[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 101 (Thursday, July 28, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR THE BUREAUCRATS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Duncan] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, those in this Nation who are not worried 
about big government had better take a new look. The arrogance, the 
abuse of power, the waste, the inefficiency, is becoming almost 
unbelievable.
  In the last few days, Mr. Speaker, the Washington Post and the 
Washington Times have had these news items. First, the headline, 
``Millions of Letters Undelivered.'' The story said:

       Postal inspectors recently discovered millions of pieces of 
     undelivered mail in two of Washington's largest post offices, 
     just two of those post offices. Nearly 3,000,000 pieces of 
     mail were discovered at these 2 facilities. How much is there 
     all over this Nation?

  Second, from the story about the Food and Drug Administration,

       Gene Oden could not have imagined how much his life would 
     change when 20 Federal agents burst into his office in June 
     1993 and began seizing products crucial to his dietary 
     supplement business. More than a year later the Food and Drug 
     Administration has yet to file charges against Mr. Oden. 
     Still he has been forced to lay off all but 28 of his 105 
     employees while he wages war with the FDA hoping to recover 
     more than $1 million in products the agents seized.

  Mr. Speaker, when people wonder why drugs cost so much in this 
country, all they need to do is look at the FDA. The overregulation and 
bureaucratic mumbo jumbo has helped the big drug giants, but has made 
it almost impossible for small companies to participate and has driven 
drug and medicine prices sky high.
  Third, the third story, once again from the Washington Post,

       ``1,300 hundred IRS agents, workers, accused of snooping at 
     tax returns. Employees used computers to peek at friends' 
     files.''

  The story told how more than 1,300 employees of the IRS have been 
investigated or disciplined for using Government computers to browse 
through tax returns of friends, and relatives and neighbors.
  Right on the heels of this came a report in the Washington Times 
about a traffic incident between Susan Allen, a Washington lawyer, and 
John Richardson, the husband of the woman who heads the IRS. Here is 
how Mrs. Allen described what happened.

       His name was John Richardson, but his registration, I told 
     him, said Margaret Richardson. ``That's my wife,'' he said, 
     ``and she's the IRS Commissioner, and I hope you paid your 
     taxes.''
       I said, ``What?''
       And he repeated, ``My wife is the Commissioner of the IRS, 
     and I hope you paid your taxes.
       ``I couldn't believe he was telling me that,'' Mrs. Allen 
     said.

  Some people go to work for the Federal Government, and suddenly they 
think they are some type of god. They think they are rulers rather than 
our servants. We have ended up with a Federal Government that is of, 
by, and for the bureaucrats instead of one that is of, by and for the 
people; even the best-intended Federal programs today, even ones 
supposedly designed to help children, do much more to benefit the 
people who work for the Government than they do for the intended 
beneficiaries.

                              {time}  1840

  Almost always the pressure to increase spending in any area comes 
from those who work for the Government, not from the intended 
beneficiaries. It might not be so bad if we were getting our money's 
worth, but usually these hard-earned tax dollars are just wasted.
  I might point out that the average person today, not the wealthy, but 
the average, pays almost 50 percent of his or her income in the form of 
taxes when you count State, Federal, local, sales, property, income, 
social, gas, excise, and all the other taxes that people pay. Roy 
Murdock wrote recently in the July issue of National Minority Politics 
that Washington has sort of a reverse Midas touch. Virtually everything 
it touches turns to lead.
  Why, Mr. Speaker, is there all this waste and inefficiency, all this 
arrogance and abuse of power? I believe it is primarily because of our 
civil service system, a system that does almost nothing for good, 
dedicated employees, but serves now to protect lazy and incompetent 
ones. We have many good people working for our Federal Government, but 
we cannot get rid of those who do not work hard or those who treat 
people badly.
  This is why it costs so much more to do something through the Federal 
Government than it does through the private sector. This is why Edward 
Randall, the liberal Democratic mayor of Philadelphia, said a couple of 
years ago, the reason government does not work is because it was not 
designed to. There is no incentive for people to work hard, so many do 
not. There is no incentive to save money, so much of it is squandered.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to get control of our government in this country 
once again, and we will not be able to do so unless we downsize the 
Federal Government and get the functions of this government and the 
things that people want us to do back to those governments which are 
closest to the people, which are our local and State governments.

                          ____________________