[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26070-26076]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                            NEW FISCAL YEAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. It is such a pleasure to come to the floor tonight as 
we start a new fiscal year for the U.S. Government.
  A new year is a time where you get to look back at what happened last 
year, where you get to redirect your focus and talk about what your 
priorities are going to be and the goals that you want to set.

                              {time}  2045

  Now, we all do that with our families as we get to the end of the 
calendar year and start the new calendar year in January. It is a time 
that we enjoy.
  I hope for each of us, as Members of the House, as we start this 
fiscal year, that we will put some attention on what we spend and how 
we spend.
  Now, Madam Speaker, over the weekend, I had the opportunity to do a 
town hall with some of my constituents. We got together yesterday 
afternoon after church over lunch. One of them said, ``Do you know, I 
have been reading Alan Greenspan's book. My goodness, it is amazing to 
me, absolutely amazing to me what Congress spends, how much money they 
spend. It is amazing to me that we have seen this debt skyrocket 
through the '70s, through the '80s and begin to level off through the 
'90s but still continue to grow. It is amazing to me that decisions are 
made that grow that debt. It is amazing to me that earmarks are out of 
control. Explain earmarks.''
  My constituent posed this question before the group because, like so 
many, once he looked at the issue, he realized that every time we grow 
a program, every time some new program comes along, every time Congress 
stands and says, ``We must meet this need,'' that there are two costs 
to that program. Of course, there is the dollars cost, and then there 
is also the opportunity cost, because if Government steps in and meets 
that need, the private or not-for-profit sector is not going to step in 
and meet that need. So my constituent posed this for the group to talk 
about. I said, ``What a great discussion to have. This is the last day 
of the fiscal year for the U.S. Government. Tomorrow is a new day. They 
turn a page in the book and start a new slate with the new budget.''
  Now, my constituent said that he would have loved to have seen the 
U.S. Government get to the end of the year and brag about how much 
money they had saved. But in reality, he knows that probably there is 
going to be more bragging done about special projects that go back home 
to the district in the form of earmarks.
  So we talked a little bit yesterday, Madam Speaker, about priorities, 
about earmarks and about how earmarks came to be. When communities have 
trouble coming in and going through the process, they will say, ``Oh, 
can you help us, Member of Congress, to get this set aside in the bill? 
Can you help us to find this money?'' Quite frankly, Madam Speaker, we 
all know not all earmarks are bad. It is the abuse of earmarks that are 
bad. As I came back this afternoon, I found on my desk a copy of 
Congressional Quarterly Weekly. You can find this at cq.com if someone 
wants to pull it up. In the article, they are citing that there were 
7,000 specific House-passed earmarks in just eight of the bills. There 
were 500 sought by the White House; roughly 1,000 were identified with 
more than one sponsor. That left 5,670 earmarks worth a combined $44.2 
billion, each linked with a single House Member. And then it goes on 
and talks a little bit about how many and how much are here in the 
earmarks game and a little bit about who gets what. But it is the 
process and the abuse of that earmark process that has our constituents 
confused, frustrated and, rightfully, a little bit angry.
  We know that many of us have pushed for greater transparency in this 
earmark process. We have pushed for changes, for knowing what is taking 
place in our earmarks so that people know what is in those bills when 
they come to the House floor, so that it is easy to find, to pair it 
up, to know who is asking for what, where it is going to be located or 
what program it is going to go to, and then how much of the taxpayer 
money is being spent.
  Madam Speaker, it is not our money. It is not government's money. It 
is the

[[Page 26071]]

taxpayers' money. So like my constituent who posed the question 
yesterday, ``Tell me how much you are spending and how you go about 
spending it and explain these earmarks,'' those are questions that, 
yes, indeed, they have the right to ask, and we as Members of Congress 
should be answering those questions and discussing what is in those 
bills, what is in those appropriations bills, and what we find in those 
earmarks.
  Now, I will have to say that this is a year when we have started our 
fiscal year on what is called a continuing resolution, and we passed 
that last year. I will say that the new majority did a good job of 
bringing a fairly clean continuing resolution before us so that we were 
running today, so that we didn't have to shut government down. What the 
continuing resolution basically does is it takes last year's funding 
numbers and rolls them forward. A lot of people would like to see us 
hold everything at exactly the same spending level it was. That is not 
all bad. But the new majority was not able to get one single spending 
bill through both Houses and to the President to be signed, so that is 
why we are operating on the continuing resolution.
  We have seemed to have time to talk about global warming and pass 
bills pertaining to global warming or conservation. We have named post 
offices. We have expanded programs. We have passed billions in new 
authorizations and new spending. But we did not get the budget done, so 
we are on a concurrent resolution.
  It is our new fiscal year. We are going to spend a little bit of time 
tonight talking about how we spend that money and looking at what takes 
place through this earmark process and why we, as Republicans, and why 
we, as members of the Republican Study Committee, are continuing our 
push for earmark transparency and earmark reform.
  Madam Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) who is chairman of the Republican Study 
Committee, and I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the gentlewoman's leadership at 
the Republican Study Committee, Congress's conservative caucus. It is a 
very timely issue that we are discussing today since, indeed, today is 
the first day of the fiscal year for the Federal Government. I think 
for many of us it is easy to sum up the actions of the new Democrat 
majority; that is, they spend too much and they tax too much. It bodes 
ill for the future of our Nation.
  I think that it is important that we step back for a moment and 
figure out just how much of the people's money is being spent. And it 
is the people's money. It is not the government's money. It is the 
people's money. Today, right now, the last figure I saw is that the 
Federal Government is now spending $23,289 per family of 4. This is 
just about the highest level that has been spent since World War II. 
Since I have been on the face of the planet, since I was born, the 
Federal budget has grown 4 to 5 times faster than the family budget. 
Ultimately, it is the family budget that has to pay for that. Since we 
have been in this 110th Congress with the new Democrat majority, rarely 
does a day go by that there is not a new opportunity to begin a new 
government program on top of the roughly 10,000 Federal programs spread 
across 600 agencies that already exist. It kind of begs the question: 
How much government is enough? Because we know that as government 
grows, our freedoms and our opportunities contract. This is supposed to 
be the land of opportunity. This is supposed to be the land of freedom. 
Yet, all we do under this new Democrat majority rule is add program 
after program after program.
  Madam Speaker, unfortunately all of this new spending imposes a new 
tax burden on the American people. In the budget that the Democrat 
majority passed, they included in it the single highest tax increase in 
American history. When fully implemented over a 5-year period, this 
budget will impose approximately $3,000 of additional taxes on the 
average American family. Now, every single day we come to this floor 
and we debate. And our friends on the other side of the aisle, the 
Democrats, want to talk about great investments in education, great 
investments in housing, and great investments in nutrition that they 
are going to use all this money for. Well, the challenge is, though, 
that every time that they increase some Federal budget, they are having 
to decrease some family budget to take it, and right now to the tune of 
$3,000 per American family.
  Madam Speaker, I often hear from people in the Fifth District of 
Texas that I represent. I take great pride in representing these people 
who have entrusted me with their representation in Congress. I hear 
from people like the Flores family in Garland, Texas. I heard this lady 
say, ``I am a divorced mother with a child in college and a child in 
day care. An increase in taxes of this magnitude would wipe out hope of 
the first college graduate in the family. Don't let this happen. Let's 
hold the budget down.''
  So, again, what we have here is the Democrats are taking money away 
from a family budget in order to give it to some Federal budget. We are 
not always debating how much money we are going to spend on these 
items, but we are debating who is going to do the spending. Democrats 
in Washington want the bureaucrats in Washington to do the spending. 
Republicans want families to do the spending, the people who actually 
roll up their sleeves and work hard. They work hard trying to make ends 
meet. They have got decisions that they have to make around the kitchen 
table. And this is just one example. I hear from lots of my 
constituents.
  I heard from the Lopez family in Mesquite, ``I would like to let you 
know that if our taxes are increased, this may mean that we could not 
continue to finance our child's education.'' I heard from the Winters 
family in Tennessee Colony, ``Stop the wasteful spending. I am retired 
and disabled. I am raising three grandchildren. Sometimes I can't 
afford my own medicine.'' And here we are, this new Democrat majority 
wants to take $3,000 a year away from these hardworking families to 
fuel their budget, not these families' budgets, but the Federal budget.
  Now, ultimately, though, it is not just the tax increase that we see 
right over the horizon that is so challenging. It is what is going to 
happen to future generations. And rarely does a day occur that somebody 
doesn't come to the floor and talk about the need to help the least of 
these. Well, I often think that the least of these are those who cannot 
vote and those yet to be born. They don't seem to have a say-so in this 
great debate that we are having today.
  For example, don't take my word for it, but all this spending that we 
have seen in Washington, here is the result. Don't take my word for it, 
but we, right now, are literally on the verge of doing something to the 
next generation that has never been done before: imposing such a 
draconian economic burden on them, something that has never been done 
before, that according to the Comptroller General, the chief fiduciary 
officer in America, we are on the verge of being the very first 
generation in America's history to leave the next generation with a 
lower standard of living.

                              {time}  2100

  As the father of a 5-year-old and a 4-year-old, I will not sit idly 
by and let that happen.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, don't take my word for it. Listen to the words of 
our Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who said: ``Without early and 
meaningful action to address Federal spending, the U.S. economy could 
be seriously weakened, with future generations bearing much of the 
cost.''
  Listen to the GAO, the General Accountability Office. They talk about 
government spending, particularly entitlement spending as a ``fiscal 
cancer'' that threatens ``catastrophic consequences for our country and 
could bankrupt America.''
  Listen to the famous economist, Robert Samuelson, who writes 
frequently

[[Page 26072]]

in newspapers all across the Nation. He says: ``The rising cost of 
government retirement programs could either increase taxes or budget 
deficits so much that they could reduce economic growth, and this could 
trigger an economic and political death spiral.''
  The Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, 
the General Accountability Office, the liberal Brookings Institution, 
the conservative Heritage Foundation, they all agree that spending is 
out of control: And what is going to happen is in the next generation 
either the Federal Government will consist of nothing to speak of but 
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; or you're going to have to 
double taxes on our children and grandchildren just to balance the 
budget.
  Now we see that hurricane coming over the horizon, we see it coming 
towards us, and yet this Democrat majority every single day adds to the 
problem. Just last week the Democrat majority took an insurance 
program, the National Flood Insurance Program, that is already going 
broke, was supposed to be self-sustaining through premiums, it's $20 
billion in the red, and they add additional coverage to it that could 
expose the taxpayer to $17 trillion, $17 trillion of new liability in 
just one program alone.
  So that is why it's so important that we start tackling the pennies 
and the nickels and the dimes, because we are talking about the 
priorities of American families, we are talking about their 
opportunities, we are talking about their ability to send their 
children to college, we are talking about their ability to save that 
nest egg, to launch their version of the American Dream and start their 
new business. We are talking about their ability to pay for their 
health insurance premiums.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, every time you increase the Federal budget, 
you're having to decrease some family budget. I just often wonder when 
will the madness stop. When will we finally figure out that this isn't 
investment in the future, that is divesting our children's future by 
spending all of this money? The Federal budget should not be allowed to 
grow beyond the family budget's ability to pay for it.
  That is why conservatives in the Republican Study Committee, the 
House Conservative Caucus, support a limitation on the growth of the 
Federal Government, to force Congress to decide amongst some of these 
priorities among these competing 10,000 Federal programs. Mr. Speaker, 
I defy any man, woman or child in America to tell me what they all do; 
10,000 of them. It reminds me of what President Reagan once said: 
``There is nothing as close to eternal life on Earth as a Federal 
program.'' They all cost money, and they take away from our children's 
future.
  So that is why I am so happy that members of the Republican Study 
Committee have gathered here this evening to talk about the challenges 
of spending for the future generations and to get together to ensure 
that we let the American people know that we are working to hold the 
line on spending, to bring more accountability, to bring more 
transparency, to try to stave off this tax increase of $3,000 per 
American family, and that's for the families today. And we are fighting 
just as hard, if not harder, to ensure that the children and 
grandchildren of today's taxpayers are not saddled with a doubling of 
their taxation so that they would see a lower standard of living. That 
is not the America that we grew up in. That is not the moral obligation 
we have. We cannot be that first generation in America's history to 
leave the next generation with a lower standard of living.
  That is why I am happy to join my fellow members of the Republic 
Study Committee who have come here to debate this important subject 
tonight. I especially want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for 
her leadership in this hour.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his 
remarks. He does such a wonderful job in directing the activities of 
the Republican Study Committee. You can find out a little bit more 
about the Republican Study Committee going into Mr. Hensarling's Web 
site, House.gov/Hensarling, and enter in ``Republican Study 
Committee.'' It will take you there to some of our activity and the 
work we are doing.
  We also have a little ``money monitor'' that we use every single 
week, update it, to show you what the majority in the House is 
spending, show you how this is going to affect your budget. As he said, 
the priority is the family budget, to be certain that families have the 
opportunity to decide how and when they want to spend their money.
  As the gentleman from Texas said, unfortunately, since World War II 
what we have seen is the Federal budget has grown four to five times 
faster than the family budget. The Federal budget growing four to five 
times faster than the family budget. That is exactly opposite of what 
our Founding Fathers would want.
  I hope that my colleagues across the aisle will join us, join with us 
as we fight the growth of this budget, as we fight the growth of 
spending. When it is a new fiscal year, it is a good time to sit down 
and review this and say, okay, when we get to the end of the fiscal 
year, what do we want to look back and say we accomplished? Wouldn't it 
be a great thing if we were to say this is what we were able to save, 
this is how we were able to find ways to reduce the size and cut what 
government spends? So we invite our friend across the aisle to come 
over and join us and work on this issue.
  I would like at this time to yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Price), who has been a stalwart in working on the earmark issues, the 
earmark reform, and a real leader in the push for earmark reform, 
greater transparency and more fiscal accountability from the House.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from 
Tennessee for yielding and for her leadership on this issue, and I am 
pleased to join my friend from Texas, as well as my good friend from 
North Carolina, who is yet to come. I appreciate her bringing great 
focus to this issue, because, Mr. Speaker, if the casual observer were 
to give you a description of what they thought was going on here in 
Washington, they would say, Oh, well, they are being much more 
responsible. They are not spending as much money as they have in the 
past. All sorts of wonderful things are happening. They would say so 
because this new majority has captured what I have called ``Orwellian 
democracy.'' They are talking the talk, Mr. Speaker, but they are not 
walking the walk.
  So I appreciate my friend from Tennessee for taking the leadership 
and making certain that we bring focus to what truly is happening here 
in Washington under this new leadership.
  Our good friends on the other side of the aisle, as you say, this is 
the first day of the new fiscal year. It is a great opportunity to look 
back and see what has happened over the last fiscal year that they have 
been in charge and to look forward. But if what has happened to date is 
any harbinger of what is to come in the future, Mr. Speaker, we have 
got real problems, because, as you know, Mr. Speaker, not a single 
appropriations bill of the 12 annual appropriations bills has made it 
to the President's desk yet, and we are done with the last fiscal year. 
The new fiscal year has begun today.
  They didn't make it to the President's desk because this new majority 
has picked up right where they left off when they were last in the 
majority back in 1994 with more taxing and more spending. It is the 
spending that has our attention tonight, and through so many different 
areas.
  This new majority is interested in spending over $23 billion in new 
money, new Federal money, and that is just the beginning. That is just 
the beginning. That is what they have appropriated, not what they have 
authorized to be spent, which is truly hundreds of billions of dollars. 
But $23 billion is what separates responsible spending from the new 
majority, which is why we haven't gotten any of the appropriations 
bills to the President's desk and signed.
  What we are talking about tonight is a portion of all of that, and 
that is the

[[Page 26073]]

issue of earmarks, the issue of special projects, the issue of spending 
that gets into bills, oftentimes late at night and oftentimes behind 
closed doors; little projects that one Member or two in Congress make 
certain are inserted into bills. It is an earmark process, it is a 
special project process that we on our side, when we were in the 
majority recognized, albeit a little late, but recognized that it had 
significant potential for huge abuse. Some of our former colleagues, in 
fact, have different residences right now because of that abuse. They 
violated the law and were held to account.
  So what we did as a majority before the end of last year was to pass 
a rule that said that all earmarks, all special projects, had to be 
disclosed. Whether they were in tax bills, whether they were in 
authorizing bills or whether they were in appropriations bills, every 
one of them had to be disclosed: who asked for it and how much did they 
ask for.
  Mr. Speaker, that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? It is called 
sunshine. Sunshine for earmarks, we called it. It is what the American 
people desire. It is what the American people deserve. It is what my 
constituents home in Georgia say that is what we want. We want to know 
who is asking for these things.
  We instituted this program. One would have thought, given the talk 
that we heard from this new majority, that when they took over that 
would have been one of those commonsense reforms they would have 
continued. That would have made a whole lot of sense.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, as you know, that is not what happened. In 
fact, there was to be no disclosure of individuals who requested 
earmarks, as my friend from Tennessee knows; and we fought, Republicans 
fought tooth and nail to make certain that disclosure occurred in 
appropriations bills before any were passed. This happened in May and 
June of this year.
  Finally, finally, the new majority relented and said, Okay, we will 
allow for disclosure of who is asking for those earmarks, but that is 
not true for authorizing bills or tax bills. So what we see in these 
bills, as my friend from Texas cited, is these projects that get pushed 
into these bills that have special rewards for certain Members of 
Congress and their districts. We see it in all sorts of bills.
  Mr. Speaker, as you will remember, last week we passed in this House 
of Representatives the SCHIP bill, the State Children's Health 
Insurance Program bill. One wouldn't think that you would need to sway 
Members' votes on that from a majority standpoint. Just let the bill 
stand or fall on its merits. The issue of those merits is another 
debate. But what we saw in that bill were earmarks, special projects 
for Members on the majority side to sway their vote.
  Mr. Speaker, that is not what my constituents want; it is not what 
the American people want.
  That might not even be so bad if they were disclosed, if people knew 
what was happening; if the Member had to stand in this Chamber before 
his or her colleagues and offer the justification for those programs, 
if they would stand before their constituents at home and offer 
justification for those programs.
  But one of the things that really gets in the craw of my 
constituents, and I know those of my good friend from Tennessee, is the 
arrogance with which this new majority has fashioned these programs, 
the incredible arrogance, once again, saying one thing and doing 
another.
  As my friend from Tennessee, Mrs. Blackburn stated, you can get this 
kind of information at CQ.com, Mr. Speaker, if you like. You may not 
have seen it. I would ask you to look it up.
  They had an article today, as a matter of fact, asking: ``Do you want 
to know how your tax dollars are being spent in Washington?'' And the 
response is: ``Tough (expletive).'' They are quoting a very powerful 
Member of the majority party.
  That is what is so distressing, Mr. Speaker. There is an arrogance 
about this majority. There is an arrogance that exceeds anything that 
anybody has ever seen in this Chamber, and there is a culture of 
excessive Washington spending that I believe the American people are 
sick and tired of.
  So when you see this kind of activity going on in the committees, in 
the authorizing committees and in the tax committees and in the 
appropriations committees, where Members of this Congress are 
attempting to hide from their constituents and from other Members of 
Congress what is in these bills, who is asking for it, how much money 
and how do I identify it, and when a reporter in fact asks a very 
senior Member of the majority party how to find out ``how much money 
for which projects are in this bill,'' that Member of Congress says, 
``Tough (expletive).''

                              {time}  2115

  Mr. Speaker, that is not befitting of this House. That is not 
befitting of the institution that you and I were elected to hold a seat 
in. That is not befitting of the responsibilities that our constituents 
desire us to have when we come to this House of Representatives.
  So what is the solution? Mr. Speaker, the solution at this point in 
time for this issue is H. Res. 479. We have a resolution that we would 
like to get debated on this floor, to have a debate on this floor that 
says just what we have talked about, to disclose who is asking for 
these special projects, who is asking for these earmarks, whether it is 
in appropriation bills, authorizing bills or tax bills. It is a 
resolution that sits in one of the committees controlled by the 
majority side. There is an opportunity for all Members of this House to 
say we ought to be voting on that. It is called a discharge petition. 
There we have 193 Members who signed to bring that resolution to the 
floor and debate it and vote on it. It takes 218, which is the majority 
here. So it is going to take some Democrats. So 193 Members have signed 
that discharge petition. Not a single Democrat has signed that 
discharge petition.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I challenge my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle who said during their campaign and even come to the floor of this 
Chamber and say now: We want earmarks disclosed. We want people to know 
who has been asking for these special projects. So sign the discharge 
petition, and it will give us a great opportunity to debate this issue 
on the floor of the house during a legislative session, during a time 
when we are talking about adopting legislation and making certain that 
sunshine is present for earmarks.
  So I want to commend my friend from Tennessee for her leadership on 
this issue, for bringing this issue into focus, and for making certain 
that we fight day in and day out on behalf of the American taxpayer 
whose money it is that we are given the responsibility for.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia so 
very much. We have started our new fiscal year, and the new majority 
was not able to get one single spending bill to the President's desk, 
so we do operate on a continuing resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, as I said, some of us who want to reduce what the 
Federal Government spends, holding the spending at last year's level is 
not such a bad idea. We kind of like doing that. But for a new majority 
who said we are going to have transparency and openness, to come in and 
continue to spend more and more and more, not less, but more. More of 
the taxpayers' money, putting more of it into earmarks.
  The gentleman referenced the cq.com article which referenced 7,000 
earmarks in eight bills; 5,670 of those earmarks with a combined worth 
of $4.2 billion linked to individual House Members. And the concern 
with that, as my constituent said, how much you spend and how you spend 
it and concern over the earmarks.
  You know, we have seen quite a bit of hypocrisy from the new 
leadership. As the gentleman from Georgia said, we do have House 
Resolution 479. This is something people can go on and pull up on the 
Internet and take a look at it. We are trying to get that voted on, 
forcing the transparency issue and restoring those rules that we passed 
last year to make certain that an individual's name is there, that you 
can find what individuals are earmarking, not

[[Page 26074]]

trying to hide this, but you can find it and know who is asking for 
what in that budget.
  We have 193 signatures on the discharge petition so we can force it 
out of committee, force it to the floor, and force a debate for the 
American people so they know what is going to be spent here in the 
House.
  I encourage our Members to take a look at that legislation and to 
come join us on this first day of the new fiscal year. Again, I 
encourage our colleagues from the other side of the aisle to embrace 
the issue of reducing what the Federal Government spends, to embrace 
transparency in these earmarks, and to work for earmark reform, to join 
us in continuing to work for earmark reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to Dr. Virginia Foxx from North Carolina 
who certainly has conservative credentials and understands so very 
clearly how to work with earmarks, how to work with Federal budgeting 
and making certain that we remain true to our conservative principles 
as we address our Federal budget issues.
  Ms. FOXX. I am very grateful to you, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Hensarling 
and Mr. Price. I was enjoying listening to you all speak about this 
issue and helping to educate the American people about what we are 
dealing with here, particularly as it relates to the numbers that 
Congressman Hensarling is so good at doing.
  It probably won't surprise anybody that a September Gallup Poll 
revealed that Americans' trust in the Federal Government is at a low 
ebb. Today, most Americans trust the Federal Government less than they 
did during the Watergate scandal. At the same time, a new Reuter's poll 
found that Congress has an all-time low approval rating of 11 percent.
  I am extraordinarily proud to represent the Fifth Congressional 
District of North Carolina in the Congress. I am not proud that is the 
way that Americans feel, though, about the Congress of the United 
States. I think there are many reasons that people feel that way about 
the Congress. I think that one of the main reasons that people feel 
that way is because last year the Democrats who ran for office and who 
became the new majority in this Congress after 12 years made a lot of 
promises.
  Republicans were not perfect in the 12 years they were in control of 
the Congress. Lots of mistakes were made. Republicans, some 
Republicans, forgot their way, lost their way and strayed from the 
conservative principles that got them into the majority.
  Democrats promised they would be different. They would run the most 
bipartisan, most fiscally conservative Congress that had ever been 
seen. They promised lots and lots of things, and they have broken all 
of those promises. That's why I think that the attitude toward the 
American people is so negative toward the Congress these days. They are 
disappointed.
  You know, as children we are brought up to believe the promises that 
are made to us. I think one of the greatest disappointments people have 
is when they are promised something, particularly by their elected 
officials, and then the elected officials break those promises. I think 
that is what has happened.
  What we are seeing here is, time after time, things that the 
Democrats said in the campaign last year, they have gone back on. I am 
going to give one quote here from Speaker Pelosi from 9-16-06 at a news 
conference: ``We have to have the fullest possible disclosure, and it 
has to be on earmarks in appropriations, in authorizations and in 
taxation. And it has to be across the board, with no escape hatches.''
  In fact, what has happened is the Republicans had to take the 
Democrats kicking and screaming into revealing what their earmarks 
were. In fact, I was here on the floor with an amendment on the floor 
for 22 hours back in June when we were dealing with the homeland 
security bill to say to the Democrats: It is time you lived up to your 
promise. You've got to disclose these earmarks.
  They had planned not to disclose any of those earmarks until after 
the bills were passed, and then they were going to publish them in the 
month of August and let people try to figure out where the earmarks 
were. So I think, again, a major part of the problem that we are having 
with the attitude of the American people towards Congress is they are 
disappointed in us.
  Republicans last year passed legislation that made all of our 
earmarks transparent. There are differences of opinion on whether we 
should have earmarks or not. I think the Constitution gives us not just 
the right but the responsibility to spend money the way we think it 
should be spent through the Congress. That is our responsibility. 
However, everything should be transparent. Everything should be out 
there.
  If I ask for special project money, I should be proud enough of that 
money to say where it is going. But not everybody wants to do that. 
What the Democrats have done is they have hidden their earmarks in 
legislation. We finally were able to force them into revealing earmarks 
in appropriations bills, but not even in all appropriations bills have 
they disclosed them.
  Reference has been made tonight to earmarks in the SCHIP bill last 
week. Every time a bill passes this House practically, we find there 
are earmarks buried in those bills written in such a way it is very 
difficult to discern where those earmarks are.
  Republicans don't believe in that. We believe if you are going to 
have earmarks, they need to be transparent, and I think that is the 
direction in which we should be going. And I believe doing that will 
help the American people feel better toward what the Congress is doing, 
and we need to build trust with the American people in order for us to 
be able to do the work we need to do.
  But what the Democrats have been doing is trading earmarks for votes. 
Again, it seems impossible to think that with the majority they have 
they would need to do that, but they have been doing it. What they are 
doing is taking taxpayer money, money that we confiscate from the 
taxpayers of this country, and then spend it on projects that we think 
are projects that should be funded. We don't need to be doing that, and 
we particularly don't need to be doing that unless we are willing to 
show exactly where we are doing it.
  What is happening is, again, we forced them to say we are going to do 
it on appropriations bills, but they still have not agreed to do them 
on authorizing bills or on tax bills. But we have to have that. We have 
to have transparency and truth in all of the legislation that we have 
passing out of this House.
  I support the discharge petition that has been signed. I was one of 
the first people to come here and sign that discharge petition. It is 
going to be very difficult, but we are going to be putting the 
Democrats who call themselves the Blue Dogs, call themselves 
conservatives, this is going to be a defining moment for them. Are you 
really a conservative or are you just a tax-and-spend liberal who tries 
to fool the people in your district that are conservative when you 
don't put your name on the line to bring these bills up so that we can 
see exactly how you are going to vote on them. You can talk a good 
game, but the real point is: Are you willing to vote for this 
legislation? Are you willing to sign a discharge petition? And so far 
none have been willing to do that.
  We are on the first day of a new fiscal year, and we have a reckoning 
with the American people. No appropriations bills have passed the 
Congress this year. We are operating on a continuing resolution. I 
agree, a continuing resolution that keeps spending at last year's level 
is better than increasing spending. But the Democratic majority have 
not lived up to their promises. They have broken every single one. It 
is time we call them to account.
  I want to thank Congresswoman Blackburn for leading this hour tonight 
and for bringing this matter to the public yet again, because I think 
taking care of this matter of earmarks, taking care of this pork barrel 
spending is something that the American people want us to do, and it is 
high time we did it.

                              {time}  2130

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North

[[Page 26075]]

Carolina, and she is precisely on target with her remarks.
  A year ago, we had some of the senior House Democrats that joined us 
Republicans in calling for earmark reform in Congress, saying new 
transparency rules should apply to all earmarks, not just on 
appropriations bills, but on tax bills, on authorizing bills, 
transparency for all earmarks of any kind. And House Republicans later 
delivered those reforms last year when we were still in the majority.
  But now that we have the new Democrat majority, they have retreated 
from those promises. They've gutted the reforms implemented by the 
Republicans, and they are denying Members the ability to have a full 
debate on those earmarks.
  As the gentlewoman from North Carolina said, this is so unfortunate 
that this is what they're doing in the House because the people do 
expect better from us, and as she said, there were promises that were 
made and there are promises that have been broken.
  I want to yield once again to the gentleman from Texas, our 
Republican Study Committee chairman, Mr. Hensarling for a few more 
comments on the earmark issue.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and 
earmarks are a very important part of the debate about spending in 
Washington, D.C. We know that the people are overtaxed and are 
overtaxed because Washington spends too much.
  Now, some people say, well, earmarks are just a small portion of the 
Federal budget. You know, that may be true, but Mr. Speaker, if you 
look closely at the numbers today under this Democrat leadership, more 
money is being spent on congressional earmarks than it is the entirety 
of our veterans health care system. Now, that's a travesty. This body 
should be ashamed of that fact, that more money is going to these 
congressional earmarks than they are going for our veterans health care 
system. There are still needs in that system, but instead, under this 
Democrat leadership, the earmark machine continues to roll.
  Now, when they became the majority party, they claimed they would do 
better. In fact, our Speaker, Speaker Pelosi, was quoted as saying she 
would just as soon do without earmarks; though, I've noticed in the 
latest copy of Congressional Quarterly Weekly she's in the top 10 out 
of 435 Members when it comes to digging in the trough for more pork, 
for more congressional earmarks.
  Now, people understand that earmarks too often represent a triumph of 
seniority over merit. Too often they represent a triumph of secrecy 
over transparency, and too often they represent a triumph of special 
interest over the public interest.
  Now, again, I'm not here to say that all earmarks are bad, but the 
process is broken. The Democrats claimed they would clean it up, but 
instead, they've created huge new loopholes in the system.
  If you want to go on a pork lean diet, you just can't cut out the 
sausage. You've got to cut out the bacon and the ham as well, and so 
when people hear about appropriation earmarks and authorizing earmarks 
and tax earmarks, what they need to know is what the majority said they 
were going to do and what they did are two different things.
  So I wish I were eloquent enough to have thought of this myself, but 
to quote a colleague on the Senate side, Senator Tom Coburn of 
Oklahoma, Earmarks are the gateway drug to spending addiction. And 
that's why this fight is so important, and it's so disappointing when 
the Democrats, in some cases rightfully, criticized the Republicans in 
the last Congress, but we cleaned up the system. At a bare minimum, we 
brought transparency and accountability to the system, and they've 
rolled that back.
  Now, it was mentioned earlier on the floor this evening that one of 
the first acts the Democrats had, they asked the entire House of 
Representatives to pass massive spending bills. They would hide in them 
earmarks and only later would they be revealed what the House voted on. 
Thankfully, under the Republicans, we came to the floor and we brought 
transparency to the debate, and the Democrats were forced to reverse 
themselves. So at least on a small portion of earmarks, known as the 
appropriations earmarks, there is at least a modicum of transparency 
now.
  We need to have that great disinfectant of sunshine brought on to 
this system because earmarks are the gateway drug to spending 
addiction. They create the culture of spending, and we'll never be able 
to protect the family budget from the Federal budget until we deal with 
that culture of spending.
  Earmarks, again by definition, have nothing to do with merit. They 
take merit, they take competition, they take competitive bidding out of 
the process, and instead what happens is senior Members, typically in 
smoke-filled rooms in the back of the Capitol, are somehow able to 
arrange these special earmarks.
  Most recently, under the Democrat leadership, there was something 
like 30 Members of Congress managed to get a special funding stream for 
hospitals in their district that no one else, no other hospital in 
America was able to receive. Again, a triumph of seniority over merit, 
a triumph of secrecy over transparency.
  It has to do with the culture of spending, and if we're going to save 
the next generation from having a lower standard of living than we have 
because we are on a pathway right now just with the government we have 
to double taxes in the next generation, unconscionable, immoral, and 
yet the Democrat leadership continues with this culture of spending.
  The earmark machine is alive and well as represented by the cover 
story right here, Mr. Speaker, in Congressional Quarterly Weekly. I 
wish every American could read that to see what is happening in this 
earmark process.
  Every time some Member of Congress comes to the floor requesting a 
new earmark, guess where that money is coming from, Mr. Speaker. Either 
they're taking it out of the Social Security trust fund, robbing 
seniors of the hard-earned money that they put into it, or it's going 
to be part of this $3,000 a year tax increase that the Democrats put 
into their budget, the single largest tax increase in American history. 
Or if they choose not to tax it, there's only one other thing they can 
do, Mr. Speaker, pass on the debt to our children and grandchildren.
  And that's why I appreciate the gentlewoman from Tennessee. I 
appreciate all the members of the Republican Study Committee coming to 
the floor tonight to add more transparency to this earmark debate, 
because unless we have transparency and accountability, we won't reduce 
the number of earmarks, and until we reduce the number of earmarks, we 
won't be able to change the culture of spending and be able to give the 
next generation greater freedom and greater opportunity than we've 
enjoyed.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope people have watched this debate carefully, and 
for those who wish to know even more, I would invite them to go to the 
Web site of the Republican Study Committee that I have the honor to 
chair, at www.house.gov/hensarling/rsc, and learn a great deal more 
about the spending patterns of the Federal Government and how often the 
people's money is squandered and taken away from their future and their 
American dream.
  But there's a better way. There's a better way under conservative 
principles to make sure that we do not allow the Federal budget to grow 
beyond the family budgets and be able to pay for it, that we don't pass 
debt on to future generations and that we reform these earmarks and 
make the Democrats remain good to their word.
  So, again, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for her great 
leadership in the conservative movement in the House, with her eloquent 
and articulate voice for her leadership on this subject.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Texas, and Mr. Speaker, as 
we come to the close of our hour that we have had tonight where we put 
the focus on spending and put the focus

[[Page 26076]]

on earmarks, I would remind my colleagues that a couple of months back 
Republicans successfully forced the Democrats to restore two critical 
GOP reforms from last year, and that was disclosing earmarks and their 
sponsors before spending bills are voted on on the floor and then the 
right to challenge those bills on the floor. Those were important 
changes we made last year, and we forced those to be reinstituted so 
that we could begin to have some debate. Now, they may try to cover up 
some of those. We're going to keep digging and playing hide-and-seek 
and figure out who all of those earmarks belong to.
  I want to give you a couple of quotes that tie into this. From the 
AP, ``Democratic leaders gave in to Republican demands that lawmakers 
be allowed to challenge individual Member-requested projects from the 
final version of each appropriations bill.'' That's from June 14.
  From June 18 of this year from the Charleston Post-Courier, ``A House 
compromise achieved Thursday night shows that the worthy cause of 
earmark reform is far from lost. When the Speaker recently signaled a 
retreat from her repeated vows to fix that problem, House Republican 
leaders cried foul.''
  We called for that accountability. The cost to the taxpayer for 
earmarks not being disclosed is hundreds of millions of dollars of 
additional spending.
  I hope that as we start this new year that our colleagues across the 
aisle will reach out to us, that they will join us in signing the 
discharge petition on Leader Boehner's bill, H.R. 479, and get the 218 
signatures we need so that we can come to this floor so that we can 
have a debate and ensure the public that all taxpayer-funded earmarks 
are publicly disclosed and subject to challenge and debate on this 
floor. The future of our children, the future of this government 
depends on getting our spending under control.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time this evening. I thank you for 
the opportunity to address the issue of out-of-control earmarks and the 
need for earmark reform by this body.

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