remembering that. Somebody 
ought to be demanding it, despite the popularity of the program, 
somebody ought to be demanding accountability. Somebody ought to be 
demanding, and some of you are, somebody ought to be demanding 
accountability of those billions of dollars that we are sending to 
California for the earthquake victims, not denying the benefits to the 
people that need it but saying that the business operation will allow 
more of those benefits to go to the people that need it, No. 1, and 2, 
demanding that the people that are not entitled to it or the fraud that 
takes place on the way down or the Federal agencies that are turning 
their head the other way have to change their ways.
  It is amazing, up here and in my short tenure in Washington, DC, how 
major some of these problems can be and how quickly they are forgotten.
  Take a look. Just turn on C-SPAN, turn on any channel you want, and 
see how often the word ``deficit'' is talked about. This week a lot, 
because we just brought up the budget. But a year ago, 6 months ago, 
the deficit was the big crisis in this country. It did not go away, 
folks.
  In my opinion, we have not had a whole lot of improvement on it. But 
now crime has moved to the forefront, now welfare reform has moved to 
the forefront.
  What about the deficit? What about business operations of the 
Government?
  To my colleagues, every one of our constituents, every taxpayer in 
this country has every right, has the fundamental right to demand of us 
efficient business operations of the Federal Government.

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