[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 75 (Wednesday, June 2, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H3693]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             WASHINGTON WASTE WATCHERS REPORT ON USDA WASTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I rise again today as a member of the 
Washington Waste Watchers, a Republican working group dedicated to 
rooting out rampant waste, fraud, abuse and duplication in the Federal 
bureaucracy.
  Despite the major economic recovery that is under way, despite more 
new jobs and historic rates of homeownership, Democrats keep demanding 
that we take tax relief away from American families. Take away the tax 
relief that is responsible for the unparalleled growth in our economy, 
the tax relief that is creating jobs, the very same tax relief that has 
actually added revenues to our Federal Treasury. That is right, the 
Treasury Department reports that revenues are up due to tax relief-
generated economic growth.
  When it comes to the Federal deficit, Mr. Speaker, our fiscal 
challenges lie on the spending side, not on the taxing side; and that 
is where we must focus our attention. And by any measure, spending is 
out of control in Washington. For only the fourth time in the history 
of our Nation, the Federal Government is now spending over $20,000 per 
family. This is up from just $16,000 just 5 years ago. This represents 
the largest expansion of the government in 50 years. Since I have been 
alive, the Federal budget has grown seven times faster than the family 
budget.
  Clearly we have a spending problem, not a taxing problem. Now is not 
the time to raise taxes on American families, as so many Democrats seek 
to do; but it is time to take the trash out in Washington, the waste, 
the fraud, the abuse, the duplication.
  Let me give you just a few typical examples we found recently in just 
one government department, the Department of Agriculture. The Office of 
Rural Rental Housing made $4.4 million in rental subsidy overpayments 
in just one State simply because they could not verify the income of 
the recipients.
  Can you imagine going to a bank or an automobile dealer and having 
them just hand out a loan without verifying your income? Do they not 
typically ask for a pay stub or a tax return? It is only common sense 
in the rest of America, but apparently not with many Federal 
bureaucrats. And Democrats want to raise our taxes to pay for more of 
this? $4.4 million of the people's hard-earned money squandered. That 
is enough money to fully armor 142 Humvees in Iraq.
  Because the Rural Utility Service will not allow water and waste 
projects to be funded by both government grants and private loan 
sources, American taxpayers paid for more than $85 million of 
unnecessary grants over a 4-year period. This same agency made loans 
totaling about $100 million to projects that could have been financed 
with private credit. Instead, taxpayers, American families, were forced 
to finance them. This policy does not make any sense, yet Democrats 
want to raise our taxes to pay for more of this? That $85 million in 
unnecessary grants could have been used to purchase over 53,000 Kevlar 
vests for our troops in Iraq.
  Mr. Speaker, almost everyone believes that we should help provide 
adequate nutrition for the neediest Americans; but because a food stamp 
program State agency in the Midwest did not provide oversight over its 
field offices, and because they had not performed a management review 
in over 7 years, almost $2 million in Federal funding was improperly 
spent on administration of the food stamp program in the year 2000. 
That money could have bought 720,000 gallons of milk for food stamp 
recipients in Indiana.
  Mr. Speaker, can you imagine starting up a small business and not 
reviewing your finances for over 7 years? My guess is the business 
would go bankrupt. Yet Democrats want to raise our taxes to pay for 
more of this?
  Mr. Speaker, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The list goes on 
and on and on, and so does the waste, the fraud, the abuse and 
duplication. It has been going on for decades.
  Republicans are working hard to root out the waste of American tax 
dollars, but too often our Democrat colleagues keep fighting us every 
step of the way. Last year, the Committee on the Budget approved a 
budget asking for authorizing committees to identify just 1 percent, 
just 1 percent, of waste and fraud and abuse within their budgets. But 
again the Democrats fought us every step of the way. One of their 
leaders reviled our efforts, ridiculed it, and said it was ``a 
senseless and irresponsible exercise.''
  Mr. Speaker, the American people disagree. With the Nation at war and 
with a large Federal budget deficit, there is no better time than now 
to root out this senseless waste, fraud and abuse, because when it 
comes to Federal programs, it is not how much money Washington spends 
that counts; it is how Washington spends it.

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