[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3649]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            FORT REPORT: SEQUESTRATION, THE WASHINGTON WORD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak today about the 
sequestration and fiscal affairs facing our country.
  Earlier this month, I was back home in Lincoln, and I went to one of 
the local diners and saw my friend Norm, and Norm asked me a question. 
He said: Jeff, what are they doing about that word they keep using in 
Washington?
  Well, Norm was referring to ``sequestration,'' which took effect 
March 1. ``Sequestration'' is that inside-the-Beltway term for 
automatic spending reductions to the Federal budget. These reductions 
will be $85 billion in the first year, with roughly half applied to 
military programs and half applied basically to everything else the 
government does, with the exception of retirement, health care, and 
other income support programs.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it might help everyone if we had a little bit of 
history to clarify how we got to this moment.
  A year-and-a-half ago, there were negotiations in Washington over 
what we call the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling must be lifted by us in 
Congress if the Federal Government cannot pay its bills and we must 
borrow more. We give that authority to the administration. The 
negotiation ended with three outcomes:
  First, Congress would cut spending by an amount greater than the rise 
in the debt ceiling;
  Second, a supercommittee would be formed to negotiate the right type 
of tax reform and the right type of spending reductions;
  Third, automatic spending cuts, now known as the sequester, would 
take place--this was proposed by the President and agreed upon by us in 
Congress--if this supercommittee failed.
  These automatic cuts to the budget, the sequestration, were supposed 
to be so distasteful to everyone that it was going to motivate us all 
to find creative and reasonable solutions to fix the budget crisis. But 
the supercommittee failed; now the sequester has kicked in.
  Mr. Speaker, 70 percent of Americans want this deficit reduced. I 
imagine those numbers are probably higher in Nebraska, where I live, 
where fiscal responsibility is a core characteristic of family life, 
business ethics, as well as good governance. People know economically, 
mathematically, or intuitively that you can't spend more than you have. 
Citizens also want to see their government act in a reasonable fashion.
  Mr. Speaker, the Federal budget deficit has been running more than $1 
trillion in the last few years, and our cumulative debt will top $17 
trillion this year, the size of our overall economic output in the 
country. The overspending and debt are serious impediments to economic 
recovery, and they also create national security problems.
  Some in Washington want to halt any spending reductions at all. I 
don't believe this is an option. Washington must begin living in the 
real world. Something must be done. Two principles should be at work 
here: there must be reasonable budgetary reductions, while at the same 
time there must be deliberate delivery of smart and effective 
government services. While the sequester serves as a trigger for the 
first principle, it does not balance it with the second. Automatic cuts 
do not allow for discretion in determining which programs should stay 
or expand and which should be revised or eliminated due to 
ineffectiveness.
  The sequestration also hits our military in a disproportionate manner 
and disrupts procurement and planning decisions that cannot operate on 
a short-term budgetary horizon. Mr. Speaker, we should keep the spirit 
of the sequestration--and preserve the fullness of these reductions--
but continue to revise its implementation with the flexibility to make 
more precise cutbacks. The House recently passed a funding bill for the 
remainder of the fiscal year which gives the military this needed 
flexibility.
  Mr. Speaker, as well, the Appropriations Committee recently held a 
hearing with the head of the Government Accountability Office, known as 
the GAO. I raised the issue of GAO findings that cited 132 areas within 
the Federal Government with duplicative missions, with about 300 
potential areas of action items that could be undertaken to tackle this 
redundancy problem. Consolidation of programs could officially save 
tens of billions of dollars, and unofficial estimates put that number 
in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Further questioning revealed 
that there is approximately $385 billion of uncollected Federal 
revenue. The GAO report could serve as a guidepost on how we might 
achieve the right balance between reductions and more effective service 
delivery.
  All in all, the fiscal disorder in Washington, Mr. Speaker, and the 
inability to budget in a responsible manner is undermining the ability 
of our economy to turn around. The careening from one governmental 
drama to another is undermining confidence in the institutions of 
government. While it is painful, the sequestration is serving as a call 
to all of us to promptly budget with propriety and boldness to get 
America's fiscal house in order.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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