[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 24274-24275]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           WASTEFUL SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to continue speaking out tonight 
about very wasteful spending by the Federal Government. One of the most 
wasteful, extravagant programs in the entire Federal Government is the 
Job Corps.

[[Page 24275]]

It is now costing about $26,000 a year to put a student through this 
program, $26,000 a year. We could give each of these young people a 
$1,000 a month allowance, send them to some expensive private school 
and still save money. If we did that, these kids would feel like they 
had won a lottery, they would be so happy. We are still giving this 
scandalously wasteful program increases each year. The bill that will 
be before us next week increases the Job Corps appropriation to $1.4 
billion. If this bill or this program was good for children, then it 
would be worthwhile spending. However, the GAO has reported that only 
about 12 percent of the young people in this program end up in jobs for 
which they were trained, and that is after you give the Job Corps every 
benefit of the doubt and stretch the definition of a Job Corps type job 
to ludicrous limits. Actually the Job Corps is very harmful to young 
people. It takes money from parents and families, money that they could 
be spending on their children, and gives it instead to Federal 
bureaucrats and fat cat government contractors. That is who really 
benefits from the Job Corps program, the bureaucrats and the 
contractors.
  Also, there has been a real crime problem in the Job Corps program, 
including murders and many drug-related and very serious crimes. People 
who really want to help children would vote to end this very wasteful 
program or at least make them bring their cost per student down. 
$26,000 per year per Job Corps student is just ridiculous.
  Second, Mr. Speaker, I consider national defense to be one of the 
most important and legitimate functions of our national government, and 
the military is continually crying about a shortage of funds. Yet we 
find that the Air Force has spent $1.5 million to remodel the house of 
the commandant at the Air Force Academy including $267,000 simply to 
redo the kitchen. $267,000 should have bought a beautiful new home 
instead of being just blown on a kitchen. Now we find that the Navy has 
taken $10,260,000 from operations and family housing accounts to fix up 
the residences of three admirals. This comes out to more than 
$3,420,000 per home. These were the houses of the Chief of Naval 
Operations in Washington, the Commandant of the Naval Academy in 
Annapolis, and the Commander of the Pacific Fleet in Honolulu.
  Let me quickly mention two other examples of very wasteful spending.
  A few years ago I read a column by Henry Kissenger which said that 
the 50 to $60 billion we had sent in aid to Russia over the previous 5 
years or so had just been wasted. In 1991, Senator Sam Nunn, the 
Georgia Democrat, said giving monetary aid to the Soviet Union was like 
throwing money into a cosmic black hole. But do we ever learn? No. Now 
we find out many billions more of U.S. taxpayer money to Russia has 
been put into private accounts that are hidden all over the world, and 
our wealthy elitist foreign policy establishment will make fun of and 
sarcastically criticize anyone who opposes sending Russia many billions 
more.
  One final example is the $625,000 taxpayers have been ordered to pay 
by a Federal judge because Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and former 
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin illegally withheld documents in a 
lawsuit over Indian trust funds. The judge regretted that the burden 
would fall on taxpayers and that he could not fine the Cabinet 
secretaries themselves.
  We see over and over and over again that the Federal Government 
cannot do anything in an economical, efficient, low-cost manner. We see 
over and over again that today we have a Federal Government that is of, 
by and for the bureaucrats instead of one that is of, by and for the 
people.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, we see over and over again that if you want 
money to be wasted and spent in ridiculous, lavish ways, just send it 
to the Federal Government.

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