[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11723-11724]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
              THE CONSEQUENCES OF GOVERNMENT OVERSPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, last week in my hometown, thousands of 
families experienced their first week of a 3-month cut in pay.
  These hardworking families aren't unaware of our Nation's fiscal 
problems. We all see that our Nation is rapidly approaching $17 
trillion in debt. But a few years ago, Washington denied that this path 
would lead us the way of Europe and we would not experience pay and 
benefit cuts to solve our problems like Europe has. Well, here we are. 
Families are living on much less today as a direct consequence of 
government overspending for so many years and the mandate to get our 
economy back in balance.
  In the past 3 years, Federal spending has been reduced, taxes have 
gone up, and the economy has actually experienced some rebound; but 
we're still overspending almost $700 billion a year, just this 1 year. 
That's down from $1.5 trillion in overspending 4 years ago, but it's 
still $700 billion in new debt that our Nation will take on this year.
  We have to deal with the economic realities that we currently face 
because the spreadsheet where we see the negative numbers, those 
numbers represent families and people that face the negative 
consequences of our inactivity.
  The GAO has identified multiple areas of government redundancy that 
waste money and where we fail to get the job done, but we seem to just 
nibble at the edges of fixing what is obviously in front of us.
  Social Security disability is now 2 years away from insolvency, but 
no one seems to notice that if we don't fix disability insurance and 
get the people off disability that are using it just as unemployment, 
the most vulnerable in our society, the truly disabled, will face 
benefit cuts along with those folks that are just gaming the system.
  The defense acquisition processes increase costs dramatically. Here's 
how it works. You get a prime contractor who pays a subprime, who pays 
a subprime, who pays a subprime. By the way, all of those are all the 
way through the path, and the last person has actually been someone who 
has done that job for years and years, and everyone knows it. Everyone 
knows the game, and everyone knows that in every part of that system 
there's a markup. The taxpayer is the one who loses on it. Let's fix 
that, because this affects families and lives.
  Multiple defense procurement programs in the past several years have 
failed to produce a final product at all and have again cost taxpayers 
billions. Usually, our Federal civilian workforce can tell management 
exactly where we're wasting money, but sometimes no one's listening to 
them.
  Those opportunities to save go untouched, costing more money in the 
long run and increasing our debt. Debt has a price for all Americans, 
but especially for the people working for our Nation.
  So what does government debt look like today? For thousands in my 
district facing furloughs, families are cutting back on food, home 
repair, gas in the car, and every other expense.
  A family I spoke with this past weekend will not have a summer 
vacation because of the furlough. That may not seem like a big deal to 
some people, but that's a lost significant family moment that they will 
never get back. Another family with two kids in college is currently 
trying to determine which kid won't go back to school this fall.
  In some families, both parents are furloughed, making the problem 
twice as large. A single mom that experiences the furlough has a huge 
decision. This fall and just a month away, they're going to have to buy 
school supplies and clothes.
  It's a serious problem. They're not a person just sitting at home 
living off Federal welfare, bemoaning the meager size of their check. 
They're members of our Federal family who work and give their lives to 
serve the warfighter.
  As you would expect in our community, the community is stepping up. 
Tinker Federal Credit Union is working with families on their loan 
repayments, churches are providing school supplies, the Regional Food 
Bank is giving additional food and is working to step up their 
provision. Many people, my family included, are giving financially to 
take care of people in need in this moment. Oklahomans are tough and 
we're caring, but I'm incredibly frustrated that it's come to this.
  Regardless of your thoughts on the number of Federal workers on the 
payroll, surely we can agree that the families currently employed 
should be protected as much as possible. These families have carried 
the stress of this pay cut for a year now. For months they have 
wondered when and if it would come, and now it's here.
  I've written numerous letters to the Department of Defense, asking 
them to exhaust every option in sequester before they reduce worker 
time and pay. To their credit, they've replied to all of

[[Page 11724]]

my correspondence in writing within days, something other agencies in 
this executive branch could certainly learn from.
  I've personally spoken face-to-face with Secretary Panetta, with now-
Secretary Hagel, General Dempsey, and Comptroller Hale to find out 
about other opportunities to save money, like the unobligated balances 
in the defense budget. I asked for their reconsideration of operations 
that function on working capital funds. If you're not familiar with 
that, some departments pay other departments to do their work. Those 
departments should not be directly affected. The cuts have already 
happened in the other department. We're cutting twice when we hit on 
the working capital fund locations.
  I asked Secretary Hagel to give more authority to individual 
installations to make local decisions on spending reductions rather 
than mandating cuts from the Pentagon.
  Congress has already worked with the DOD to reprogram funds and to 
give maximum flexibility to the Pentagon to protect workers, just like 
we did with FAA and Homeland Security.
  I'm grateful, I am, that the Pentagon has found a way to reduce 
furloughs from 24 days to 14 days and now to a maximum of 11. But I 
want to find a way that we can end these furloughs all together for our 
civilian workers as soon as possible. Three months with a 20 percent 
cut is tough.
  In my last conversation with Senator Hagel, I was pleased to hear 
that he's still working on these ways. I urge him to continue to cut 
waste, not worker pay. It's time that we get this issue resolved.

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