Title: Federal Government Waste
Date: 07/25/2006
Location: Washington, DC
Speech
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WASTE -- (House of Representatives - July 25, 2006)
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, as many here in the body know, I am an old high school history teacher. And not content simply to teach history in the classroom, I organized different programs for my students. Having worked in the State legislature, I came up with an internship program. So I took kids to the Utah legislature, where they worked for a week as we organized the program, their jobs, their housing, their supervision at night. I organized an oral history program for our school. I organized a Renaissance festival.
Tired of only kids in athletic programs getting scholarships, we raised money for scholarships for kids who excelled in history. But it also required that not only did we put on a weekend festival but months of activity. Changing a small gym so it didn't look like a small gym, doing the costumes, writing the script, preparing and providing for a six-course meal that guaranteed there would always be leftovers.
As department chairman, I approved of all these projects, and I probably drove my fellow teachers into the ground trying to maintain all these activities. And the question you have to ask is, why did we do it? And it is a very simple answer.
Nothing ever stays static or constant. If you are not moving forward, you are moving backwards. And it is instinctive within the human being that they want to expand, do different things. Even since coming to Congress, I am doing the same thing: I have associated among the programs what I think was a very academic program of study and visiting in the Washington, D.C. area; so once again in the fall I will bring 20 to 30 kids from my district here where I will get to be the teacher again, taking them through Washington and the experience of Washington in conjunction with the closeup program.
Now, I mention that simply because what we do in our daily lives in trying to expand and grow and what I did as a teacher is the same thing government does. I do not blame bureaucrats for trying to expand their programs. That is the instinct and nature of mankind.
In the 1930s and again in the 1960s, the Federal Government expanded all sorts of programs to solve problems. Legitimate. It was good. The question that has to be asked is, what happens once those problems of 40 or 50 or 70 years ago are solved? Do we then eliminate the program or do the programs do the same thing I did as a history teacher, trying to find new things to do, more things to do as you are trying to expand the scope and responsibility of your task at hand?
And that is exactly what does happen. We never eliminate programs. We simply add to them, which is why today we have 342 economic development programs, 130 programs serving people with disabilities, 130 programs for at-risk youth, 90 programs for early childhood development, 75 programs for international education, 72 programs dedicated to assuring safe water, 50 programs for homeless assistance, 45 Federal agencies conducting Federal criminal investigations, 40 separate employment and training programs, 28 rural development programs, 27 teen pregnancy programs, 26 K-12 grant programs, 23 agencies providing aid to former Soviet republics, 19 programs fighting substance abuse, 17 rural water and wastewater programs, 17 trade agencies monitoring 400 international trade agreements, 12 food safety programs, 11 principal statistics agencies, and four overlapping land management agencies.
Why do we do that? Simply because that is the nature of the beast. How do we solve that? Well, we review those. A Federal review, according to one report from the Heritage Foundation, found that 38 percent of all the programs that are run by the Federal Government fail to meet their core needs, the reason for which they are in existence.
So how do we solve that? How do we review that? How do we do that in a safe and fair manner? Well, we had the experience going through the BRAC process of trying to come up with independent agencies, taking the politics out of the issue, and looking at some kind of clear, concise criteria and evaluating where we were and what we should do and need in the future.
Representative Tiahrt and Representative Brady have introduced legislation to advance that same process with Federal programs. And so they will look at those programs in bills that will be before the House later this week with four specific recommendations or four specific parts which will make them effective:
Number one, they are bipartisan programs that will try to take political wrangling out of the equation. Number two, they will look at every program with a clear and concise criteria, including the constitutionality of that program in the first place. Number three, they will review all programs. And, number four, they will have a legislative process which will expedite the process of review and consideration.
Now, once again I do not blame the Federal Government or the bureaucracy of the Federal Government for its ability to expand. That I think is common. That is native practice. What we have to do as a Congress is realize if we do not like that expansion, it is our responsibility to make sure that that expansion is put in check. And these two bills are a perfect way of doing it.
http://thomas.loc.gov/
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