[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10648-H10649]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      WASTEFUL GOVERNMENT SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, talk about the President's leadership. 
He has only had two cabinet meetings in this Congress. But yet he has 
had over 80 fund-raisers in different areas raising millions of dollars 
each time. He was scheduled to go to Florida while we are sitting here 
working.
  But that is not what I am here to talk about, Mr. Speaker. I wanted 
to reiterate what the previous speaker said.
  I want to point out some areas where there is wasteful government and 
the difference between my colleagues on the other side that believe 
that government can do things better and on the Republican side and 
some Democrats feel that the people can do more with their own money.
  Any time you send dollars to Washington, D.C., Mr. Speaker, about 
half of it is wasted. In welfare reform, less than 50 cents on the 
dollar gets back down to welfare. In education, less

[[Page H10649]]

than 50 cents on the dollar gets down to the classroom because of the 
bureaucracies. Let me go through to be specific.
  In the previous Congress, I was chairman of a subcommittee on 
education, K through 12 education, basically. There was a direct 
lending program, a government program to where student loans emanated 
out of the government.
  The GAO did a study and in their report said that it cost, this was 
capped at 10 percent, only 10 percent of government loans. It cost a 
billion dollars annually, billion, not million, to run the program. It 
cost 5 million to collect it, because the government did not have the 
agencies to go out and collect it. So what we wanted to do is privatize 
it and cut those losses.

                              {time}  2015

  We did that.
  In the balanced budget, the President wanted $3 billion for a new 
literacy program. California is 50th in literacy. Much to do, I think, 
because we have a lot of immigrants that come to California and the 
border States. But it was 50th in literacy. So when the President 
announced $3 billion for a new literacy program, it sounded pretty 
good, until we took a look.
  There are 14 literacy programs in the Department of Education. 
Fourteen of them. What is wrong with taking one or two of those, Mr. 
Speaker? And when we have an authorization, we may authorize this much, 
but when it comes time for the dollars we may only authorize and 
appropriate this many dollars? What is wrong with picking one or two of 
those and not just fully funding them but actually increasing them?
  Title I is one of those that is underfunded by the Federal 
Government. We could get rid of the bureaucrats, because every one of 
those programs has bureaucrats that have a salary and retirement. That 
comes out of the education funds. They have a building here in 
Washington that we pay rent on. The paperwork that they generate takes 
dollars away from the classroom.
  There are 760 Federal education programs, Mr. Speaker, which allow us 
to get less than 50 cents on a dollar down to the classroom. What we 
want to do is get 90 or 95 percent of the dollars down to the classroom 
so that the teachers, the parents, the community and the administrators 
can make the decisions for their children instead of the bureaucrats 
here in Washington, D.C.
  I had a hearing and we had eight different areas testifying. They all 
had the greatest programs since sliced bread. At the end of the hearing 
I asked which of them had any one of the other seven's programs. None 
of them. I said, that is the whole idea. Everyone likes their own 
programs.
  We want to give them each a block grant, instead of mandating all the 
other seven programs in all the other districts, in which there are 
only minuscule dollars then to run the programs that they like. We 
could give them a block grant, and they could pick the program that is 
good for them, because Wisconsin may be a lot different than San Diego, 
California, or Hoboken, or wherever it happens to be.
  Washington, D.C. My colleagues talk about school construction. 
Washington has some of the worst schools in this Nation. Over 70 
percent of the children graduate functionally illiterate. The school 
houses were falling apart; their roofs caving in. School was canceled. 
Fire codes were not met. Schools did not start timely last year because 
of construction. The average age is over 60 years.
  We wanted to waive Davis-Bacon requirements, which is the prevailing 
wage or union wage, to construct those schools. And my colleagues said, 
oh, they are for the children.
  Well, we could have saved $24 million to build new schools in D.C. on 
that limited budget, because it cost 35 percent, Mr. Speaker, by going 
to union wage. We could have saved $24 million that would have gone to 
build those Washington, D.C., schools and repair those roofs. But did 
our colleagues choose the children? No, they chose their precious 
union, because it finances their campaigns. Watch the media if anyone 
has any doubt about that.
  Mr. Speaker, we had the Individuals with Disabilities Act; special 
education. It had never been fully funded, and the Republicans funded 
that. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the chairman of 
the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and I worked and put the 
two factions of the schools and the parents together, with no food or 
water, until they came out of the room and, finally, we came up with 
something fairly good. There are still problems, but we funded it up 
toward the 40 percent level.
  Impact aid. The President totally cut out impact aid, education aid 
for military and Indian reservations.
  We have done a lot, Mr. Speaker.

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