[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25491]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  OUR APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS IS BROKEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. WATSON) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, today, the House Republican leadership is 
clearing up a mess they made three weeks ago.
  On November 20, 2004, House Republicans sent to the floor another 
unwieldy omnibus spending bill, 2 months late and billions of dollars 
short for America's education, health care and homeland security needs. 
It was not until the last moment that we discovered that Republicans 
had slipped in a hidden provision that would have let Congress read the 
tax returns of any individual American taxpayer and reveal the contents 
to the public, with no penalties for committing such a flagrant 
violation of privacy.
  Republicans quickly and vocally distanced themselves from this 
provision, and I have no doubt that my Republican colleagues were as 
ashamed as I was that this provision almost became law. But where the 
Republican leadership continues to fail is by claiming this is an 
isolated mistake. The ugly truth is that it is a symptom of a 
legislative process that is broken.
  In a democracy, the legislative process relies on free and open 
exchange of ideas. After the final rollcall, there are winners and 
there are losers, but the system works because all sides know that the 
issues were debated openly, and the results were reached fairly.
  The process Congress has used to fund our government for the past 3 
years falls short of this ideal. In fact, it does not even come close. 
A few Republican leaders work day and night, behind closed doors, to 
prepare a document thousands of pages long. Then, the report is filed 
in the middle of the night, and Members are asked to vote on it the 
following morning. The people's elected representatives are forced to 
cast votes on a bill that funds half of the Federal Government, yet few 
people have actually read it.

                              {time}  1915

  The result is inevitable: bad law. Sometimes it is dramatically bad, 
like the sneak-and-peek tax provision in this year's bill. But more 
often it is boringly bad: billions wasted on the wrong priorities, 
monies that could go to education, health care, or Homeland Security 
instead going to someone's pet boondoggle. But just because it is 
boring does not make it any better.
  Mr. Speaker, we owe the American taxpayer better accountability of 
the money they send to us. As the President is fond of saying, it is 
not our money. It belongs to the taxpayers. And the taxpayers are right 
to demand better government policy.
  I urge the Speaker to uphold the House's own rules on conference 
reports. Give us a chance to read bills before we have to vote on them, 
and give the American people a chance to have a free and open debate on 
how their taxpayer dollars are spent.

                          ____________________