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Congress 1992 [OA 8483]
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Congress, 1992
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26
23
2
7
The
Heritage Foundation
No. 913
The Heritage Foundation - 214 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002-4999 (202)546-4400 . Telex:440235
The Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
August 28, 1992
Should We Be Paying for This?
Pork Barrel Items in the Fiscal 1993
House Appropriations Budget
Department of the Interior &
Related Agencies
$500,000 for the Chicago, Illinois, wetlands
$300,000 for a study on striped bass.
$1,201,000 for African elephant conserva-
$7,400,000 for capital improvement projects
in the Republic of Palau.
$300,000 for fencing at the Hakalau Na-
tional Wildlife Refuge in Hawall.
$925,000 for the relocation of a road at
Jackson National Fish Hatchery in
Wyoming.
$1,000,000 for the Chicago urban forestry
$370,000 for the national kick-off of the
Smokey Bear 50th Anniversary celebra-
tion in New Mexico.
Energy and Water Development
$1,000,000 to continue work on the Beaver
Lake Water Quality Project in Arkansas.
program.
$1,500,000 for repair of the breakwater at
Monterey Harbor, California.
$713,000 to replace the Carlyle Lake,
Illinois, Visitor Center.
$400,000 in additional funds to continue
dredged material management in To-
ledo Harbor, Ohio.
$1,500,000 for the repair of the north jetty at
the Yaquina Bay and Harbor in Oregon.
$700,000 to pave a new road and parking
lot, and to install a boat dock, a com-
posting tollet, and a concrete boat
launching ramp at the Tennessee-Tom-
blgbee Waterway in Alabama and Mis-
office.
sissippl,
tion.
THE BUDGET
Defeat of Budget Amendment
Fans Anti-Deficit Flames
Proponents already looking to vote on super collider
as test of congressional ability to restrain spending
he dramatic defeat June 11 of a
peatedly stressed during the House
T
proposed constitutional amend-
debate that it is the president's obliga-
ment requiring a balanced fed-
tion to provide deficit-cutting leader-
eral budget has set Congress up for a
ship, it was widely agreed that the
summerlong series of tests of fiscal
amendment's defeat put Congress in
self-discipline.
the position of having to prove that it
Arguing that there is no substitute
could act without a constitutional
for political will, Democratic leaders
mandate.
reversed what just weeks before had
"We are in danger of doing again
seemed an unstoppable tide in favor of
what the people are blaming us for, all
a balanced-budget amendment.
talk and no action," Stenholm said, in
Budget-cutters in both parties are
concluding debate on the amendment
now hoping that they can turn their
June 11.
defeat into an opportunity for a new
"If you think American people are
assault on the deficit.
mad now, just defeat this one ray of
The first test will come the week of
BOXSCORE
hope we have now for reducing the
June 15 when the House votes on the
federal deficit, and you will really see
fate of the hyperexpensive super-
Bill: H J Res 290, S J Res 18 -
a revolt," added Rod Chandler, R-
conducting super collider as part of
balanced-budget constitutional
Wash.
the energy and water appropriations
amendment.
In 8 rare floor speech, House
bill (HR 5373). (Story, p. 1692)
Speaker Thomas S. Foley, D-Wash.,
Almost certain to be at risk is a $2
Latest action: House defeated,
urged support for a deficit-cutting bill
billion supplemental spending bill
280-153, June 11.
being crafted by House Budget Com-
(HR 5132) that started out as an
Next action: None expected.
mittee Chairman Leon E. Panetta, D-
emergency measure to help Los Ange-
Calif.
les recover from riots and Chicago
Reference: Weekly Report, pp.
"If half of the courage expressed in
1592, 1520, 1325, 1233; 1990
from floods. Lawmakers have since at-
the rhetoric presented here today in
tached about $1.5 billion worth of ex-
Almanac, p. 174.
support of this amendment will stand
tra spending that may be put on the
behind a proposal, which the Commit-
cutting block as proof of their will to
tee on the Budget will shortly produce
tackle the deficit. (Story, p. 1691)
gave opponents a relatively comfort-
on the floor, we can establish the pro-
"There will be a groundswell, and I
able nine-vote victory cushion. The
-cess to reduce the deficit," he said.
think it will accomplish what many of
amendment (H J Res 290) was de-
Panetta's proposal would set new
us wanted," said David Dreier, R-
feated 280-153; it needed 289 votes.
deficit-reduction targets for the rest of
Calif., an amendment supporter.
two-thirds of those present, to pass.
the decade, coupled to a new mecha-
"This has been a wake-up call,"
(Vote 187, p. 1744)
nism for automatic spending cuts and
said Jim Slattery, D-Kan., a strong
In a bitter twist for chief sponsor
tax increases to force compliance if
advocate for spending restraint who
Charles W. Stenholm, D-Texas, 12 co-
Congress and the president' fail to
opposed the amendment. "There will
sponsors of his original amendment
bring down the deficit voluntarily.
be a lot of key votes in the next 10
were persuaded to vote against the fi-
Panetta has vowed to bring his bill
days" as appropriations bills begin to
nal version, three more than his losing
to the floor in the coming weeks. Al-
come to the floor.
margin. (Defectors, p. 1684)
though he was a principal obstacle to
Barely a week before the vote, pas-
In the Senate, where sufficient
passage of the constitutional amend-
sage of the balanced-budget amend-
support for an amendment (S J Res
ment, using what some supporters
ment seemed certain. But a combina-
18) was even less certain, Majority
called scare tactics to defeat it, Sten-
tion of hard lobbying by the Demo-
Leader George J. Mitchell, D-Maine,
holm and another key amendment
cratic leadership and outside interest
said immediately after the House vote
backer, Bill Gradison, R-Ohio, have
groups, and a creeping uneasiness
that he would not call the measure up.
said they will cooperate with the Bud-
about tinkering with the Constitution,
That effectively killed any chance for
get chairman. (Panetta's role, p. 1688)
the amendment this year.
Both Stenholm and Gradison are
By John R. Cranford
Though Democratic opponents re-
on the Budget Committee, and both
CQ
JUNE 13, 1992 - 1683
ECONOMICS & FINANCE
Amendment's Fragile Bloc of Backers
W
ith a Mickey Mouse watch on his right wrist and a
Opposition Accelerated as Vote Neared
Rolex on his left, Robin Tallon is a walking contra-
The outcome was a testament to the power of
diction. When he went to the House floor June 11 for the
Speaker Thomas S. Foley, D-Wash., whom many mem-
vote on the balanced-budget amendment, he was carry-
bers were unwilling to cross in such a key test of strength
ing two speeches in his coat pocket one in favor and
between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the
one against.
White House. But the result also reflected unease with
The South Carolina Democrat was waiting until the
the remedy, unease that grew as the vote neared. Quite
last possible moment to decide how he would vote on
suddenly, members supporting the amendment were
what was perhaps the most hotly lobbied vote of the
confronted with the intense opposition of senior citizens
year.
groups and organized labor, who argued that cuts neces-
There was one problem: He had already pledged his
sary to balance the budget would gut Social Security,
support to Charles W. Stenholm, D-Texas, sponsor of the
Medicare and other cherished programs.
balanced-budget amendment. As recently as that morn-
The political pressure to vote "no" heightened on the
ing, he had emerged from a White House lobbying ses-
day of the vote, when undeclared presidential candidate
sion with President Bush saying he was probably going
Ross Perot announced on NBC's "Today" show that
to vote for it.
morning that he was opposed to the constitutional
But as the day wore on, he began to falter under a
amendment.
barrage of lobbying by Democratic leaders and others
opposed to the amendment. Finally, his decision made,
12 Democrats Get 'Cold Feet'
Tallon chose the appropriate speech and stood in the
As the day wore on, votes began melting away.
well of the House: "It would be much easier to be consis-
Along with Tallon, Stenholm's defectors were Demo-
tent, to not admit I had changed my mind," Tallon said.
crats Frank Annunzio, III., Albert G. Bustamante, Texas,
"All I need to do is get on board this resolution and go
Joan Kelly Horn, Mo., Tom Lantos, Calif., Gerald D.
home as the champion of fiscal responsibility. But I will
Kleczka, Wis., Matthew G. Martinez, Calif., Austin J.
not vote for the Stenholm amendment."
Murphy, Pa., Richard E. Neal, Mass., Jim Olin, Va., Patri-
With that, Tallon sounded the death knell of the
cia Schroeder, Colo., and James A. Traficant Jr., Ohio.
balanced-budget amendment. In a climactic reversal of
Loss of the 12 Democrats was not taken kindly by
fortune, 12 Democrats who had attached their names to
Stenholm and his supporters. "Obviously I'm very disap-
Stenholm's list of 278 cosponsors changed positions and
pointed that many of our cosponsors switched," said
voted no.
Stenholm, adding that "Everybody will know who
"I never ever agonized on a vote as much as this one,"
switched and why. And that's the key."
Tallon said in an interview.
In a post-vote news conference, Texas Republican Joe
The final vote was 280-153. Had nine of the original
L. Barton ran down the full list in an effort to apply
supporters voted in favor, Stenholm would have had the
political heat to the defectors.
two-thirds majority necessary to approve a constitutional
Said Timothy J. Penny, D-Minn., a Stenholm sup-
amendment.
porter: "Some folks cosponsored the resolution, but did
favor moving ahead with deficit cuts
bill], it's because there aren't 50 votes
proof that "there were no cheap
for the coming fiscal year. But they
for it," Slattery said.
votes."
may have significantly different views
Sponsor Barbara B. Kennelly, D-
about how what has come to be called
A Week of Changes
Conn., rejected assertions that the bill
a budget enforcement bill should look.
Floor action began June 9, when the
was introduced to provide political
"I'm going to need to wait now for my
House took up a proposed balanced-
cover for those opposing the constitu-
chairman on this because I certainly
budget law that was similar to a bill that
tional amendment. Of the 189 Demo-
don't want to get out front of him again,"
passed the House in 1990 as an alterna-
crats who voted for the bill, however,
Stenholm said with a half-smile. "The
tive to a constitutional amendment.
121 later voted against the amend-
key is bipartisanship.
I'll be there
The bill (HR 5333) would have required
ment.
with Mr. Panetta and Mr. Gradison."
the president to submit a balanced bud-
The following day, Stenholm un-
Even if they can get together, how-
get, and the House and Senate Budget
veiled a revised version of his bal-
ever, there will be roadblocks to action
committees to send balanced budgets to
anced-budget amendment, which he
elsewhere. President Bush still wants
the floor of both chambers, beginning
had refined in negotiations among
a deficit-reduction measure acted on
for fiscal 1998.
House and Senate supporters.
after - not before Congress sends
This year's bill died on a 199-220
Stenholm's substitute the ver-
a balanced-budget amendment to the
vote, not winning even a simple major-
sion eventually rejected by the House
states for ratification. In addition,
ity, much less the two-thirds needed
- was intended to provide a compro-
members facing re-election will be
because it was brought up under a
mise that might win support in the
chary of any bill that even hints of
special procedure that prevented
Senate without change and thereby
higher taxes.
amendments. (Vote 174, p. 1740)
avoid a joint House-Senate conference
"If we don't see [an enforcement
Stenholm cheered the defeat as
committee that could have been de-
1684 JUNE 13, 1992
CQ
Undone by Last-Minute Defections
so with a feeling that it was never going to
for several multibillion-dollar projects that
come to a vote. When it did come to a
would directly benefit their state. Among
vote. they got cold feet," he said.
them are the superconducting super
For some, the decision to change was a
collider and the space station Freedom.
matter of simple politics. Annunzio, a vet-
"They're like drug addicts," Busta-
eran Chicago pol who is retiring from
mante said in an interview. "It's so hypo-
Congress this year, said he changed his
critical. I tell my friends you want a bal-
mind 8 week or so before the vote because
anced budget, and you want all these
"you got all the labor groups and senior
things for your state."
citizens" opposing the amendment. An-
nunzio did not bother to take his name off
Eleventh-Hour Bush Effort Fails
the list of cosponsors, however.
Bush, in last-minute lobbying before
Other lawmakers had reason to worry
leaving for South America, invited more
about their future advancement in the
than a dozen wavering members to the
House if they ignored the wishes of
White House for a morning meeting. He
Speaker Foley and Majority Leader Rich-
continued the lobbying even after take-off.
ard A. Gephardt, D-Mo., who fought hard
Robin Tallon
"The president called me this morning from
against the Stenholm amendment. With
Air Force One, and asked me to vote for a
the unusually high number of members retiring or being
balanced-budget amendment," said Neal. "I said I was
defeated at the polls, dozens of choice committee slots
going to."
will open up next year. Those who expect to be around
One undecided Democrat said that Foley, Bush and
know the unspoken rule of the House: If you want the
Gephardt all had called him in a span of 4½ hours. It was the
leadership to anoint your bid for a top committee slot,
third time in four days Foley had urged him to vote against
you are expected to side with them on votes like this one.
the amendment. Other lawmakers said they had received
Among the switchers said to be seeking new commit-
repeated calls from Cabinet members and other top admin-
tee slots are Kleczka and Traficant, who want to join the
istration officials urging them to back the president.
Ways and Means Committee. Both denied in interviews
But perhaps no one struggled more with the decision
or through staff that committee considerations played a
than Tallon. At the morning meeting with the White
role in their votes. Another Democrat who is considering
House, Tallon said, he asked Bush for specifics about the
leaving the Banking Committee, Peter Hoagland, D-
programs he would cut if the constitutional amendment
Neb., voted for the Stenholm amendment.
became law. Bush handed him a book of options for
Bustamante said he decided to switch his position at
cutting the deficit. He even autographed it: "Robin,"
a meeting of the Texas delegation the day before the
Bush wrote. "Do the right thing. Thanks, George Bush."
vote. It galled him, he said, to hear fellow Texans clamor-
"So I did the right thing," said Tallon. "I voted
ing to support the measure at the same meeting they
against it."
were discussing ways to get full federal funding this year
-David S. Cloud
railed by Democratic opponents in the
two weeks before that he had as many
morning of June 11 that the Democratic
leadership.
as 305 votes.
whip count showed 151 firm no votes.
Paul Simon, D-Ill., the prime
By June 10, the first day of floor
When the final tally was 153 "nays",
amendment sponsor in the Senate, em-
debate on the amendment, both sup-
Nagle said he had forgotten to include
braced the negotiated compromise. But
porters and opponents said it was too
Independent Bernard Sanders of Ver-
several House supporters abandoned
close to call. And for the first time
mont, and had only counted on one
Stenholm over the change.
Stenholm hinted that he might not
Republican, when two - Benjamin A.
Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., who
even have a "solid 290" as he had con-
Gilman and Bill Green, both of New
signed on as a cosponsor in February,
tinued to assert.
York - voted against the méasure.
said she was disturbed by language
On the morning of June 11, as the
Nagle said that 10 days earlier
adopted from Simon's Senate version
House began to debate four alternative
there had been only 85 solid no votes.
that would have permitted a waiver of
balanced-budget amendments, oppo-
"It's been pretty intense," he said.
the balanced-budget requirement in
nents seemed to have turned the tide.
Still, a large number of members
times of declared military emergen-
"Earlier today, I thought it was
were undecided throughout the two
cies. "You don't think there will be an
still doable," said Timothy J. Penny,
days of floor action. Some said they
imminent threat to national security
D-Minn., a key pro-amendment strat-
made up their minds at the last minute.
every year - from Uruguayan terror-
egist. "We were four short, and there
Republican Constance A. Morella,
ists?" she said, half-facetiously.
were 12 names to get them from."
who represents the Maryland suburbs
Though supporters picked up two un-
of Washington said she ultimately and
And Heavy Lobbying
decided members, they lost others
reluctantly decided to vote for the
As the week progressed, Stenholm
during the day, he said.
amendment, despite a strong showing
backed away from his statement of
Dave Nagle, D-Iowa, said the
of constituent opposition. Peter
CQ
JUNE 13, 1992 - 1685
Hoagland, D-Neb., was on the fence
natives; the last to be adopted by
until late June 10, and said one
a majority vote was then submit-
contributing factor to his yes vote
ted to the full House for a final
was the number of senior citizens
vote, requiring a two-thirds major-
who, contrary to expectations,
ity. The four alternatives were:
called his district office endorsing
By Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. His
the amendment.
amendment, like the others, would
National senior citizen lobbies
have generally required that all
- led by the American Associa-
government outlays not exceed to-
tion of Retired Persons, the Older
tal receipts.
Women's League and the National
But it had two other significant
Committee to Preserve Social Se-
provisions. Total outlays would also
curity and Medicare - worked ac-
Thomas S. Foley
Charles W. Stenholm
have been restricted to 19 percent
tively against the amendment in
of the country's total output of
the final week. The latter group and
ment," said amendment supporter
goods and services for the year, mea-
others issued statements charging that
Jim Leach, R-Iowa.
sured by the gross national product
adoption would guarantee big cuts in
But Charlie Rose, D-N.C., who was
(GNP), and it would have given the
Social Security, a charge that amend-
undecided until the end, when he
president authority to veto all or part of
ment sponsors strongly denied.
voted no, said Perot made a good
individual provisions of bills that ap-
Stenholm complained that "a lot of
point. "Ross Perot says we don't need
propriated money or otherwise obli-
folks haven't been honest in fighting
it - we need leadership. That's advice
gated the Treasury.
this
Every member of the House
worth listening to."
Bills resulting in deficits or in out-
knows we will not gut Social Security."
lays in excess of the GNP ceiling
But be acknowledged that Medicare
Some Surprises
would have required support of three-
and Medicaid, the federal health-care
The seriousness of the 16 hours of
fifths of the total membership of the
programs for the elderly and the poor,
floor debate reflected the widespread
House and Senate.
were facing cuts: "We have to make
sense among members that they were
Panetta dismissed the outlay ceil-
substantive changes in Medicare and
casting a momentous vote.
ing as a "mindless formula." Kyl shot
Medicaid to keep them from bankrupt-
W. J. "Billy" Tauzin, D-La., invoked
back that "a lot of thought has gone
ing this country," he said.
his father in support of the amendment:
into it. It is not mindless."
When Slattery made a reference to
"He never had a credit card. He never
The amendment was rejected 170-
Social Security during floor debate,
signed a mortgage. He never signed a
258, on a nearly party-line vote. (Vote
Stenholm was ready with a big red
time agreement.
He understood
183, p. 1744)
fish, which he placed on a table in the
something most ordinary Americans
By Joe L. Barton, R-Texas. This
middle of the House chamber. Sten-
understand
The easiest dollar to
amendment largely tracked Sten-
holm later told Slattery that he was
spend is the one you don't have
holm's, with one significant wrinkle. It
tempted to give him "the red herring
Most ordinary Americans would like to
would not have allowed government
award."
put a limit on our credit card."
revenues to increase at a rate greater
Lobbyists from labor unions, advo-
Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., offered a
than that of total growth in national
cacy groups representing senior citi-
catastrophic view in opposition: "This
income, unless a bill to that effect sup-
zens and low-income people, religious
amendment is the direct result of the
ported by three-fifths of both cham-
organizations and the citizens lobby
mismanagement and misguided poli-
bers was enacted into law.
Common Cause crowded the hallway
cies of Presidents Ronald Reagan and
Barton's amendment won strong
outside the chamber. As the amend-
George Bush
This amendment is
Republican support and drew more
ment was defeated, a cheer arose first
Ronald Reagan's revenge.
He left a
Democrats than Kyl's, but it was re-
in the chamber and then among the
deficit behind him that is nothing
jected 200-227. One lone Democrat -
lobbyists.
short
of
a
time
bomb.
It's
an
act
of
Slattery - voted for Barton's amend-
But it seemed clear that the efforts
political desperation that will haunt
ment and voted no on final passage.
of Foley, Panetta and most of the rest
us for generations."
(Vote 184, p. 1744)
of the Democratic leadership were
In the final vote, although most
By Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo.
more important to the outcome than
senior Democrats stuck with the lead-
Majority Leader Gephardt adapted
those of outside lobbyists.
ership, a few surprises stood out:
his amendment from one proposed
It might have helped, however, that
Jamie L. Whitten, D-Miss., and Wil-
several weeks before by two key
traditional anti-deficit lobbyists such as
liam H. Natcher, D-Ky., the chairman
Appropriations Committee sub-
the Chamber of Commerce of the
and acting chairman of the Appropria-
committee chairmen, David R. Obey,
United States, opposed the amendment
tions Committee, voted for the
D-Wis., and John P. Murtha, D-Pa.
(chiefly because they feared it would be
amendment. So did one other Appro-
It would have required only a major-
used to justify a tax increase). And sev-
priations subcommittee chairman,
ity of both the House and Senate to
eral members mentioned the opposition
Tom Bevill, D-Ala. One key member
permit a deficit. But it would have
of presumed presidential candidate
of the House leadership, Steny H.
capped outlays at the level proposed by
Ross Perot as a factor.
Hoyer, D-Md., who has a new, more
the president. And it would have ex-
Perot announced his opposition on
conservative district, also voted yes.
cluded Social Security from deficit cal-
the NBC "Today" show the morning
culations, which Gephardt contended
of the vote. He "became an extra argu-
Major Amendments
would have protected that program
mentative shield for those who op-
Floor action on the balanced-bud-
from cuts.
posed a balanced-budget amend-
get amendment focused on four alter-
Some Democratic opponents of
CQ
JUNE 13, 1992 - 1687
ECONOMICS & FINANCE
A Winner At Last
L
eon Panetta has a history of tak-
crats' budget is anything but a joint
ing on unpopular causes - and
effort with the Republicans on the
losing.
committee. But he does not shy from
In his former life as a Republi-
a fight - whether to defend his par-
can, he ran the Office for Civil
ty's taxing and spending priorities or
Rights in the Nixon administration.
to battle against the balanced-bud-
In 1970, at age 31, he was forced out
get amendment.
by the White House for being too
His hardball tactics in the budget
aggressive.
amendment fight drew criticism
As a Democrat, he was elected to
from some Republicans.
the House in 1976, served for six
The White House accused him of
years on the Budget Committee and
"crying wolf" when he put out what
became its chairman in 1989. Since
most consider a worst-case scenario
then, he has had to defend the oft-
for spending cuts and tax increases
denounced 1990 budget agreement
to yield the $600 billion in deficit
that he helped engineer. He tried -
reduction over five years that the
and failed - to dismantle a portion
Congressional Budget Office says
of that agreement earlier this year to
would be needed to balance the bud-
shift money from defense to domes-
get. (Weekly Report, p. 1520)
tic spending. In the past month, he
But he has his bona fides on the
was for a long time a lone soldier
subject, and several members paid
trying to halt the juggernaut of the
R. MICHAEL JENKINS
him respect during the amendment
balanced-budget amendment. He
Panetta is not one to shy from a fight.
fight.
tends to laugh a lot at adversity, and
Panetta almost never left the
lately he's seemed to be having a rollicking good time.
floor during the two long days. At the end, his principal
He was asked at one point about Sen. Robert C.
adversary, Charles W. Stenholm, D-Texas, commended
Byrd, D-W.Va., who recently began working hard to
him for his handling of the debate.
derail the balanced-budget amendment in the Senate,
He also chided him for his effort earlier in the year to
apparently with success. "He came to life, didn't he,"
to spend money that was to be cut from defense, instead
Panetta said, and then guffawed, letting his laughter
of applying it to the deficit. "Mr. Chairman, you were
express his relief.
not with us that day
But you have been with us most
of the other times."
The Real Test
Panetta returned the compliment, paying tribute to
This time, Panetta won. But it remains to be seen if
Stenholm and others for raising the visibility of the
he can convince his colleagues that they should get
deficit issue - and seizing the opportunity to hold
serious about cutting the deficit in this election year.
members accountable for the next test.
Panetta would view that as real success.
"What we've done here is we've focused attention,"
Like Bill Gradison of Ohio, ranking Republican on
Panetta said after the amendment was defeated. "Now
the Budget Committee, Panetta tends toward serious-
we've got to roll up our sleeves and get to work on what I
ness; he is rarely without a sheaf of papers under his
think is the effort that really counts
so that we truly
arm, and he is constantly in motion.
exercise the discipline that we have to do if we're serious
He eschews partisanship when he can, despite the
about getting the deficit in control."
highly partisan job he holds: Presenting the Demo-
-John R. Cranford
Stenholm were clearly enamored of
This is very, very dangerous."
three-fifths majorities to permit deficit
this version, if only to show their sup-
The amendment appeared to have
spending or an increase in the federal
port either for a balanced budget or
the desired effect of muting Democratic
debt. But it incorporated the military
for Social Security.
support for Stenholm. "The decision to
emergency waiver, a requirement that
"It's the best of a bad lot," said
put Gephardt in brought about 35 votes,"
Congress enforce the amendment by
Douglas Applegate, D-Ohio.
Nagle said. In all, 47 Democrats voted for
statute and a later effective date of fiscal
But some raised serious questions
Gephardt and against Stenholm; six of
1988. The substitute was first adopted
about ceding power to the president
them had been Stenholm cosponsors.
by a vote of 279-153. (Vote 186, p. 1744)
by letting him set a ceiling on outlays.
The amendment was rejected 103-
It then failed on final passage -
"Not even two-thirds of the House
327, with a significant majority of
when a two-thirds majority was re-
and two-thirds of the Senate are em-
Democrats and virtually all Republi-
quired - by 280-153. The difference
powered to [spend more than the
cans opposed. (Vote 185, p. 1744)
was that Walter B. Jones, D-N.C., voted
president proposes]," said Tom
By Stenholm. His alternate pre-
no on the substitute and yes on passage,
Campbell, R-Calif. "For the first time,
served the basic terms of H J Res 290 as
and Foley, who has voted only 14 times
this would be an absolute veto.
originally introduced - including
this year, voted no on passage.
1688 - JUNE 13, 1992
CQ
HOUSE VOTES 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187
183
184
185
186
187
KEY
182. Procedural Motion. Approval of the House Journal of
Y Voted for (yea).
42 Rohrabacher
NYYNYY
43 Packard
YYYNYY
Wednesday, June 10. Approved 284-112: R 48-107; D 236-5 (ND
# Paired for.
44 Cunningham
YYYNYY
164-5, SD 72-0); I 0-0, June 11, 1992.
+ Announced for.
45 Hunter
? Y Y N Y
N Voted against (nay).
X Paired against.
COLORADO
183. H J Res 290. Balanced-Budget Constitutional
- Announced against.
1 Schroeder
NNNYNN
Amendment/Spending Limit and Line-Item Veto. Kyl, R-
P Voted "present."
2 Skoggs
YNNYNN
Ariz., substitute to propose a constitutional amendment that
C Voted "present" to avoid possi-
3 Compbell
? ? N Y Y Y
4 Allord
NYYNYY
would prohibit total outlays from exceeding total revenues for each
ble conflict of interest.
Hefley
NYYNYY
fiscal year and prohibit total outlays from exceeding 19 percent of
? Did not vote or otherwise make a
6 Schoefer
NYYNYY
the gross national product for each fiscal year, unless a three-fifths
position known.
CONNECTICUT
majority in each chamber votes to permit a deficit. It would grant
the president line-item veto authority for all spending measures.
Democrats
1 Kennelly
YNNNNN
Republicans
Independent
2 Gejdenson
YNNNNN
The spending constraints would take effect the third fiscal year
3 Delauro
YNNYNN
after ratification but not before fiscal 1996. The line-item veto
4 Shays
NYYNYY
5 Franks
NYYNYY
would take effect upon ratification. Rejected 170-258: R 152-13; D
6 Johnson
NYYNYY
18-244 (ND 6-173. SD 12-71); I 0-1, June 11, 1992. (Story, p. 1683)
DELAWARE
AL Carper
Y N Y N Y Y
184. H J Res 290. Balanced-Budget Constitutional
Amendment/Tax Increase Limit. Barton, R-Texas, substitute to
182
183
184
185
187
FLORIDA
propose a constitutional amendment that would require the president
1 Hutto
YYYNYY
ALABAMA
2 Peterson
YNYYYY
to submit and Congress to approve a budget in which outlays do not
1 Callahan
YYYNYY
3 Bennett
YYNNYY
exceed revenues unless a three-fifths majority in each chamber
2 Dickinson
NYYNYY
4 James
NYYNYY
approves a specified deficit; to require that estimated revenues do not
3 Browder
YNYYYY
5 McCollum
YYYNYY
4 Bevill
Y N Y Y Y Y
6 Stearns
NYYNYY
grow faster than the rate of increase in national income in the second
5 Cramer
YNYNYY
7 Gibbons
YNNYYY
prior fiscal year, unless a three-fifths majority in each chamber
6 Erdreich
YYYNYY
8 Young
NYYNYY
approves a tax increase; and provide that the amount of federal public
7 Harris
Y N Y N Y Y
9 Bilirakis
NYYYYY
debt on the first day of the second fiscal year beginning after
10 Ireland
? Y ? N Y
ALASKA
11 Bacchus
YYYYYY
ratification shall become a permanent debt limit unless a three-fifths
AL Young
NYYNYY
12 Lewis
NYYNYY
majority of each chamber passes a bill approving an increase. The
13 Goss
NYYNYY
ARIZONA
amendment would take effect in fiscal 1998 or the second year after
14 Johnston
YNNNYY
1 Rhodes
YYYNYY
15 Show
YYYNYY
ratification, whichever is later. Rejected 200-227: R 155-9; D 45-217
2 Pastor
YNNYNN
16 Smith
YNNNNN
(ND 8-172, SD 37-45); I 0-1, June 11, 1992. (Story, p. 1683)
3 Stump
NYYNYY
17 Lehman
?NNNNN
4 Kyl
NYYNYY
18 Ros- Lahtinen
NYYNYY
5 Kolbe
NYYNYY
185. H J Res 290. Balanced-Budget Constitutional
19 Fascell
YNNNNN
Amendment/Majority Vote and Social Security Exemption.
ARKANSAS
GEORGIA
Gephardt, D-Mo., amendment in the nature of a substitute to propose
1 Alexander
?NNNNN
1 Thomas
YNYNYY
2 Thomton
YNNYNN
a constitutional amendment that would require the president to
2 Hatcher
YNYNYY
3 Hammerschmidt
YYYNYY
3 Ray
YNYNYY
submit and Congress to adopt a balanced budget in the first year after
4 Anthony
????YY
4 Jones
YNNNYY
ratification unless there is a declaration of a national urgency by the
5 Lewis
YNNNNN
CALIFORNIA
president that is approved by a majority vote of both chambers of
NYYNYY-
6 Gingrich
NYYNYY
1 Riggs
7 Darden
YNYNYY
Congress; prohibit Congress from approving higher expenditures than
2 Herger
NYYNYY
8 Rowland
YNYNYY
recommended by the president in a fiscal year; and exempt Social
3 Matsui
YNNNNN
9 Jenkins
Y N Y N Y Y
4 Fazio
YNNYNN
Security from deficit calculations. Rejected 103-327: R 2-164; D 101-
10 Bamard
YNYNYY
5 Pelosi
YNNNNN
162 (ND 72-109, SD 29-53); I 0-1, June 11, 1992. (Story, p. 1683)
6 Boxer
YNNYNN
HAWAII
7 Miller
YNNNNN
1 Abercrombie
YNNYNN
186. H J Res 290. Balanced-Budget Constitutional
8 Dellums
YNNNNN
2 Mink
YNNNNN
9 Stark
YNNNNN
Amendment/Substitute. Stenholm, D-Texas, amendment in the
10 Edwards
YNNNNN
IDAHO
nature of a substitute to propose a constitutional amendment that
11 Lontos
YNNYNN
I LaRocco
YNNYYY
would prohibit deficit spending unless a three-fifths majority of both
12 Campbell
NYYNYY
2 Stallings
YNNYYY
13 Mineto
YNNNNN
chambers of Congress approve a specific deficit amount or there is a
14 Doolittle
NYYNYY
ILLINOIS
declaration of war or a declaration of national military emergency
15 Condit
YYYNYY
1 Hayes
YNNNNN
enacted into law, require the president to submit a balanced budget
16 Panetta
YNNNNN
2 Savage
?NNNNN
each fiscal year; and require a three-fifths majority of both chambers
17 Dooley
YNNNYY
3 Russo
YNNNNN
18 Lehman
YNNNNN
of Congress to increase the public debt. The amendment would take
4 Songmeister
YNNYYY
19 Lagomarsine
NYYNYY
5 Lipinski
YNNYYY
effect in fiscal 1998 or the second year after ratification, whichever is
20 Thomas
NYYNYY
6 Hyde
YYYNYY
later. Adopted 279-153: R 164-2; D 115-150 (ND 52-129, SD 63-21); 10-
21 Gallegly
NYYNYY
7 Collins
YNNNNN
22 Moorhead
NYYNYY
1, June 11, 1992 (Story, p. 1683)
8 Rostenkowski
YNNYNN
23 Beilenson
YNNNNN
9 Yates
YNNNNN
24 Waxman
YNNNNN
10 Porter
NYYNYY
187. H J Res 290. Balanced-Budget Constitutional
25 Roybal
YNNNNN
11 Annurizio
YNNNNN
Amendment/Passage. Passage of the joint resolution to propose a
26 Berman
YNNNNN
12 Crane
NYYNYY
27 Levine
YNNNNN
13 Fawell
NYYNYY
constitutional amendment that would prohibit deficit spending un-
28 Dixon
?NNNNN
14 Hastert
NYYNYY
less a three-fifths majority of both chambers of Congress approve a
29 Waters
?NNNNN
15 Ewing
YYYNYY
specific deficit amount or there is a declaration of war or a declaration
30 Martinez
YNNNNN
16 Cox
YNNYYY
31 Dymally
YNNNNN
of national military emergency enacted into law; require the presi-
17 Evens
YNNNNN
32 Anderson
YNNNYY
18 Michel
NYYNYY
dent to submit a balanced budget each fiscal year; and require a
33 Draier
YYYNYY
19 Bruce
YNNYYY
three-fifths majority of both chambers of Congress to increase the
34 Torres
YNNYNN
20 Durbin
YNNYNN
public debt. The amendment would take effect in fiscal 1998 or the
35 Lewis
NYYNYY
21 Costello
YNNYYY
36 Brown
YNNYNN
22 Poshard
YYNYYY
second year after ratification, whichever is later. Rejected 280-153: R
37 McCandless
NYYNYY
164-2; D 116-150 (ND 52-130, SD 64-20); I 0-1, June 11, 1992. A two-
38 Dornan
? Y Y N Y
INDIANA
thirds majority of those present and voting of both chambers (289 in
39 Dannemeyer
NYYNYY
1 Visclosky
YNNNNN
40 Cox
?YYNYY
this case) is required to propose an amendment to the Constitution. A
2 Sharp
YNNNYY
41 Lowery
NYYNYY
3 Roemer
YNNYYY
"yea" was a vote in support of the president's position. (Story, p.
1683)
ND Northern Democrats SD Southern Democrats
1744 - JUNE 13, 1992 CQ
184
185
186
187
183
184
185
186
187
183
184
185
186
187
183
184
185
186
187
4 Long
YNNYYY
5 Sabo
YNNNNN
32 LaFake
YNNNNN
SOUTH DAKOTA
5 Jontz
YNNYYY
6 Sikorski
NNNNYY
33 Nowak
YNNNNN
AL Johnson
YNNYYY
6 Burton
NYYNYY
7 Peterson
YNNNYY
34 Houghton
YYYNYY
7 Myers
YNYNYY
8 Oberstor
YNNNNN
TENNESSEE
NORTH CAROLINA
8 McCloskey
YNNNYY
1 Quillen
NYYNYY
MISSISSIPPI
1 Jones
YNNYNY
9 Hamilton
YNNYNN
2 Duncan
YYYNYY
10 Jacobs
NNNNYY
1 Whitten
YN??YY
2 Valentine
YNYNYY
3 Lloyd
YNYNYY
2 Espy
YNNNYY
3 Lancaster
YNNYYY
4 Cooper
YYYYYY
IOWA
3 Montgomery
Y N Y N Y Y
4 Price
?NNYY
5 Clement
Y N Y N Y Y
1 Leach
NYYNYY
4 Parker
YYYNYY
5 Neal
?NNNYY
6 Gordon
YNNYYY
2 Nutsle
NYYNYY
5 Taylor
YYYYYY
6 Coble
NYYNYY
7 Sundquist
NYYNYY
3 Nagle
YNNNNN
7 Rose
YNNYNN
8 Tanner
Y N Y N Y Y
4 Smith
YNNNNN
MISSOURI
8 Hetner
??????
9 Ford
YNNNNN
5 Lightfeet
NYYNYY
1 Clay
NNNNNN
8 McMillan
NYYNYY
6 Grandy
NYNNYY
2 Hom
YNNYNN
10 Ballenger
NYYNYY
TEXAS
3 Gephardt
YNNYNN
11 Taylor
NYYNYY
1 Chapman
?NNYYY
KANSAS
4 Skelton
YNNNYY
2 Wilson
? N Y Y Y Y
1 Roberts
NYYNYY
5 Wheat
YNNNNN
NORTH DAKOTA
3 Johnson
YYYNYY
2 Slattery
YNYNNN
6 Coleman
YYYNYY
AL Dorgon
YNNNYY
4 Hall
YYYYYY
3 Mayers
NYYNYY
7 Hancock
NYYNYY
OHIO
5 Bryant
YNNNYY
4 Glickman
YNNNYY
8 Emerson
YYYNYY
1 Luken
YNYNYY
6 Barton
NYYNYY
5 Nichols
? Y Y N Y
9 Volkmer
YNNYYY
2 Gradison
YYYNYY
7 Archer
YYYNYY
KENTUCKY
3 Hall
?NNNYY
8 Fields
NYYNYY
MONTANA
1 Hubbard
YYYNYY
4 Oxley
YYYNYY
9 Brooks
YNNNNN
1 Williams
?NNNNN
2 Notcher
5 Gillmor
YYYNYY
10 Pickle
YNNNYY
YNNYYY
2 Marienee
NYYNYY
YNNYYY
6 McEwen
YYYNYY
11 Edwards
Y N Y N Y Y
3 Mazzoli
4 Bunning
NYYNYY
NEBRASKA
7 Hobson
NYYNYY
12 Geren
YYYNYY
NYYNYY
NYYNYY
8 Boehner
NYYNYY
13 Sarpatius
Y N Y Y Y Y
5 Rogers
1 Bereuter
6 Hopkins
NYYNYY
2 Hoogland
YNNYYY
9 Kaptur
YNNYNN
14 Loughlin
? N Y N Y Y
7 Perkins
?NNNNN
3 Barrett
NYYNYY
10 Miller
NYYNYY
15 de la Garzo
?NNYYY
11 Eckort
YNNYYY
16 Coleman
YNNYNN
LOUISIANA
NEVADA
12 Kasich
YYYNYY
17 Stenholm
YNYNYY
1 Livingston
? Y Y N Y
1 Bilbray
YYNYYY
13 Pease
YNNNNN
18 Washington
?NNNNN
2 Jefferson
YNNYNN
2 Vucanovich
NYYYYY
14 Sawyer
YNNNNN
19 Combest
YYYNYY
3 Touzin
YYYNYY
15 Wylie
YYYNYY
20 Gonzalez
YNNYNN
4 McCrery
NYYNYY
NEW HAMPSHIRE
16 Regula
NYYNYY
21 Smith
NYYNYY
5 Huckaby
YNNNYY
1 Zeliff
NYYNYY
17 Traficant
YNNNNN
22 Delay
NYYNYY
6 Baker
NYYNYY
2 Swett
YYYYYY
18 Applegate
?NNYNN
23 Bustomante
YNNYNN
7 Hayes
YYYYYY
19 Feighan
YNNYYY
24 Frost
YNNYYY
8 Holloway
NYYNYY
NEW JERSEY
20 Oakar
YNNYNN
25 Andrews
YNNNYY
1 Andrews
YYYYYY
21 Stokes
YNNNNN
26 Armey
NYYNYY
MAINE
2 Hughes
YNNNNN
27 Ortiz
YNNNYY
1 Andrews
YNNNNN
3 Pallone
YYYYYY
OKLAHOMA
2 Snowe
YYYNYY
4 Smith
YYYNYY
1 Inhofe
NYYNYY
UTAH
5 Roukemo
NNNNYY
2 Synar
YNNNNN
1 Hansen
NYYNYY
MARYLAND
6 Dwyer
YNNNNN
3 Brewster
YNNNYY
2 Owens
YNNNYY
1 Gilchrest
NYYNYY
7 Rinaldo
YYYNYY
4 McCurdy
YNNNYY
3 Orton
YNNNYY
2 Bentley
NYYNYY
8 Roe
YNNYNN
5 Edwards
? Y Y N Y
3 Cardin
YNNNNN
9 Torricelli
YNNYYY
6 English
YNYYYY
VERMONT
4 McMillen
Y N Y Y Y Y
10 Payne
YNNNNN
AL Sanders
?NNNNN
5 Hoyer
YNNYYY
11 Gallo
OREGON
NYYNYY
6 Byron
YNNNYY
1 AuCoin
YNNNNN
12 Zimmer
NYYNYY
VIRGINIA
7 Mtume
YNNNNN
13 Saxton
2 Smith
NYYNYY
NYYNYY
1 Bateman
YYYNYY
B Morella
NNNNYY
14 Guarini
YNNNNN
3 Wyden
YNNNNN
2 Pickett
YNNNNN
4 DeFazio
? N N Y Y Y
3 Bliley
NYYNYY
MASSACHUSETTS
NEW MEXICO
5 Kopetski
YNNYNN
YNNYNN
4 Sisisky
YNYNYY
1 Olver
1 Schiff
YYYNYY
YNNYNN
5 Payne
Y N Y N Y Y
2 Neol
PENNSYLVANIA
2 Skeen
YYYNYY
6 Olin
YNNNNN
3 Early
YNNYYY
1 Foglietto
YNNNNN
3 Richardson
YNNYYY
7 Alien
NYYNYY
4 Frank
YNNNNN
2 Blackwell
YNNNNN
5 Atkins
YNNNNN
NEW YORK
3 Borski
YNNNNN
8 Moran
YNNYYY
9 Boucher
YNNYNN
6 Movroules
YNNNNN
YNNYNN
4 Kolter
YNNYYY
1 Hochbrueckner
10 Wolf
NYYNYY
7 Markey
YNNYNN
5 Schulze
YYYNYY
2 Downey
YNNNNN
8 Kennedy
YNNYYY
3 Mrazek
6 Yatron
YNNYYY
YNNNNN
WASHINGTON
9 Mookley
YNNNNN
7 Weldon
NYYNYY
4 Lent
YYYNYY
1 Miller
NYYNYY
10 Studds
YNNNNN
8 Kostmayer
YNNYNN
5 McGrath
YYYNYY
2 Swift
YNNNNN
11 Donnelly
YNNNYY
9 Shuster
NY?NYY
6 Flake
YNNNNN
3 Unsoeld
YNNNNN
MICHIGAN
7 Ackerman
YNNYNN
10 McDade
NNYNYY
4 Morrison
?NNNYY
8 Scheuer
11 Kanjorski
YNNNNN
YNNNNN
YNNNNN
12 Murtho
YNNYNN
5 Foley
N
1 Conyers
2 Pursell
Y N Y N Y Y
9 Manton
YNNYNN
6 Dicks
YNNNNN
13 Coughlin
? Y Y N Y
10 Schumer
YNNNNN
3 Wolpe
YNNNNN
7 McDermott
YNNNNN
NYYNYY
11 Towns
YNNNNN
14 Coyne
YNNNNN
4 Upton
8 Chandler
NYYNYY
NNNNYY
YNNNNN
15 Ritter
YYYNYY
12 Owens
5 Henry
16 Walker
NYYNYY
?NNYYY
13 Solarz
YNNNNN
WEST VIRGINIA
6 Corr
17 Gekas
NYYNYY
7 Kildee
YNNNNN
14 Molinari
NYYNYY
1 Mollohan
YNNNNN
18 Santorum
YYYNYY
8 Traxler
??????
15 Green
YNNNNN
19 Goodling
NYYNYY
2 Staggers
YNNNNN
9 Vander Jogt
YYYNYY
16 Rangel
?NNNNN
3 Wise
YNNYYY
10 Comp
NYYNYY
17 Weiss
20 Gaydos
?NNYNN
YNNNNN
4 Raholl
YNNYNN
11 Davis
? ? Y N Y
18 Serrano
YNNNNN
21 Ridge
NYYNYY
12 Bonior
19 Engel
YNNYNN
22 Murphy
NNNYNN
???YNN
WISCONSIN
20 Lowey
YNNNNN
23 Clinger
NYYNYY
13 Collins
YNNNNN
1 Aspin
YNNYNN
14 Hertel
YNNYNN
21 Fish
YYYNYY
RHODE ISLAND
2 Klug
NYYNYY
15 Ford
YNNNNN
22 Gilman
YNNNNN
1 Mochtley
NYYNYY
3 Gunderson
YNYNYY
16 Dingell
YNNYNN
23 McNulty
YNNYNN
2 Reed
YNNYNN
4 Kleczko
YNNYNN
17 Levin
YNNNN
24 Solomon
NYYNYY
5 Moody
YNNNYY
18 Broomfield
YYYNYY
25 Boehlert
NNNNYY
SOUTH CAROLINA
6 Petri
YYYNYY
26 Martin
NYYNYY
1 Ravenel
YYYNYY
7 Obey
YNNYNN
MINNESOTA
27 Walsh
YNYNYY
2 Spence
YYYNYY
8 Roth
NYYNYY
1 Penny
YNNNYY
28 McHugh
YNNNNN
3 Derrick
YNNNYY
9 Sensenbrenner
NYYNYY
2 Weber
? Y Y N Y
29 Horton
YNNNYY
4 Patterson
YNYNYY
3 Ramstad
NYYNYY
30 Sloughter
YNNNNN
5 Spratt
YNNNYY
WYOMING
4 Vento
YNNNNN
31 Paxon
NYYNYY
6 Tallon
?NNNNN
AL Thomas
YYYNYY
Southern states - Ala., Ark., Flo., Go., Ky., la., Miss., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tenn., Texas, Va.
Omitted votes are quorum calls, which CQ does not include in its vote charts.
CQ JUNE 13, 1992 - 1745
TIM:
The following Members of Congress cosponsored the Stenholm
Balanced Budget Amendment and then voted against:
Annunzio (D-IL)
As Introduced 6/26/91
Bustamante (D-TX)
As Introduced 6/26/91
Horn (D-MO)
Added 4/9/92
Kleczka (D-WI)
As Introduced 6/26/91
Lantos (D-CA)
Added 4/30/92
Martinez (D-CA)
Added 5/14/92
Murphy (D-PA)
As Introduced 6/26/91
Neal, R. (D-MA)
As Introduced 6/26/91
Olin (D-VA)
As Introduced 6/26/91
Schroeder (D-CO)
Added 2/5/92
Tallon (D-SC)
As Introduced 6/26/91
Traficant (D-OH)
Added 3/26/92
Also attached is a complete list of cosponsors.
Becky
F41-
The "switchers list"
Please port in
Research.
- Dmcr
08-27-1992 05: 40PM FROM
TO
94566218 P.01
Heritage Foundation
Phone: (202) 546-4400
Fax: (202) 675-1778
DATE: 8/27/92
TO:
ED Walters
FAX NUMBER: 202 456-6218
FROM: Steve Schwalm
NUMBER OF PAGES:
COMMENTS:
I have d ton of Congress
in to which I'd be happy to
mail.
214 Massachusetts- Ave., N.E.,
Washington, D.C. 20002
08-27-1992 05 40PM
FROM
TO
94566218
P.02
Your Congressman:
A Six-Million-Dollar Man
By David Mason
It has been particularly enjoyable to be outside of Washington this week, in part because of
the reactions I get when I explain that I write about the Congress for a living. The usual response
is sympathy, as if I had a necessary but somewhat distasteful job-and there is that aspect to
dealing with Congress. But for the most part, I genuinely enjoy my job, for it is certainly a good
time to be a congressional reformer.
There is a publication in Washington called Roll Call, which styles itself "the newspaper of
Capitol Hill." On the day I left Washington a banner headline across the top of the front page
told us that a House committee had been forced to temporarily furlough some of its staff, and
that other committees 1 faced a similar threat because the House had not passed its annual commit-
tee funding bill.
The rest of the front page was taken up by stories about the House Bank
scandal, the House Post Office investigation, and the possibility that a lot of incumbent Congress-
men would be defeated at the polls this fall. To my mind, this is all good news. Of course, I'm
not happy to see someone laid off, even temporarily, but I think it is a useful lesson for Congress
during this nationwide recession: If you don't get your work done on time, and if you don't
satisfy your customers (the voters in this case), there are real, and often unpleasant, conse-
quences. If Congress is about to be dragged back into reality by outraged voters, so much the
better.
My immediate task is to explore the culture of the Imperial Congress by examining the budget
of the royal household. Just how big is the congressional budget? Just how many perks do our
elected representatives lavish upon themselves? We started looking into this a couple of years
ago and came to the initial conclusion that the congressional budget is bigger than a bread box-
a lot bigger. Just how much bigger is difficult to determine-information about the congres-
sional budget is hard to find. For executive agencies, getting the budget is fairly easy-just look
at the Appropriations bills passed by Congress. If you want more detail, there are scores of le-
gally required and publicly available budget documents.
Arcane and Confusing. Getting information about Congress, on the other hand, is exceed-
ingly difficult. In the first place, the Legislative Appropriations bill that funds most, but by no
means all, of Congress's expenses is arcane and deliberately confusing. To find out how much
one committee spends, you have to examine five different accounts. A long-time member of the
Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee recently had this system explained to him for
the first time -by a reporter. His reaction: "That's fascinating. I didn't know that. You know,
you turn up a rock and you're likely to find a lizard. .2
David Mason is the Director of the U.S. Congress Assessment Project at The Heritage Foundation.
He spoke at The Heritage Foundation's Annual Board Meeting and Public Policy Seminar, Kiawah Island, South
Carolina, on April 11, 1992.
ISSN 0272-1155. ©1992 by The Heritage Foundation.
1
Roll Call, April 9, 1992.
2
Congressional Quarterly Special Report, "Where the Money Goes," December 7, 1992, p. 111.
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Even if you finally penetrate the Appropriations bill, you'll discover that many expenses aren't
included. Search all you will, but you will find no funds for Congressmen's salaries. But don't
assume they're not being paid or are going broke. Their $129,500 annual stipends, now with au-
tomatic cost-of-living adjustments, are provided through what is known as a "permanent
appropriation"-otherwise known as an entitlement. I guess this makes Congressmen America's
richest welfare recipients.
Other items which aren't funded in the annual budget include: foreign travel (those infamous
congressional junkets), part of their retirement benefits, free medical care, and the many execu-
tive branch employees who are "detailed"-that is, they are loaned to Congress, sometimes for
years at a stretch. These costs aren't insubstantial: the average congressional retiree stands to col-
lect around $2 million in pension payments.
Exempt From Audits. I may still be missing a few items, because Congress-or as it often re-
fers to itself, "The People's Body"-has exempted itself from the Freedom of Information Act,
as well as from most other laws it passes. Try to get something from Congress and they can just
say no. There is, for instance, something called the Capitol Preservation Commission, which was
funded by a special sale of commemorative coins rather than by a regular appropriation. That
Commission now has $16 million in the bank, but has done nothing in four years of operations.
There is no source of public information on the Commission's operations, and despite laws call-
ing for it, there has never been an audit of the Commission's funding. 3 In another case, House
Speaker Tom Foley decided to have some elevators in the Capitol redecorated, including new
marble flooring, at a cost of several million dollars. But there was no opportunity for other Con-
gressmen, much less the taxpayers who provided the lavish new convenience, to comment on
whether the expe:
us approprfate. And, by the way, if you visit Washington and go to the
Capitol you won't
.ble to ride on these expensive elevators-they're for Congressmen only!
What is the bottom line on the congressional budget? Adding all of these benefits together you
find that the average, run-of-the-mill Congressman is, like the TV show of a few years ago-a
six-million-dollar man. Appropriated spending for Congress this year will amount to just under
$3 billion-an average of over $5 million for each Senator and Representative. Add in pay, re-
tirement, travel, medical care, parking, detailed employees, free publications, historic
preservation, marble floors and suddenly every Congressman is a TV star.
Now, some people inside the Beltway say, "Gee, what's wrong with that? After all, these peo-
ple have important jobs. It's just a drop in the bucket compared to the Executive Branch.
Corporate CEOs make a lot more," and on and on. I could argue with all the analogies, but the
real problem is a lot simpler. With all of the perks, privileges and power, the average Congress-
man begins to think he is the six-million-dollar man: He can see farther, run faster, jump higher
and is just plain smarter than the average 'ol constituent. Pretty soon the Congressman starts to
feel that the folks back home just don't understand. Then, a little later the Congressman starts
thinking that he really deserves all of the perks, and you end up, for instance, with the Defense
Department providing congressional airplanes that make first class travel on a commercial airline
look like the back of the bus.
The budget isn't all. There's the deferential staff, favor-seeking lobbyists, free meals and vaca-
tions, fawning bureaucrats, and interest groups offering adulation. According to the
Florida-based newsletter Lobbying & Influence Alert, there are 77 lobbyists for each U.S. Sena-
tor and about 24 lobbyists for each House member. It all ends in an attitude that breeds scandal:
3
Roll Call, April 8, 1992, p. 3.
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bounced checks at the House Bank, money laundering at the House Post Office, ghost employ-
ees, using tax money for campaigns, trading influence for contributions, and then trying to cover
it all up. Still, the ultimate evil isn't the perks themselves, but the transformation of our democrat-
ically elected representatives into imperial satraps.
Bloated Staff. Congress-and our representative democracy-was hurt by this process long
before the scandals broke out. The congressional staffs I mentioned are three times as large today
as they were in 1960, and, as Vice President Quayle has pointed out, this allows the Congress-
man to do a lot more-to serve, for example, on seventeen committees and subcommittees. An
obvious question, however, is whether America as a whole, or even Congress in particular, has
benefitted from the rapid growth and gargantuan size of the legislature. In fact, Congress suffers
directly as a result of this overload-mostly by becoming more bureaucratic. Congressional
staffs spend most of their time trying to manipulate bureaucracies. The Pentagon alone receives
2,500 phone calls every working day from Capitol Hill-that is nearly five each day from every
Member of Congress. And Congressmen write over 100,000 letters a year to the Defense Depart-
ment-that is almost a letter a day from every Congressman. Now none of this prevented the
$300 hammer or the $500 toilet seat because, believe me, those calls and letters aren't mostly to
check up on whether the Pentagon is spending money wisely, but to make sure they spend it in
the right place.
But again, what's so bad about pork-it is certainly amusing for Heritage to write about leafy
spurge bio-control or the Sweet Auburn Curb Market. But at only $100,000 each, these don't
add up very fast-at least not by congressional standards. One illustration may suffice. In 1956
Congress passed the Interstate Highway Act, which in the memory. of most of you revolutionized
transportation in America. In that bill, Congress made a few big decisions-that we would have
a new, national highway network, built to then unheard-of standards, and they passed a federal
gasoline tax to pay for it. Then they stopped. They left it up to the Transportation Departments of
six successive administrations and fifty states to decide exactly where to put the roads and which
to build first. It was a remarkable success. Last year, in contrast, Congress passed another trans-
portation bill that dwarfed the 1956 act in terms of spending, but most of the funds were
earmarked by individual Congressmen for individual districts, even down to the level of dictat-
ing the timing of a specific traffic light in a small Pennsylvania town. What was lost in the rush
to bring home the bacon was any conception of the national interest, or any significant thought
about future transportation needs: should we reform the air travel system, encourage high speed
rail, look at private road construction? These questions were addressed only insofar as they repre-
sented the subject of a research grant for a local university. And when you look back 25 years
from now the billions of dollars spent in that bill will have made little noticeable difference.
What we lose from a bloated, pork-obsessed Congress isn't as much the wasted money as the
lost opportunity to make real decisions about major issues that affect us in significant ways.
Wave of Reform. Everyone realizes there are many problems with Congress-just turn on the
late night talk shows and Congress jokes abound. But I believe things can get better. Historically
Congress does change. Congressional reform comes in big waves. There was one in 1946, an-
other in 1974, and we are today on the verge of yet another big wave. Those previous waves
were proceeded by a lot of intellectual groundwork, and Heritage is working to provide that
groundwork now, so that when 100 or more freshmen Congressmen show up for work in Janu-
ary of 1993 we'll have a reform program ready.
Everyone agrees that something should be done, but what can we do? First, be suspicious of in-
cumbent congressmen bearing reform plans. Campaign finance reform, for instance, would tax
you to pay for politicians' re-election efforts and, in the process, would give incumbents even
greater advantages over challengers.
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Second, keep up the pressure. Public outrage over cover-ups of the Bank and Post Office scan-
dals have started to rock the cozy incumbent protection machine, and already fifty House
Members and half a dozen Senators have decided to call it quits. Don't be disgusted, stay mad.
Third, think big. Some well-intentioned Republicans on Capitol Hill are talking about 25 per-
cent, 33 percent, even 50 percent cuts in committee staff areas (not all, though). But committee
staff is only a small part of the overall congressional staff. Even if we cut the whole congres-
sional staff in half, it would still be twice as large as it was when Congress passed that interstate
highway bill. Keep in mind that, if the objective is not to save a few hundred million dollars in
staff salaries, but to change the way the institution operates, you need significant, broad-ranging
cuts.
What about the committees? Dan Quayle told us recently how he eliminated a few committees
when he was in the Senate, but why not get rid of standing committees altogether? People have
proposed rotating committee chairmen or members as a way of breaking up the iron triangle,
whereby long-time committee members become not just part of the problem, but the problem.
But Congress got along for over a hundred years with just a few standing committees-and
many legislatures still operate that way today. Originally, a bill was introduced, debated for an
hour, and then acted upon. Unobjectionable bills were passed, bad ones died a quick death, and
important legislation that might need more consideration was referred to a specially selected
committee which had as its only purpose refining that bill and bringing it back to the floor. Re-
storing a system like that would go a long way toward eliminating the special interest influence
and legislative logjams that bedevil Congress.
Making Congress More Representative. Last, we need to de-professionalize Congress. Most
of us agree on term limits, but perhaps more damaging than the number of years spent in Wash-
ington is the number of days. If Congress is a full-time job, Representatives have to quit their
jobs, pull their children out of school, move their families-in short, sever all of their real ties to
the communities they represent. While it will require reversing the momentum of twenty years or
more of ethics laws, it is worth the effort to make Congress less professional and more represen-
tative. We could start by requiring them to spend two months at home every summer instead of
only one, with the goal of limiting congressional sessions to six months a year or less.
While these suggestions sound a bit far-fetched today-at least they do in Washington-real
reform is possible with continued electoral pressure and perhaps term limits. But, we need to
think big, for if this truly is an Imperial Congress, only a real revolution will change it.
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A Congressional Priesthood
By Ralph Kinney Bennett
Andrews Air Force Base is just a short limousine ride from Capitol Hill, just outside the Beltway
and about as far into real America, it seems, as our isolated Congress would like to go. Andrews is
far enough away from the Hill that the nation's legislators can escape the legislative grind but still
be well shielded from the prying eyes of the general public, SO that they can act, well, like them-
selves. While a "reform" spirit continues to sweep the Hill and perks keep dropping, at least
temporarily, by the wayside, it's useful to recall something which happened at Andrews Air Force
Base last fall: the Congressional Golf Tournament held on the base course.
There, you could see well-tanned senators and congressmen dressed in gaudy golf clothes gath-
ered at the base officer's club. Imagine, if you will, mighty legislators with tiny whales and anchors
and other little devices embroidered on their kelly-green pants coming in from their day on the
course. As they indulged in food, drink, and camaraderie, they were able to contemplate a veritable
tumulus of consumer goods, very expensive ones, piled before them: VCRs, crystal, electronic gad-
gets, clothing, liquor, magnums of champagne. All this vast pile, provided, by the way, by
lobbyists, was to be handed out as prizes for various feats on the golf course that day. The august
lawmakers eyed this mass of goods in such an anxious way that it was clear their $125,000 a year
salaries had not inured them from intense freebie lust.
Somehow it was decided that the idea of awarding prizes would be dispensed with. Everyone
could take what they wanted. Whatever decorum there may have been quickly evaporated. Elbow-
ing each other aside the men, all of whom had been provided with $400 leather golf bags courtesy
of some lobbyist, began stuffing items into these handy containers in what a participant described
later to the Wall Street Journal as a "feeding frenzy."
A World Apart. Such sordid scenes remain largely hidden from public knowledge because Con-
gress truly does live in a world apart. It's not just the perks and salaries; it's much more. We're
seeing all that go by the wayside for the moment under the glare of publicity: the fixed parking tick-
ets, the free first class upgrades, the junkets, the numerous slush funds disguised as furniture
allowances and stationery expenditures, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But there's something else that
sets the Congress apart, something of which the perks are just a symptom. It's a wilful elitism
which has become institutionalized and manifests itself in the very texture of life on the Hill. Con-
gress, by and large, sees itself not working for the people as public servants, but governing them. It
does what it wants and it takes what it wants.
The House check kiting scandal is an obvious example. Go back to the early days when it was
first revealed that the House bank, staffed by patronage employees, was allowing overdrafts to float
for months and even years. As the dimensions of the scandal first became apparent, the lawmakers
instinctively tried to cover up what was going on.
Read the newspaper accounts of those early days and see the character of the immediate reaction
of the Congress to that scandal. A reporter tried to find out whether the House Ways and Means
Ralph Kinney Bennett, a Senior Staff Editor of The Reader's Digest in its Washington Bureau, has reported from
Washington since 1966.
He spoke at The Heritage Foundation's Annual Board Meeting and Public Policy Seminar, Kiawah Island, South
Carolina, on April 11, 1992.
ISSN 0272-1155. © 1992 by The Heritage Foundation.
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Committee chairman, Dan Rostenkowski, had bounced any checks. One of the congressman's key
aides confronted the journalist and said, "Aren't you ashamed? This is none of your business." Rep-
resentative Barney Frank embellished that and just said, "It's none of your damn business." Gus
Savage replied, "Call back when you have a serious question."
As public outrage grew, we noticed that the House fell back on its favorite defense, assuring the
public that it would have the matter investigated-by, of course, the House Ethics Committee, a
body whose chief purpose is as a staple of stand-up comedy. But my favorite moment, 1 think, was
when a spokesman for Speaker Foley reminded the press that these overdrafts were paid out of
members' bank balances and therefore no "public funds" were ever used. It never occurred to the
staffer that every dollar of the House bank overhead and salary of staff, every dollar in its accounts,
was our money. We, the people, pay these solons their ill-gotten salaries.
Watch congressmen and -women on the Hill and you see a separate race of public figures care-
fully coiffed, clothed, considerably pancaked for the television cameras, moving about on private
elevators, cordoned from staring tourists by sycophantic doormen and their own police force. They
have slipped the bonds of being public servants and assumed the mantle of governing in their own
right. While burdening the people with massive regulations, they have, of course, exempted them-
selves routinely from all of them. Congress is totally exempt from such strictures as the Equal
Employment Opportunity Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Fair Labor Standards
Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Wage and Hour Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act,
all of the Civil Rights Acts.
Fancying themselves "in touch with the people" and fooling many voters through the technologi-
cal trickery of such things as computerized letters to answer constituent mail with replies tailored to
every issue, our senators and representatives basically listen only to each other and to the special in-
terest lobbyists, many of whom are ex-congressional staffers or government bureaucrats. They hear
what they want to hear in endless rounds of hearings, receptions, and junkets, disguised as fact-find-
ing trips.
Spenders Listening to Spenders. Read the excellent work which Jim Payne 1 has done showing
how this congressional culture thrives on itself and how its budget planning is nothing but spenders
listening to spenders in carefully orchestrated hearings. Look, too - if you believe that Congress
might somehow be taught to hold the line on national spending - at what Congress spends on it-
self. In fiscal 1991, while businesses were cutting back, holding the line, offering three and four
percent salary increases, an expansionist Congress increased its spending 14.2 percent to over
$2.5 billion for its offices, its burgeoning staffs, its police, its trappings, and perquisites.
In fiscal 1992, Congress's spending on itself will jump 17.5 percent to over $3 billion. This re-
flects not only the pay increases for the legislators themselves, but many other costs. There are now
20 committees and 87 subcommittees in the Senate, 27 committees and 155 subcommittees in the
House; 37,000 employees on Capitol Hill. Five times the level from 1970.
This is all part of a phenomenon that really should give us pause. There was a survey done by the
Kettering Foundation that didn't get much notice last year. Called "Citizens and Politics as Viewed
From Main Street America," it shows that despite the conventional wisdom that Americans are apa-
thetic about national politics, the real problem lies elsewhere, on Capitol Hill. The Foundation
concluded that "citizens do care about politics but they no longer believe they can have an effect.
They feel politically impotent." Why? Because the study finds they feel they have been cut off
1
James L. Payne, The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means (San Francisco: ICS Press,
1991).
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from most policy issues due to the way these issues are framed and talked about in Washington.
They are cut off by arcane procedures, and a foreign insider language that is alien to them.
I have seen this problem close up on Capitol Hill, and as I have interviewed congressmen and
staff people, I've come to realize more than ever that Congress does its business in such a way as to
really cut the public out of the loop. It has created elaborate parliamentary and procedural screens
behind which it can conduct its business without what it considers interference from the public. In-
deed, it has gone to the trouble of creating an ersatz forum of "public input," elaborately, orches-
trated through select witnesses and structured hearings. It has created for itself a huge, complex, yet
virtually invisible legislative system which goes its own way, forming legislation on its own terms
and with input only from those lobbyists and pressure groups which it chooses to hear.
Congress, if you really want to understand it, has become a priesthood, a priesthood of legisla-
tors, staff, and lobbyists. It is a priesthood of Byzantine complexities, temples within temples, rites
within rites. It employs a variety of obscure procedures, terms of art, et cetera, all designed to create
an illusion of openness. And the press, in many ways, goes along with this, because the press's posi-
tion is enhanced by this priesthood. Journalists are privileged to come down onto the steps of the
temple and explain to the masses the mysterious rites going on inside.
It is interesting, isn't it, that it took two reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer fifteen months
of working day-in and day-out to ferret out the story of how the 1990 tax bill came into being.
Think about that! Here was a bill which affected you and me, every American, and yet it took two
reporters, working full-time and using every tool of their trade from leaks to Freedom of Informa-
tion filings to consultations with accountants and lawyers to furtive meetings with staffers who said,
"Don't use my name," to find out what was in a tax bill.
Robert Potts, former chief of staff of the Senate Republican Policy Committee and a top senato-
rial aide for former Senator Bill Armstrong, notes that, "Curiously, all this has been compounding
even while the Congress seems to be becoming more open, with C-SPAN coverage of both Houses.
But remember, the Congress controls those cameras and most of what is really significant cannot be
seen by the average citizen."
Congress's Tricks. There are many ways, of course, by which Congress bypasses or subverts the
normal civics class idea of how legislation is produced. One, of course, is the informal session. Be-
fore the formal session of the committee (which you may well see on C-SPAN and thus feel you're
seeing democracy at work) there has already been an informal meeting of the main committee mem-
bers in which all the substantive issues have been agreed upon and ironed out. There may well have
been agreement in that meeting that no new issues will be brought up during the public session. In
some cases, there may not even be this informal session, but merely a series of phone calls between
top staffers, extracting prior agreements that no embarrassing amendments or new business will be
brought up, and that certain congressmen or senators who have shown a kind of a meddlesome
streak will be kept out of the procedures.
Another favorite device is to bypass the conference committee. Instead of the usual meeting of
House and Senate conferees to reconcile two bills, a more informal get-together with key members
from both sides takes place. We'll never hear about this. There's no conference report. Perhaps not
even a complete transcript of the meeting in which the mark-up takes place.
Then there are the so-called "task forces." These are the new ad hoc, get-things-done groups on
Capitol Hill. Instead of the full committee meeting on something, task forces are formed excluding
certain "difficult" members. And, of course, there's that hoary classic: simply delay the printing of
the material from the hearings themselves. The record of the hearings on a bill is often not available
in time to be of any use to those considering the pros and cons of the legislation. (In the hearings,
the pros far outnumber the cons anyway.) Very often the final bill itself is not prepared or made
available in time for the vote. A thousand-page bill is being considered and there is one copy on the
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floor for members to come down and peruse. Who is going to read it, let alone understand what is in
it?
But my favorite device of all-I love to see this one in action-is the concept that the more im-
portant and vital the hearing, the smaller the hearing room. This is a very deeply ingrained and very
important matter on the Hill. Committees do not want you to know what goes on when they get to-
gether with lobbyists to thrash out legislation. So what is not settled over the telephone or in an
informal session is discussed in tiny rooms where access is extremely limited. Go up to Capitol Hill
very early in the morning: you will see messengers who have been paid by lobbyists to sit in the
hall outside these legislative walk-in closets. They sit in the hall and hold a place in line for various
special interest supplicants who will then have a chance to get inside the room where this vital legis-
lation is being "hammered out."
Now, of course, the advocates of this system, the priests themselves, say that this is a more effec-
tive way of doing business. After all, it's so messy when the public gets involved in these things.
"Just a Citizen." Bob Potts told me a story that I think best illustrates the way Congress has be-
come a world apart, how even those with the best intentions become imbued with the characteristics
of a priesthood:
Senator Armstrong was on the Treasury and Postal Subcommittee of
Appropriations, so I would go to all those hearings with him. One morning
we had a meeting in which the Secretary of the Treasury was testifying. It
was just a small room and there weren't many people there. While he was
testifying, a man and his family, tourists, came into the room. It was just a
man and his wife and their kids, kind of thrilled, I guess, to be seeing
democracy at work close up.
At one point the Secretary had to leave the room to make a phone call or
something and there was a break. This man got up and raised his hand and
said, "Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman," very quietly and politely. He said he
knew something about the point they were discussing and he had something
helpful he would like to say. We all ignored him. I remember the staff people
who were there, just regular guys, good down-to-earth people, but suddenly
they were part of the different world, the different culture, and we ignored
this guy.
Finally some staff guy felt, "Well, I'd better do something," and he went
down and spoke to the man for a minute. He came back and we asked, "What
did you tell him?"
He said, "I told the man that if he had anything to say he could sign up to
testify and come back in a couple of months."
Why didn't we just let this guy say what he had to say? It wouldn't have hurt
anything. But no, we were the Senate and he was just a citizen.
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helium industry. Still, the program continues to exist, consuming over
$120 million in taxpayer funds each year.
Example: The National Fertilizer Development Center grew out of a
munitions plant at the end of World War I. Later the fertilizer factory was
turned over to the Tennessee Valley Authority. For some sixty years the
government-owned plant has produced fertilizer and conducted fertilizer
research for the benefit of private companies. It currently costs taxpayers
over $35 million per year to operate the facility.
5) Streamline departments.
An efficient company uses the minimum number of employees and departments to
accomplish the maximum amount of work. Except in very critical areas, duplication
and redundant capacity is considered wasteful and costly. Yet the government main-
tains overlapping programs and agencies on a huge scale.
Example: The federal government manages over 75 different poverty
programs. The annual cost of these programs to all levels of government
totals some $250 billion-nearly two and one-half times the cash needed
to lift every poor American above the poverty threshold.
Example: There are over sixty federal environmental programs. Some
$6 billion could be saved over five years simply by merging these
programs into a single block grant to the states.
Example: The Department of Agriculture manages 11,000 field offices
in 94 percent of the counties in America, even though only 13 percent of
the nation's counties are considered agricultural.
Example: There are at least 37 programs, located in at least three
agencies, designed to manage fishery issues.
6) Eliminate waste.
When the economy is strong and business is booming, many firms are willing to
spend money on activities or expenses not directly related to the mission of the com-
pany. These might include executive perks such as company cars and country club
memberships. But during hard times, owners usually act quickly to cut back perks and
costs not directly related to the central business of the firm.
The federal government, on the other hand, spends tens, if not hundreds, of billions
of dollars on programs and activities that do not benefit the country as a whole and are
not related to the central purposes of government. More often than not, this spending
helps no one, save perhaps the bureaucrats who collect or spend the money and the spe-
cial interests who receive the government largesse. There are thousands of these spe-
cial projects, often called pork barrel projects, laced throughout the federal budget.
Table 4 lists just a few such projects slated for funding in the fiscal 1993 appropria-
tions bills recently passed by the House of Representatives.
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Wasteful spending, however,
often extends beyond the tradi-
Table 4
tional "pork" projects:
Should We Be Paying For This?
Pork Barrel Items in the Federal Budget
Example: The government
has established dozens of
$2,000,000 for the Center For Suburban Mobility in
commissions of questionable
Northern Virginia to continue "intelligent vehicle high-
way systems" research.
national purpose. Among them:
The American Battle
$1,900,000 for a railroad-highway crossing
Monuments Commission; the
"demonstration project in Augusta, Georgia.
Commission for the
Preservation of America's
$100,000 for railroad metallurgical and welding stud-
Heritage Abroad; the
108 at the Oregon Graduate Institute.
Christopher Columbus
Quincentenary Jubilee
$925,000 for the relocation of a road at Jackson Na.
tional Fish Hatchery in Wyoming.
Commission; the Delaware
River Basin Commission; and
$32,800,000 for magnetohydrodynamics research.
the Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Memorial Commission.
$700,000 to pave a new road and parking lot, and
Terminating most of these
to install a boar dock, a composting tollet, and a
commissions could save
concrete boat launching ramp at the Tennessee-
Tombigbee Waterway in Alabama and Mississippi
taxpayers some $645 million
over the next five years.
$500,000 for acoustics research
Example: The honey, wool,
$5,500,000 for apple research,
and mohair subsidy programs
have been called the
$4,959,000 for bee research.
"dinosaurs" of federal
programs by the General
$200,000 for Locaweed research.
Accounting Office because
$11,048,000 for potato research.
they should have been
terminated years ago. These
$610,000 for soybean-based ink research.
programs are federal perks that
benefit only a very small group
$7,000,000 for African elephant conservation.
of individuals, yet cost
taxpayers some $200 million
$300,000 for an urban forest climate study in
Syracuse, New York.
annually.
7) Sell surplus assets.
Even the most efficient businesses, burdened by heavy debt or expenses, find it
more stock.
ates sell divisions, real estate companies sell land, and publicly held companies sell
necessary to turn some assets into cash. For instance, airlines sell routes, conglomer- may
The federal government, however, is prohibited by its own arcane budget laws from
reducing the deficit by selling assets. The 1990 budget agreement, for instance, insti-
tuted rules that prevent Congress and the Administration from using funds raised from
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the sale of government assets for deficit reduction. This is like a bank telling a family it
must foreclose on their farm because the bank cannot count as a mortgage payment the
money the family has just deposited from a stock sale.
In an era when governments from Moscow to Mexico City are transferring their as-
sets to the private sector, it is ironic that the U.S. Congress discourages or prohibits the
federal government from selling assets to reduce the deficit.
There many assets that the federal government could sell to reduce the deficit:
Example: The government currently holds some $205 billion worth of
outstanding direct loans. These loans should be sold to the secondary loan
market in much the same manner that a mortgage company resells its
loans. The Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) raised nearly $4 billion
for the Treasury in 1987, the last year in which the agency was legally
allowed to sell its loans to the private sector.
Example: The government currently manages enterprises worth billions
of dollars that should be sold to the private sector. These include the
Naval Petroleum Reserves, the Power Marketing Administrations, the
Tennessee Valley Authority, and millions of acres of public lands.
8) Give managers flexibility to cut wasteful spending.
Line staff and managers often are better able than their superiors to identify cost-re-
duction measures in a firm. Thus wise business owners encourage junior managers to
look for ways to save the company money.
It is hard to imagine any company being so foolish as to institute company rules to
stop their managers from saving money. Yet Congress does exactly that. For instance,
Congress regularly sets lower limits on the number of employees that must staff cer-
tain agencies. These "employment floors," as they are known, prevent agency manag-
ers from making the most effective use of the employees they supervise, such as by
shifting workers from one department to another. Other rules similarly prevent manag-
ers from saving money.
Example: The U.S. Park Service is prohibited from covering its costs by
raising the entrance fees it charges to visitors. Because of this rule, the
Park Service now charges tourists less than one-fourth of the real costs
associated with admitting each visitor. The Service spends $220 million
per year on visitor services, but receives only $60 million back through
fees.
Example: The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 increases the costs of
government construction contracts by over $1 billion annually. It does so
by forcing contractors to pay union scale wages on all federally funded
construction contracts, even though less expensive labor often is
available. This legislation originally was enacted to keep black workers
off federal construction sites. That is precisely what it has done during the
last sixty years. A similar law, the Service Contract Act, serves the same
function for federally funded service contracts. The extra costs imposed
by these laws: some $2.0 billion per year.
11
08-27-1992 05 50PM
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FIGHTING PORK BARREL SPENDING
In all too typical fashion, Congress is using this $27 billion windfall to reward
its favorite constituencies. The fiscal 1991 budget bill became a Christmas tree of
gifts to hundreds of special interests, representing everything from catfish farms
to zebra mussel research.
Alarmed by the proliferation of
PORK BUSTERS
such spending, Senator Bob
According to the PorkBusters, the fol-
Smith, the New Hampshire Re-
lowing criteria identify abuses of the bud
publican, Representative Harris
get process and congressional rules. To
Fawell, the Illinois Republican,
be branded "pork," a project must meet at
and Representative Timothy
least three or the following criteria:
Penny, the Minnesota Democrat,
organized a group of Congress-
1; The appropriation was never the
men who call themselves
subject of a congressional committee
"PorkBusters." This group has de-
or subcommittee hearing;
veloped a standardized definition
2) The appropriation lacks specific au-
of pork barrel spending, and is
thorization for individual projects:
now attempting to rescind those
3) The appropriation-was added in con-
items in the fiscal 1991 spending
ference committee when neither the
bills that fit the definition.
House nor Senate bill originally con-
Using this test, the PorkBusters
tained such a provision:
find wasted taxpayer money on
4) The appropriation has no meaningful
hundreds of projects. Among
relationship to the act, agency, or
them from the fiscal 1991 budget:
program under which it is funded;
$37,000 to study the "han-
5) The appropriation for a project is not
dling of animal manure and
competitively awarded. This in
the development of resolu-
tion techniques to address
cludes projects which are not subject
to peer review, which fail in a com-
conflicts between produc-
petitive process, or for which the
ers and the general public";
competitive procedure is waived;
$150,000 to the town of
6) The appropriation was earmarked in
Matewan, West Virginia, to
violation of established congres-
study the century-old Hat-
sional procedures or a process pre-
field-McCoy feud;
scribed by law; OF
$320,000 to purchase Presi-
7) The appropriation is for projects of
dent William McKinley's
purely local interest, without 03-
in-laws' home and donate
tional or regional importance.
it to the state of Ohio;
$942,000 to produce re-
fined fish oil, which is then donated to the National Institutes of Health for
research;
$25,000 to study the location for a new House of Representatives staff gym-
nasium.
5
night of 7/17/92
PAGE
2
7TH STORY of Focus printed in FULL format.
The Associated Press
The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The
Associated Press.
July 19, 1991, Friday, PM cycle
SECTION: Washington Dateline
LENGTH: 663 words
HEADLINE: Some 1992 Senate Candidates Say They'll Give Pay Raises to Charity
BYLINE: By MATT YANCEY, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
KEYWORD: Senate Pay Raise
BODY:
Senators who face re-election challenges next year already are trying to
distance themselves from a $ 23,200 pay increase the Senate voted itself.
A day after the raise was approved by a 53-45 vote on a surprise amendment
brought to the Senate floor by Democratic and Republican leaders in the dead of
night, at least five members whose terms expire in 1993 said they will refuse
all or some of the money or give it to charity.
"The majority of senators have stiffed the American people and this time the
voters will remember," consumer advocate Ralph Nader predicted Thursday. "People
can be pushed around by crooked and greedy politicians only to a certain limit
... and then a simmering revolt erupts."
The measure attached to an appropriations bill would close the gap between
the $ 125, 100 annual salaries of the House's 435 members and the $ 101,900 that
senators now get.
In exchange, senators would be banned from pocketing thousands of dollars in
speaking fees that more than half of them now accept each year from special
interest groups seeking to influence legislation. The House renounced such
honoraria in boosting its salaries by $ 28,500 last January.
However, some frequent performers on the rubber chicken speaking circuit
actually could get an honoraria windfall this year.
Those who already have pocketed the $ 23,068 limit on honoraria this year
could make a total of $ 134,364 in pay and speaking fees in 1991 if the
legislation is finished and signed by President Bush before Congress goes on
vacation next month.
Of the 33 senators who face re-election in the next two years, 25 opposed the
pay increase and only eight supported it. Three of those eight - Republican
Leader Bob Dole of Kansas and Sens. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., and John Breaux, D-La.,
explained their votes.
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The Associated Press, July 19, 1991
FOCUS
"Maybe we're all overpaid," said Dole. "But we can't cut House salaries and I
believe most people in my state will understand
there ought to be parity."
Breaux complained that many of his colleagues "too often are eager to vote
against a pay raise but all too willing to accept the money."
Wirth defended his vote as a way to rid the Senate of honoraria and encourage
more non-millionaire candidates with families to seek seats in it. But he said
he was going to divert all of the increase to setting up a charity program in
Colorado.
Three other senators up for re-election in the next two years but who voted
against the increase also said they will give it all to charity to return at
least a portion of it to the government.
Sen. Harris Wofford, D-Pa., said his first donation would go to a fund to
help families of Pennsylvania soldiers killed in the Persian Gulf War
Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., said he will turn back to the government any
portion "more than I would have gotten" had there been annual cost-of-living
increases equal to those received by Social Security recipients over the past 15
years.
Actually, the Senate just got a. $ 3,500 cost-of-living raise last January but
had not received one previously since 1987, when it accepted a $ 12,100 boost in
senators' salaries.
But during the double-digit inflation and recession cycle of the early 1980s
lawmakers in both the Senate and the House rejected such COLA raises for
themselves three years in a row.
Bobbi Munson, a spokeswoman in Packwood's office, said his aides have not yet
calculated just how much, if any, of the raise Packwood would give up.
Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., also voting against the raise, and Sen. Jay
Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who voted for it, said they would give the extra money to
charity.
Nader, meanwhile, questioned the sincerity of all 45 senators who voted no to
the pay raise, saying that not a single one of them threatened to mount even a
short filibuster.
Such a move would have then required what he called the "bipartisan,
two-party cabal" of Dole and Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, to raise
60 votes instead of just a simple majority to pass it.
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