[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 11, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E79-E80]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


     40TH ANNIVERSARY OF FREEDOM FROM GOVERNMENT COMPETITION POLICY

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                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 11, 1995
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, January 15, 1995, will mark a historic 
anniversary in the history of our Nation and one which could not occur 
at a more appropriate time.
  It was on January 15, 1955, that President Dwight Eisenhower issued a 
policy that:

       The Federal Government will not start or carry on any 
     commercial activity to provide a service or product for its 
     own use if such product or service can be procured from 
     private enterprise through ordinary business channels.

  That policy is still on the books today in Office of Management and 
Budget Circular A-76. However, this policy has been regularly avoided 
during the past 40 years. The Congressional Budget Office reported in 
1987 that some 1.4 million Federal employees are engaged in occupations 
that are commercial in nature.
  The Grace Commission recommended contracting out and estimated that 
$4.6 billion a year could be saved by using private contractors to 
perform the commercial activities currently accomplished in-house by 
Federal employees. Even this administration's National Performance 
Review recommended that A-76 be strengthen and enforced.
  The issue of government competition with the private sector has 
become so pervasive that the most recent White House Conference on 
Small Business adopted as one of its leading planks:

       Government at all levels has failed to protect small 
     business from damaging levels of unfair competition. At the 
     federal, state and local levels, therefore, laws, regulations 
     and policies should . . . prohibit direct, government created 
     competition in which government organizations perform 
     commercial services . . . New laws at all levels, 
     particularly at the federal level, should require strict 
     government reliance on the private sector for performance of 
     commercial-type functions. When cost comparisons are 
     necessary to accomplish conversion to private sector 
     performance, laws must include provision for fair and equal 
     cost comparisons. Funds controlled by a government entity 
     must not be used to establish or conduct a commercial 
     activity on U.S. property.

  The issue is again at the top of the agenda of America's small 
business owners, having been adopted as a plank in several of the State 
meetings leading to the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business 
that will convene in Washington, DC, in June.
  During the 102d and 103d Congress, I introduced legislation known as 
the Freedom from Government Competition Act. This bill would provide a 
legislative mandate for implementation of the 1955 Eisenhower policy. 
It would require OMB to conduct an inventory of commercial activities 
performed by Federal agencies using Government employees and establish 
a process for contracting those activities to the private sector over a 
5-year period.
  During the course of my research on this matter, I have become aware 
of a particularly glaring example of the insidious nature of Government 
intrusion into an area that rightfully should be performed by the 
private sector. That is the field of surveying and mapping.
  The Federal Government annually spends approximately $1 billion on 
surveying and activities, but in fiscal year 1993 only $69 million or 
6.9 percent was contracted to the private sector while there are some 
6,000 surveying firms and 250 mapping firms in the United States. You 
can go into any county seat in Tennessee or any other town in the 
Nation and you will find a private professional surveyor's firm within 
a 5-minute walk of the courthouse ready, willing, and able to do this 
work.
  Not only do Federal agencies fail to contract a meaningful amount of 
their surveying and mapping requirements, but they market their 
services to other Federal agencies and to State, local, and foreign 
governments, in direct and unfair competition with the private sector. 
It just doesn't make since for the U.S. Government to have this 
capability when it is available from the private sector. I am convinced 
the more than 99 percent of the
 surveying and mapping firms that are indeed small business, as well as 
the larger firms, can save tax dollars and help us reduce the Federal 
deficit by working under contract with Federal agencies, and that the 
surveying and mapping firms in Tennessee and the other States can do as 
good if not better job of surveying and mapping our land than the 
Government.

  The surveying and mapping community is a perfect example of 
overzealous Government growth in an activity that can and should be 
performed by the private sector. The old chain and transit methods of 
surveying have been replaced by Global Positioning System [GPS] 
satellite receivers, analytical computer mapping systems, and other 
technologies. It is frustrating to small business men and women that 
their markets, both domestic and foreign, are limited by the predatory 
activities of Federal agencies and that their tax dollars are 
supporting purchases of this same equipment by these agencies.
  While there has been considerable discussion of privatization, an end 
to State-dominated economies in favor of market oriented economies, 
individual initiative, and other virtues that led Eastern Europe to 
discard socialism in favor of capitalism, Washington has not practiced 
here at home what we are preaching in fledgling democratic nations. 
When a Government agency competes with private firms it stifles growth 
in private industry by dominating certain markets; diverts needed 
personnel, particularly in technical occupations, from private sector 
employment; thwarts efforts by U.S. firms to export their services; and 
erodes the tax base by securing work that would otherwise be 
accomplished by tax paying entities.
  Not only have the advantages of privatization and private sector 
utilization been recognized on the international scene, but these 
[[Page E80]] strategies are being implemented in American's States, 
cities, and counties.
  In a recent report, ``Listening to America'', the Republican National 
Committee's National Policy Forum, said:

       In reducing the size and scope of government, it is time 
     for Washington to learn from the lessons of the state and 
     local governments. In Indianapolis, Jersey City, Dallas, 
     Charlotte and Philadelphia, city governments under Democrat 
     as well as Republican administration are turning to 
     privatization to do more with less. In some cases, 
     governments are getting out of the business of doing things 
     they never should have done in the first place In other 
     cases, private companies compete with public employees to 
     provide service at the highest quality and the lowest cost. * 
     * *
       The federal government can learn much from the new breed of 
     mayors and governors who are responding to the call from 
     their friends and neighbors to put government back in the 
     hands of the people who found it, to rethink the role of 
     government; to get out of business it doesn't belong in * * *

  We in Congress have failed in our oversight responsibilities and 
permitted this buildup of in-house Government capabilities in 
commercial activities to occur. No matter how well intended these 
capabilities were when created or how popular they are now, we must put 
a stop to this unfair and costly practice.
  I urge all my colleagues to use the 40th anniversary of President 
Eisenhower's policy to help focus America's attention on this important 
issue. I invite all Americans to join with me on January 15 to 
recognize the benefits of relying on our great enterprise system to 
assist in developing those Government services that can be performed at 
higher quality and lower cost than the Government itself. Let us use 
this occasion to dedicate ourselves to redefining Government by 
focusing the public sector on those activities only it can perform and 
relying on the private sector for those activities it does best.


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