[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 9 (Wednesday, February 2, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E157]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E157]]
    CHANGING THE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE ON BEHALF OF THE DEMOCRATS

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 2, 2005

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, when the Ways and Means Committee held our 
organizational meeting earlier today, I offered an amendment to change 
the committee rules on behalf of the Democrats. My amendment would have 
allowed the minority party to conduct oversight hearings on the 
administration when the majority refused to do so. Such a change is 
vitally important because, with Republicans controlling both Congress 
and the White House, it is clear that they do not want to expose 
problems that exist in the Bush administration.
  Below is my statement in support of the amendment I offered. It was 
defeated on party lines. I encourage my colleagues and the public to 
read this statement and take notice of the fact that Congress' duty to 
conduct oversight is being undermined in this Republican-run House of 
Representatives. The full statement follows:

       As we consider changes to the Committee's rules, I have an 
     amendment to offer on behalf of the Democrats.
       The purpose of my amendment is to restore the duty of 
     oversight to our committee. Since President Bush took office, 
     House Republicans have decided that conducting oversight of 
     the Administration is not a necessary function. We'd like to 
     fix that.
       My amendment is very straightforward. It would allow the 
     Ranking Member to request in writing that the Chairman hold a 
     hearing regarding alleged ethical misconduct or any violation 
     of the law by an Administration employee. If the Chairman 
     chose not to hold a hearing within 30 calendar days, then the 
     minority would be allowed to move forward with an official 
     Ways and Means Hearing. We would schedule it. We would invite 
     the witnesses. We would have subpoena authority as well.
       Why is this amendment needed?
       This amendment is vitally necessary because the Committee 
     on Ways and Means is no longer doing its job with regard to 
     protecting the integrity of the programs under our 
     jurisdiction.
       The lack of oversight is a problem across our committees in 
     Congress, but let me provide three prime examples of this 
     problem with the Ways and Means Committee's jurisdiction:
       Medicare: There are at least two incidents--that we know 
     of--related to the Medicare debate from the 108th Congress.
       First, the Committee failed to fulfill its duties 
     investigating former CMS Administrator Tom Scully's actions 
     to gag Chief Actuary Rick Foster from responding to our 
     requests relating to the Medicare bill in 2003. Given that I 
     had always assumed we had a mutual interest in protecting the 
     prerogatives of the Committee and Congress, I was surprised 
     and disappointed that the majority doesn't apparently share 
     this view.
       The Chairman may well try to make the case that we held two 
     hearings on this last year. While we did hold one routine 
     hearing on the Trustees Report, which happens each year, the 
     other one came about only because Democrats forced it through 
     the use of House Rule 11. However, because we had no subpoena 
     authority, neither Tom Scully nor Domestic Policy Advisor 
     Doug Badger were willing to testify at the hearing. Since 
     they were the key witnesses, our hearing was fairly 
     meaningless. The Chairman had said he would support 
     additional efforts if ``laws had been broken.'' Later 
     independent analysis from both CRS and GAO found that laws 
     had indeed been broken, but the promised oversight never 
     materialized.
       Separate from the Scully incident was the discovery that 
     CMS had paid consultants to produce news videos on the 
     Medicare prescription drug bill. GAO found that these ads 
     were covert propaganda and should not have been allowed. In 
     their report, the GAO General Counsel stated, ``In a modest 
     but meaningful way, the publicity or propaganda restriction 
     helps to mark the boundary between an agency making 
     information available to the public and agencies creating 
     news reports unbeknownst to the receiving audience.''
       Marriage Promotion: Now we're discovering that the use of 
     propaganda was not limited to promoting last year's Medicare 
     bill. Everyone has already heard about the Department of 
     Education grant to conservative talk show host Armstrong 
     Williams. But, that isn't in our committee's jurisdiction. 
     Other examples are however.
       Thanks to the work of reporters at the Washington Post, 
     Salon and USA Today (thankfully those entities still do 
     oversight), it has been discovered that HHS has provided 
     grants to columnists to promote Bush's marriage promotion 
     agenda.
       Specifically, Maggie Gallagher, a syndicated columnist, was 
     paid $21,500 to promote the Bush marriage agenda in her 
     columns. She is president of the Institute for Marriage and 
     Public Policy, a frequent television guest, and has written 
     on marriage for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and 
     Weekly Standard. She did not disclose that HHS had paid her 
     to promote the marriage initiative when she was touting it in 
     columns and on television.
       Michael McManus, a conservative author and self-proclaimed 
     marriage expert, who writes a syndicated column ``Ethics & 
     Religion'' also received federal funds from HHS to train 
     ``marriage mentors'' ($4000) and $49,000 to promote marriage 
     among unwed couples. He did not disclose this relationship 
     when writing in support of the marriage initiative in his 
     columns during this same time.
       Social Security: Last week, two Social Security 
     Administration employees came forth to raise their concerns 
     that government employees within SSA are being required to 
     promote President Bush's Social Security privatization 
     agenda. Aside from being improper, this is probably illegal 
     as well. Our Senate Democratic Colleagues exposed this latest 
     example of potential wrongdoing.
       Mr. Chairman, these are three glaring examples of potential 
     misuse of taxpayer funds in areas all under the jurisdiction 
     of our committee. Yet, we've done nothing to investigate 
     these allegations to discover if they are improper--or worse, 
     to find out if the problems are even more widespread.
       Many of us on the Democratic side of the aisle have stepped 
     up to investigate these allegations. We've requested GAO 
     reports as I've cited above. Unfortunately, there is no 
     enforcement for GAO when they find violations of the law. It 
     is up to us in Congress to pursue remedies or to change the 
     law to prevent future violations.
       I urge my colleagues to support my amendment. It seems very 
     clear that Republicans don't intend to do this oversight on 
     their own. At least give us the ability to conduct these 
     hearings and do our best to protect the taxpayers from the 
     misuse of government resources.

                          ____________________