[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 137 (Saturday, September 28, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11613-S11616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE OMNIBUS APPROPRIATIONS BILL

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are now in the final hours, it appears, 
of the process of wrapping up this session of Congress and putting 
together an omnibus appropriations bill, which I understand late last 
night was agreed to between the White House and the Congress.
  I want to talk a little bit about this process and specifically about 
sections of that bill which I have responsibility for, or had 
responsibility for as chairman of the Senate Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and State.
  I have to say, I was startled by the manner in which these 
proceedings went forward. I was discouraged. The taxpayers, to put it 
quite simply, have been fleeced. It is beyond my most pessimistic 
anticipations that the events that occurred in the spending of 
taxpayers' dollars over the last few days would have occurred under a 
Republican Congress. I can understand that they have occurred under a 
liberal Presidency, a Democratic Presidency, but to have them occur 
under a Republican Congress is, I think, a sad and trying day for the 
American taxpayer who has traditionally looked to the Republicans for 
fiscal responsibility.
  The budget, as it was proposed by the Republican Congress, basically 
flat funded discretionary spending accounts of the United States for 
the next year. We were, however, put in the very difficult position--
and the blame does not really lie with the Congress here; it lies with 
the Presidency--we were put, I should say are put, in the very 
difficult position by the President that if we did not spend a heck of 
a lot more money in a heck of a lot of other accounts, he would veto 
the proposals of our Congress. The Congress had put together proposals, 
the purpose of which was to institute financial responsibility.
  You have to understand that not only ourselves, but especially our 
children will be facing a nation which will end up being fiscally 
bankrupt if we do not undertake some responsibility.
  We have been spending more money than we have been taking in for a 
long period of time. Although the number is going down, the fact is, it 
still is a considerable number, over $100 billion of deficit this year, 
and as we move into the outer years here, as we move into the year 2000 
and beyond, it goes back rather sharply.
  So the need for fiscal responsibility has not left, or should not 
have left, the agenda of American Government. Yet, the White House told 
us that if we did not spend a great deal more money in a number of 
accounts which they were interested in, that they would veto the bills 
and they would force us into a shutdown of the Government.

[[Page S11614]]

  The leadership of the Congress, appreciating the fact that the last 
time the Government was shut down--the Congress came out with a pretty 
black eye--decided to try to accommodate the White House. Every time a 
decision was made to accommodate the White House and the 
administration, more money was demanded. It became a process of goal 
posts moving, which has become the term around here that most 
adequately describes how this spending has occurred. But what it has 
meant is basically a geometric progression, the spending of which the 
American taxpayers have to bear.
  Some of these accounts which the White House has asked to spend money 
on are just classic liberal, profligate spending undertakings, and they 
are dollars which the American people, if they knew about them, if they 
were put in the context of disclosure, simply would not accept that 
type of spending.
  Some of those accounts, unfortunately, were in categories which were 
under my auspices with the Commerce, Justice, and State Subcommittee, 
and I want to discuss a few of them because I think they should at 
least be on the record as to what has happened here, how American tax 
dollars are being spent by this administration. This is the most 
liberal administration that I have ever seen during my term in 
Government.

  You know, this President wanders around the countryside talking as a 
moderate, but the simple fact is that this administration is governing 
on the far left of the spending when it comes to spending American tax 
dollars. Let me cite a few examples that I think confirm this.
  Let us begin with the United Nations. In the bill which we proposed, 
which Congress proposed, we had limited the amount of spending to the 
United Nations. We had decided that we would not pay what is known as 
arrearages in peacekeeping and we would not pay what is known as 
arrearages to the various international organizations.
  Why? Because the United Nations is an institution that is penetrated 
throughout with patronage. It is an institution which has wasted 
millions and millions of dollars, and every dollar that is wasted at 
the United Nations, every time some friend of some friend or some 
cousin of some leader from some country is hired by the United Nations 
to fill a nonexisting job or a job that is basically nonfunctional at 
some outrageous pay level, every time that occurs, 25 percent of the 
dollars spent on that individual come out of an American taxpayers's 
wallet. The record is replete with abuses and with mismanagement and 
with waste which has become the character of the United Nations 
management.
  The average U.N. salary for a mid-level accountant is $84,000--
$84,000 for a mid-level accountant. That same person living in New York 
City working for a non-United Nations entity would be paid on the 
average $41,000. Twice as much is paid to the U.N. individual, plus 
they do not pay taxes. The man or woman who is working in New York City 
has to pay taxes.
  The average U.N. computer analysis person receives $111,000 tax 
free--$111,000. The average American doing that same job, and probably 
does a lot better job and I bet works a lot more hours, gets $56,000.
  An assistant to the Secretary-General, of which there are 
innumerable, gets $190,000. That is $60,000 more than we pay the Mayor 
of New York who actually works for a living.
  The fact is that this institution is mismanaged and is dominated by 
patronage.
  Now the administration wants us to spend an extra $225 million to pay 
back fees, back payments and to pay operating costs so that we can 
reimburse them for this mismanagement and we can fund this 
mismanagement out into the future.
  In order to try to get some hold on this, the Congress said to the 
administration, well, before we are going to pay anything more of any 
significance, we want a certification that the United Nations is living 
within the agreement which was reached as a result of the pressure put 
on it by us that it would have a no-growth budget.
  In an act of a very serious--I think very serious--question of 
integrity, we have now received such a certification that the United 
Nations has a zero-growth budget. Well, that is impossible because the 
United Nations is already over its budget. We know it is over its 
budget. It is over its budget, by our estimates, by over $100 million. 
Yet, we received this certification from the administration. So you 
have to even question the atmosphere in which this administration is 
functioning relative to the United Nations.
  It appears they are willing not only to throw money at it, but they 
are willing to stand up for their dishonesty within the United Nations. 
They are willing to stand up for the mismanagement within the United 
Nations. They are willing to stand up for the patronage within the 
United Nations at the expense of the American taxpayer.
  Then, of course, we also know that this administration, on a number 
of occasions, has expressed their willingness to have American troops 
fight under the command of the United Nations, which is a mistake in 
and of itself. What is more classically liberal--what is more 
classically liberal--than funding an agency like the United Nations at 
an excessive level?

  I do not argue with the need to have the United Nations. I happen to 
think the United Nations makes a great deal of sense. My disagreement 
here goes to the fact that we are essentially paying for its 
mismanagement, gross mismanagement, and that we are doing it with 
blinders on. This administration takes the attitude that anything that 
is a world community exercise, the United States taxpayers should pay 
for it, and pay dearly for it.
  When they came to us after we had raised the level of reimbursement 
to the United Nations to a level which I felt was unacceptable--but I 
went along with the House--the administration came back and said that 
we were $220 million short--$220 million short--of what they wanted for 
the United Nations. In fact on my bill, they said we are a half a 
billion short, let us throw another half billion dollars into these 
programs. Why? Because they knew they had the Congress between a rock 
and a hard place.
  They wanted to fund all their favorite little interest groups, in 
this case, interest groups within the international community, 
different international organizations, some of which are only marginal 
in their worth. They wanted to fund all these little different interest 
groups, and they knew they could do it because they recognized they had 
won the last battle about closing the Government down, and now they 
figured, well, the Congress is going to have to fold on all these 
issues. And unfortunately we have.
  So, out of the taxpayers' pocketbooks and wallets in New Hampshire 
and Arizona, hard-earned dollars--people working 40, 50 hours a week 
trying to make mortgage payments, trying to send their kids to school, 
having to pay their taxes now at a rate barely as high as a result of 
the tax increase under the first 2 years of this administration--those 
dollars are now going to fund John Jones, I suspect the person's name 
is not John Jones, some name I probably could not pronounce, from some 
country because John Jones had a cousin in the government who could get 
him a job at the United Nations where he would get paid x thousands of 
dollars more than an American doing the same job, and the person does 
not even have to show up to work.
  In fact, ironically, one of the reforms we asked for and which was 
put in at the United Nations was a turnstile. We ask for a turnstile so 
we could figure out who was going to work. It turns out the returns 
were so bad that the United Nations staff forced the administration to 
take the turnstile out because they did not want to have people keeping 
track whether they ever showed up for work.
  The fact is the United Nations is an institution, is an institution 
that is good, relative to its purpose, but as a practical manner, the 
matter in which it practices, the manner in which it manages itself, 
and the manner in which it spends its money is horrible. It is the 
American taxpayer that bears the burden, and the administration at the 
last minute, because they had the Congress by the throat, came in and 
said we need hundreds of millions--not hundreds, but $200 million. That 
is a lot. In fact, we could run the State of New Hampshire for quite a 
while on $200 million--more money to take care of their activities and 
to fund an agency which has not shown any fiscal discipline at all.

[[Page S11615]]

  That is only one example of this liberal agenda which has caused the 
White House to come in here and dump all sorts of new dollars into 
different interest groups. This administration uses the Federal 
Treasury as its own little campaign financing mechanism. They used 
something called SCSEP (Senior Community Service Employment Program) to 
finance some of the most activist labor groups, and they use something 
called ATP to finance the friendships with the corporate world. ATP you 
probably have never heard of that. Well, it is something called the 
Advanced Technology Program where we go out and pick winners and losers 
in the technology communities--not with a lot of dollars, but we go out 
and we pick them. It is ironic who gets picked, ironic who gets picked.
  The idea here was we would set up a pool of money and people with 
good ideas that could not get it funded in the private sector would be 
able to come to the Government and the Government would fund those 
ideas. That, in concept, is good, a good idea I suppose. If you happen 
to believe the Government should be in the business of deciding winners 
and losers in the marketplace and in the technology arena and there are 
certain technologies which the private sector is not going to fund, 
then it probably makes sense to do that.
  I suspect there are some instances where a technology concept--
remember, this is commercialization, this is not R&D. I should make 
that point. This is not R&D activity, but for items which will 
commercialize. We have literally billions of dollars committed to 
research, billions of dollars in all sorts of different accounts. This 
is purely an R&D, purely an applied research effort. The expectation is 
that almost all this will go to some sort of commercialization.
  The argument was that the opportunity for return on these 
undertakings was so low or the likelihood of return was so low that 
nobody would fund them. First, that assumes that the marketplace cannot 
pick winners and losers in the technology field. That is a position 
that is hard to defend in America today where we see such an explosion 
of technology activity, literally billions and billions of dollars 
going into research which is applied and presumed going to go to 
commercialization, where we see billions and billions of dollars going 
into IPO's, where we see major corporations spending billions and 
billions of dollars on research. The concept that an idea which really 
has a commercial applicability, which has a potential, will not find a 
place to be funded, within the private sector is, I think, hard to 
argue, but that was the argument that was made.

  So we set up this thing called the ATP. You would presume if that was 
the case, we are going to fund technology which has only a marginal 
likelihood of success, so marginal that the private sector is not 
willing to fund it, but has commercial applicability. You would think 
if that were the case, then the logical recipients of those funds would 
be small entrepreneurial efforts. That should be the case. Obviously, 
if someone cannot get funded, the odds are that they are a small 
entrepreneurial effort. You would not expect that General Motors, Ford, 
Exxon, AT&T, IBM, General Electric, the biggies, the international 
organizations, a few Japanese organizations, a few German 
organizations, you would not expect those types of companies would be 
in line for this type of a grant program.
  In fact, I think, most Americans if they were told this type of 
program existed, would say, sure, Mary Mason down the road, who 
happened to be a brilliant computer person, should have a right to 
compete for that. But General Motors, are you kidding me--General 
Motors? I just bought a car from them and it was an outrageous price. 
They make tons of money.
  This program has become a little piggy bank, a little cookie jar is a 
better term, a cookie jar into which the Fortune 500 companies stick 
their hands. This is the list of how the awards under this program went 
in 1994 and 1995. I will read down through the companies that received 
these awards because I think it is important, because it shows the 
nature of this program and what it is really being used for, which is 
to basically try to buy friendships in the business communities: 
General Motors, Ford, Exxon, AT&T, IBM, General Electric, Mobile, 
Chrysler, DuPont, Texaco, Chevron, Hewlett-Packard, Amoco, Motorola, 
Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, Dow Chemical, Boeing, Xerox, U.S. 
Steel, Bell South, 3M, Caterpillar--the list goes on. You get the idea. 
The fact is this program has become an outrage. It is corporate pork at 
its worst.
  However, the administration comes in and says we must continue this 
program. You would think, listening to the administration, especially 
this President, that the Republican Party was the voice of corporate 
America. Well, it happened to be the Republican Senate which zeroed 
this program out, and it happens to be the Democratic liberal 
Presidency which wants to continue this program at excessive levels of 
funding--$265 million was their demand for next year's funding of this 
program, $265 million.
  Now, why? Well, because, basically it takes care of their friends in 
the corporate community. It is a way for the Secretary of Commerce to 
be able to communicate. We have corporate America--send in a grant, we 
will send you some money; now, what do you want to talk about? It is 
done with the tax dollars of the American people and the American 
people should be outraged. It is classic liberal government, spending 
their money on programs that picks winners and losers in the 
marketplace, which goes to the Fortune 500 leadership, dollars which 
are scarce and which could be used much better by an American to go out 
and buy a product that was important to them and their family, or maybe 
help them go to school, or maybe help pay their mortgages, but instead 
this President wants to take those dollars out of your pocketbook and 
give them to these corporations to do things which obviously companies 
of this size, if they want to do it, they can do it. The idea that 
these companies need help in deciding their priorities on research and 
spending money on research is so absurd it should not even be 
discussed.
  So it is not an argument for the substance of the program that 
generates this funding, because the substance cannot be defended. The 
only reason this funding exists is because under the liberal form of 
leadership which this administration represents they like to be able to 
pick winners and losers in the marketplace and they like to spend tax 
dollars.
  Now, this bill overall that I had jurisdiction over until I was 
unceremoniously removed because I was too disruptive to the process, 
because I kept saying we should be concerned about our tax dollars, 
this bill spends $500 million more. It does not spend it yet, that is 
what the administration wants, $500 million more than what was offered 
to the administration, which happened to be $1 billion more than what 
the bill was when it left this Senate Chamber.
  It never left the Chamber. It never got out. When it left the Senate 
subcommittee that I chair, we were a billion dollars below our offer to 
the White House, as we brought up all these different accounts to try 
to satisfy the profligacy of the White House spending condition over 
some significant frustration of my own. And then the administration 
came in and said that is not enough. They wanted another $500 million. 
I wish that that were all that were in this package, $500 million. We 
could live with that. This is true across the board, in account after 
account. The administration came in and demanded massive more dollars 
in spending, and because they know that we have the Congress in a 
position basically where politically they have us by the throat, to be 
very honest, where they know that they have set up a scenario where if 
this Government is shut down, they feel they win politically and the 
American people will take their frustrations out on the Congress--that 
the Congressional leadership decided that they are going to allow the 
White House to get away with this raid on the American Treasury and, 
therefore, the American taxpayer.
  I think it is a mistake, and I think we ought to take this issue to 
the American people. I think the American people will understand that 
there is a big difference between the shutdown that occurred a year ago 
and the desire of this administration to spend money

[[Page S11616]]

like it is water. The fact is that this President is now in the middle 
of a Presidential election. He is campaigning on the theme that he is a 
moderate. In fact, I heard Al Gore in New Hampshire call himself of a 
``fiscal conservative''--the Vice President of the United States. Well, 
this is not fiscal conservatism, spending this type of money. Spending 
$220 million more on the United Nations so they can hire patronage is 
not fiscal conservatism. Picking winners and losers in the marketplace 
and having the winners be Fortune 500 companies, who can take care of 
themselves when it comes to R&D, is not fiscal conservatism. Spending 
$6.5 billion more of the American taxpayers dollars and putting it, for 
all intents and purposes, on the deficit is not fiscal conservatism. It 
is liberalism. It is the classic situation where you buy votes with tax 
dollars and you spend money without regard to where it is going or how 
it is being accounted for, but only with regard to what the political 
pluses are from it. It comes back to roost--not to us, maybe, in our 
generation immediately, but certainly to our children, as they have to 
pay the bills.
  It is a mistake. I felt it should be on the record from somebody, 
because nobody seems to want to talk about it around here. So I am 
taking these few minutes to make these points.
  I yield back my time.
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. THOMAS. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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