[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 51 (Friday, April 19, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E583-E584]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    PROBLEMS WITH TRUTH IN BUDGETING

                                 ______


                            HON. BILL ORTON

                                of utah

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 18, 1996

  Mr. ORTON. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the House considered and passed 
H.R. 842, the so-called Truth in Budgeting Act. During my statements in 
opposition to this unwise bill, I made reference to a letter sent last 
year by the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, in 
opposition to this bill.
  I would now like to enter this letter into the Record. I believe it 
makes a compelling case against enacting this bill into law.
                                      Council for Citizens Against


                                             Government Waste,

                                   Washington, DC, March 16, 1995.
       Dear Representative: We were intrigued when we learned of 
     proposals to move the various transportation trust funds off-
     budget and out of the hands of the usual budgeting and 
     appropriations process. Despite proponents' arguments for 
     ``truth in budgeting,'' we discovered that advocates of off-
     budget transportation trust funds seek not to increase fiscal 
     accountability but to increase the ease of pork-barrel 
     spending.
       While the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 
     does not have a corner on congressional pork-barrel spending, 
     the committee's record is seriously tarnished. The 1991 
     Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), 
     replete with such dubious pork as studying the use of zebra 
     mussels as an infrastructure building material or building 
     bicycle paths with highway funds, is as much evidence as we 
     need to conclude that the off-budget trust funds proposal 
     lacks credibility.
       There is also alarming and vicious counterattack from pork-
     barrelers to Rep. Bill

[[Page E584]]

     Orton's suggestion that line-item veto authority extend to 
     ``contract authority'' for which transportation 
     authorizations are famous. Since the Council for Citizens 
     Against Government Waste (CCAGW) testified at joint line-item 
     veto hearings in favor of presidential authority over 
     contract authority as proposed by Rep. Orton, you can 
     understand that we are suspicious that the off-budget 
     transportation trust funds gambit is yet another end-run for 
     the pork-barrel goal line.
       The past pattern of pork-barrel abuse in funding highway, 
     airport and waterway projects compels us to recommend in the 
     strongest possible manner that you defeat any attempt to move 
     the transportation trust funds off-budget. Indeed, a message 
     needs to be sent to the entire Transportation and 
     Infrastructure Committee--majority and minority--that we had 
     an election last November. The old days are gone.
       A final note: Not gone, apparently, are threats to cancel 
     projects in the districts of legislative opponents, an all-
     too-frequent bullying tactic of the folks who used to run 
     Congress that showed up again in the debate on the Orton 
     amendment to the line-item veto bill. CCAGW deplores such 
     threats and, knowing that the public would not take kindly to 
     such intimidation and threats, hopes Members will make them 
     known when they occur.
           Sincerely,
     Tom Schatz,
                                                        President.
     Joe Winkelmann,
     Chief Lobbyist.

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