[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 154 (Friday, September 29, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H9720-H9721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              WELFARE FOR LOBBYISTS AND A BALANCED BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington [Mr. Tate] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TATE. Mr. Speaker, once again on the issue of welfare for 
lobbyists, the facts remain, the President of the United States does 
not want to balance the budget. My good friends across the aisle are 
not serious about wanting go balance the budget. The fact is the 
Republicans have shown a proposal to want to balance the budget. What I 
do not understand is when we are $4.9 trillion in debt, and if my 
daughter Madeleine continues to live to 72, which she will live 
probably to 172, she will have to pay in her lifetime $187,150 just to 
balance the budget.
  So why in the world would we subsidize lobbying, when we have all of 
these other needs out there? Why would we provide taxpayer funds for 
lobbyists?
  Basically in my district, as you can see, they are running 
advertising, $85,000 in television ads and Medicare ads and telephone 
calling. But it is the National Council of Senior Citizens that shows 
up again as one of those groups that receives over $70,000.
  Mr. McINTOSH. If the gentleman will yield, are you telling me this 
group who receives 96 percent of its funds from the Federal Government 
has bought television campaign ads in your district?
  Mr. TATE. That is absolutely correct.
  Mr. McINTOSH. That is incredible. No wonder it is difficult to get to 
a balanced budget when you have all these federally subsidized 
lobbyists out there fighting us tooth and nail.
  Mr. TATE. The point to keep in mind is we are sending out tax dollars 
to groups to lobby for more of our tax dollars. There is something 
wrong there.
  I would like to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota, also a member 
of the subcommittee that held the hearing yesterday.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I would like to thank the gentleman from Washington 
for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to talk a little bit about some of the 
testimony we have heard. I do not remember the exact number, Chairman 
McIntosh, of hours of hearings we have had about this issue, but there 
are several things that surprise me, and frankly just shock me, in the 
testimony we have heard.
  First of all, there are, in fact, groups out there receiving over 96 
percent of their entire budget in Federal grants and then turning 
around and engaging almost exclusively in what I would describe as 
political activity. That is shocking enough.

  But I will tell you what surprises me even more, and that is that 
some groups have come to Washington and have lobbied against this bill, 
and some good groups that do good things that we all know the names of, 
the YMCA, the Boy Scouts, that they would come to Washington and in 
effect defend this kind of activity. This is an affront I think to 
every taxpayer. It is in an affront to every democratic loving 
American, that groups can literally use and abuse the taxpayers' money 
to advance 

[[Page H 9721]]
their political agenda. It is almost as big an offense to me to see 
groups coming and defending this kind of activity.
  Now, I will be the first to admit that the legislation that is being 
advanced may not be perfect, but it is hard for me to imagine anybody 
saying that there is not a serious problem. This is a serious problem.
  This is probably only the tip of the iceberg. As the gentleman 
indicated, we are talking about $39 billion that is being disbursed. 
Much it is being funneled back into political activity. This may only 
be the tip of the iceberg. I think the taxpayers of the United States 
would be outraged if they knew this was going on.
  I appreciate the fact that the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. McIntosh] 
has had the courage to bring this bill forward with the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Ehrlich] and the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook]. As 
I say, I think this is something that has been simmering beneath the 
surface for too long, and I am glad we brought it forward.
  Mr. McINTOSH. I thank the gentleman for his comments. One of the 
things we found out in our hearing yesterday is that many of the groups 
like the Red Cross and the United Way and the YMCA who were testifying 
before us yesterday, would, in fact, not be affected in the amount of 
advocacy that they could engage in. Because we have a 5-percent de 
minimis rule, they do not spend that much in lobbying.
  My point essentially is that these groups would not be affected in 
their political advocacy because they are not big lobbying groups. But 
it is somewhat surprising that they are opposing this. I asked the YMCA 
do they disclose to their donors that they do a lot of advocacy and 
that they want to protect the ability of charitable groups to be 
lobbyists, and they did not really tell me how much they disclose that 
to their donors. They said they do a lot of mailings, but it was not 
quite clear when they asked them to give a donation if they tell 
somebody, ``You know, we might spend up to 5 percent of that to be a 
lobbying group.'' I think some people would want to know that when they 
are giving money to these groups.

                          ____________________