[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16646]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  MAKE THE BUDGET PROCESS TRANSPARENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Dold) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DOLD. Mr. Speaker, the American taxpayer is facing a struggling 
economy, skyrocketing debt, and political partisanship here in 
Washington. While every American family must balance the budget, the 
Federal Government does not have to do the same.
  Additionally, publicly traded companies are required to provide 
financial statements for their shareholders, whereas the government is 
not held accountable to the American taxpayer. That is why 
Representative Mike Quigley and I are introducing bipartisan 
legislation that would require the Federal Government to prepare and 
publish online periodic financial statements that are independently 
audited and that accurately reflect the government's true financial 
condition.
  In the short time that I've been in Congress, I've focused my efforts 
on creating an environment that fosters job creation and gets our 
economy back on track. Part of that effort involves America's fiscal 
house getting in order, and that is why I've worked to curb out-of-
control government spending.
  Moving forward, I believe that we must also reform the way our 
Federal accounting methods are conducted to make the budget process 
more transparent and accessible to every American so that they, as 
taxpayers, can truly know how their money is being spent and what our 
government's true liabilities are. That is why I'm introducing the 
bipartisan Truth in Government Accounting Act, H.R. 3332.
  To protect private-sector shareholders, the Federal Government 
requires each publicly traded company to file periodic GAAP financial 
statements that are independently audited and that accurately reflect 
the company's true financial condition. By contrast, the Federal 
Government's own accounting practices substantially conceal and confuse 
the Federal Government's true financial condition, especially with 
respect to long-term unfunded liabilities and year-over-year spending.
  To protect taxpayers as much as the private-sector shareholders, the 
Federal Government should similarly require each Federal agency to file 
periodic GAAP financial statements that are independently audited and 
that accurately reflect the agency's true financial condition. The 
Truth in Government Accounting Act would require the Federal Government 
to do so, to make the resulting Federal Government financial statements 
easily available online, and to require zero-baseline budgeting.
  This bill will require all Federal agencies to provide three 
quarterly and one annual consolidated financial statement, just as the 
private sector must do, using the fair-value accrual accounting method 
on all their assets and liabilities, including unfunded entitlement 
liabilities. These statements will be audited by a single entity, the 
Government Accountability Office, an independent, nonpartisan agency 
that reports to the Congress. These audited statements will be put 
online, in terms of a searchable Web site for all Americans to use and 
to see easily.
  As incredible as it may seem, there's not a simple way for the 
American public to easily view our national budget with all of its 
liabilities, current and long term. What exists now is a system where 
information is scattered between Federal agency and government office 
Web sites. Our bill creates a simple and accessible Web site that can 
be a one-stop shop for all information related to our Federal budget, 
based off of Web sites that we know currently exist, like recovery.gov.
  Americans deserve a transparent way to see where their tax dollars go 
and what they are on the hook for in the future. The bill will require 
the Congressional Budget Office to use current year spending as a 
baseline for estimating future mandatory and discretionary changes to 
determine whether the future legislation would increase or decrease 
Federal spending. It will be measured against current year spending and 
not against previously anticipated and hypothetical future year 
spending.
  The American people deserve an open and transparent budgeting 
process, and the Truth in Government Accounting Act provides just that. 
By requiring agencies to provide quarterly financial statements, 
auditing those financial statements and putting that information on a 
comprehensive Web site, as well as implementing the zero-based 
budgeting, we will greatly improve our Federal budget practice and 
enhance the public's ability to know how their tax dollars are being 
spent.
  We expect and demand that companies conduct their business in a 
transparent manner. We should expect and demand no less of our Federal 
Government.
  I want to urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation. The 
American taxpayers deserve true accounting of how their money is being 
spent.

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