[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 117 (Wednesday, July 19, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H7251-H7252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           REFORM IN CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Brownback] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being able to speak to the 
body about what has taken place here recently, and that is the House 
audit that occurred yesterday and was released to the public yesterday. 
The reason I want to bring this up is this last weekend and for a 
number of months and throughout the campaign that I went through in 
eastern Kansas, a number of people talked to me about the things that 
they saw that they wanted to see changed.
  They wanted to see reduction in the Federal Government, and they 
wanted to see us return to basic values. But one of the big things that 
they saw that they really wanted to see happen was the reform of the 
Congress. They had lost faith in this institution to represent them and 
not be just self-serving to itself.
  Well, yesterday, a second big step occurred on that, where we had an 
audit released to the House of Representatives for the first time ever. 
I say second big step. The first big step was taken on January 4 of 
this year when this body agreed virtually unanimously to conduct its 
first ever audit. Why it took so many years, I do not know. But we 
finally agreed on January 4. That was a historic step, to audit this 
body, that has had so many scandals to it, the post office scandal, the 
bank scandal, the restaurant scandal.
  The second big step was the audit that came out yesterday. It was 
quite revealing. The auditors themselves say that they cannot issue an 
opinion as to the fiscal conditions of the House of Representatives 
because the records are so bad. They just cannot even issue an opinion 
about what is the condition of the financial records here in this 
audit.
  They identified millions of dollars that are not accounted for in the 
body. They make over 200 recommendations of changes that need to take 
place, like privatizing the gift shop, privatizing 

[[Page H 7252]]
the supply store, centralized personnel records, establishing storage 
space fees to make warehouse storage for congressional inventories 
self-supporting, eliminating and contracting out the House office 
furnishing functions, and they go on and on and on.
  The reason for me to point this out is this past
   weekend I was in Pittsburgh, Kansas, in my district, for a four 
State farm show. We had about an hour and a half town meeting at this 
farm show where a number of people gathered underneath a tent and we 
carried this on radio throughout much of the southern portion of my 
district. And it was interesting.

  The lead question was not about what are we going to do about the 
farm bill, although there was interest on that, and it was not so much 
really about how are we going to reform what is taking place within the 
Federal Government. The lead question I got was when are you going to 
clean up the House itself? I noted the reforms we have done, a one-
third cut in staff reductions, reducing ice buckets, or eliminating ice 
buckets being delivered to our office, and some of the proposals being 
put forward about the gift ban.
  But one of the biggest things we have to do to reinstill the faith 
and confidence of the American people in their representative body is 
follow through on this audit, wherever our noses lead us to, whatever 
we might see that needs to be changed to open up. The second big step 
has taken place. We have got a lot further to go, and I recommend that 
many people look at this audit and see what is in it. It is a scathing 
indictment of the financial condition and how his House has been 
operated in the past. It is scathing.
                              {time}  2230

  I have never seen an audit of a governmental body that has been 
declared such a mess of an institution. The first two big steps have 
been taken. We have got to keep pressing forward with these reforms 
that are suggested in the audit and keep looking and searching and 
finding until we lift the dome off of everything and show the people 
what has been going on.


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