Wayne Allard

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I note with some interest that ``agriculture'' does not appear in the title. It is called the Food and Energy Security Act. I think that in this particular piece of legislation, we are missing the boat, with commodity prices up, doing very well, and generally rural America is in a better position--at least in Colorado--than it has been in recent history. I think this would have been a good time to bring forward some reform in the agricultural programs. I am disappointed we don't have any reform in this particular piece of legislation. I do have some amendments I would like to be considered. I noticed that the chairman of the committee said no Republican amendments are coming forward. That is not true, the amendment tree has been filled. That means if you bring an amendment, you cannot call it up. You don't have that opportunity. So we have some very serious amendments that I would like to bring up for discussion on this bill. Our staff has been working some with the agricultural staff on some of these amendments. We think we will reach agreement on some of them. There may be several on which I would want to have votes. These are serious amendments which I think are important--items that ought to be brought up before the Senate for discussion and ought to be reviewed. I think they have some value in what we are trying to propose. I am anxiously hoping that we can put the bill in a posture so that amendments can be applied. I know the ranking Republican, along with Senator Harkin, have worked hard on this piece of legislation. There are some good things in it; they are not all bad. I appreciate their effort on what they worked on together. There are some things that continue to concern me: We have expansion of Davis-Bacon; we have tax increases and some budget gimmicks to make it look as if there is not as much spending as there is. Frankly, there is a lack of reform. I haven't made up my mind on how I will vote on final passage of this bill. I am waiting to see what it will look like after amendments have been adopted on the floor, if any, if we get an opportunity to do that. Hopefully, we can pass this bill in a way that won't adversely impact our trade agreements. This is another concern that gets brought up in relation to this issue. We have to be careful we don't do things that adversely affect our trade agreements, which come back and haunt us and reverse policies that may be decided and be applied to the agricultural industry and lose some of our export markets, which are so very important. Colorado is one of those States in the agriculture area that have benefited by these free-trade agreements--NAFTA in particular--and we continue to export our beef and our grain. They continue to be a valuable part of our economy. Agriculture is important to the State of Colorado. But if we can move more toward a market-based way of managing our agricultural produce, I think we would be much better off. So every piece of legislation that has come up in the Senate has a tax increase in it, or they call it revenue enhancers. Many of them are, frankly, tax increases, or they may be fee increases. I want to take a little bit of time on the floor to talk about tax reform. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the issue of taxes. This issue is very important to the hard-working men and women of our great country. I think we need to look seriously at tax reform. I believe the Federal tax burden is excessive and overly intrusive. Reform of the IRS and the current system is long overdue. In recent years, it has become abundantly clear that we have lost sight of the fact that the fundamental purpose of our tax system is to raise revenues to fund our Government. In its current application, the U.S. tax system distorts the economic decisions of families and businesses, leading to an inefficient allocation of resources and hindering economic growth. Our tax system has become unstable and unpredictable. Frequent changes to the tax code have caused volatility, and it is harmful to the economy and creates additional compliance costs. The tax system was originally intended to be an efficient system designed to raise revenues for national defense, social programs, and vital Government services. However, the current tax system is now so complex that approximately $150 billion is spent each year by U.S. taxpayers and the Federal Government just to make sure taxes are tallied and paid correctly. This is an enormous expense and is a waste of resources. At present, the United States has instituted a tax system that thwarts basic economic decisions, punishes wise and productive investments, and rewards those who work less and borrow more. As it stands, the quagmire that is our existing Tax Code penalizes savings, contributes to the ever-increasing cost of health insurance, and undermines our global competitiveness. More disturbing is the fact that Americans spend more than 3.5 billion hours doing their taxes, which is the equivalent of hiring almost 2 million new IRS employees--more than 20 times the agency's current workforce. On average, Americans spend the equivalent of more than half of one workweek--26 hours--on their taxes each year, not to mention the amount of time they work to pay the taxes themselves. At the end of the day, despite our lengthy codified tax law, there is no evidence to suggest that Americans really know how much they should be paying in taxes in any given year, or why. The Tax Code should aspire to be clear, transparent, rather than multifarious and convoluted. Everybody should be able to have a basic understanding of the Tax Code, knowing how and why they are taxed. The Tax Code's constant phaseins and phaseouts are a nuisance at best, and a negative force at worst, in the daily economic lives of American families and businesses, which include farmers and ranchers. Moreover, taxpayers with the same income, family situation, and other key characteristics often face different tax burdens. This differing treatment creates a perception of unfairness in the Tax Code and has left many Americans discouraged. At present, how much or little taxpayers pay in tax is sometimes dependent on where they happen to live and the choices made by their employers. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan, a true visionary in this area, signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which reduced top marginal individual tax rates from 50 percent to 28 percent and increased the standard deduction and reduced the top corporate tax from 50 percent to 34 percent, and in so doing, this reform act simplified the Tax Code, broadening the income tax base, allowing for lower marginal rates, and curtailing the use of individual tax shelters. While the 1986 act was a step in the right direction, unfortunately, it didn't produce a long-lasting transformation of the tax system. Today, our tax system bears little resemblance to the simple, low-rate system promised by the 1986 reform. This is due to constant tweaking over the years, as we are seeing in these legislative proposals coming before the Senate in this particular piece of legislation. More than 100 different acts of Congress have made nearly 15,000 changes to the Tax Code. I support broad-based tax reform and a simplified tax system. It is my belief that any reform to the current tax system should benefit the middle class. The vast majority of taxpayers are the middle class, and they have borne the burden of the current system. While I was a member of the Colorado Legislature, we implemented a 5-percent flat tax for Colorado. I believe we should take a similar approach on the Federal level. While I would be willing to consider a flat tax, a sales tax, and other plans on the Federal level, it is important that any replacement plan be simple and fair. The replacement system must provide tax relief for working Americans. It must protect the rights of taxpayers and reduce tax collection abuse. Most important, a new system must eliminate the bias against saving and investment and promote economic growth and job creation. No one can deny that our Tax Code is in dire need of reform. Its complexity, lack of clarity, unfairness, and disproportionate influence on behavior have caused great frustration. Our current Tax Code has been shaped by goals other than simplicity, by intentions other than helping the taxpayer plan ahead, and by objectives other than expanding our economy. Not only has it failed to keep pace with our growing and dynamic economy, frequently changes have made it unstable and unpredictable. Years of hodgepodge Government interference and ad hoc meddling have left our Tax Code in shambles. While we cannot change the past, we can learn valuable lessons from the same and remedy our mistakes. If we don't take steps to immediately simplify and reform our Tax Code, it will become more complex, more unfair, and less conducive to our economy's future growth. Small reforms are not enough. A total overhaul of the existing system is the only chance we have to get our economy and deficits back on track. We must act now. We have a responsibility to our constituents and this Nation to resolve the predicament in which our current tax system has put us in. If we here in Congress don't act sooner rather than later in reforming our tax system, it will become more complex and cumbersome. Mr. President, here we are again, and we have a piece of legislation before us that meddles with the Tax Code, takes piecemeal action on the Tax Code, and leads us more into a deeper quagmire of the complicated code. One of the aspects of our economy that gets impacted more than any other is the small business sector. They have to struggle with these. Large corporations have accountants and lawyers on staff. It is not a problem for them. It is a problem but certainly not as great a problem as for a small business, which may be a man-and-wife operation, or a business run out of a home, or it may be just a small workforce, a small business with 10, 15, 30 in the workforce. Many times, we look at it as we would a ranch, where it is just a family operation or a farm operation. They are the ones who are disproportionately impacted by a complicated Tax Code. Here we go again, in this particular farm bill, raising taxes and piecemealing the Tax Code. I hope the Congress--certainly, it is too late in this session--in the following sessions can come forward with serious attempts to simplify our Tax Code to make it fair and to not be piecemealing it, as we are seeing it in this particular farm bill and other pieces of legislation that have been brought up on the floor of the Senate. It is a challenge. It is not an easy task. I have been a part of those discussions on simplifying it, and there are many perspectives. It is becoming essential, and it is getting to the point where I don't think we can continue to ignore the challenges because of the adverse impact it is having on the citizens of this country and the difficulty they have in understanding the Tax Code and how taxes adversely affect productivity, such as farmers and ranchers, which we are trying to address in this bill, and small businesses throughout the country that are trying to do their best to be able to make a living for their families. So I felt we needed to take a little time to talk about taxes. Again, I am seeing a pattern in this legislation that really concerns me. As I said earlier in my introductory remarks, I have not decided if I am going to vote for the farm bill. Certainly, it is not a perfect piece of legislation. We have to weigh all aspects. Certainly, there are some provisions in this legislation about which I have concerns. I hope the majority leader and the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, working with ranking members, can get us off this stalemate so Republicans can move forward and can offer amendments. I have a number of them that I wish to have an opportunity to offer. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, I come to the floor today to discuss my amendment to codify the unborn child rule in the pending SCHIP legislation. This needs to be done, and it needs to be done in this reauthorization. The unborn child rule is a regulation that, since 2002, has allowed States to provide prenatal care to unborn children and their mothers. It recognizes the basic fact that the child in the womb is a child. When a pregnancy is involved, there are at least two patients--mother and baby. It only makes sense to cover the unborn child under a children's health program. The bill before us modifies the SCHIP statute to allow States to cover ``pregnant women'' of any age. It also contains language that asserts that the bill does not affirm either the legality or illegality of the 2002 ``unborn child'' rule. My amendment would codify the principle of the rule by amending the SCHIP law to clarify that a covered child ``includes, at the option of a State, an unborn child.'' The amendment further defines ``unborn child'' with a definition drawn verbatim from Public Law 108-212, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. My amendment would also clarify that the coverage for the unborn child may include services to benefit either the mother or unborn child consistent with the health of both. In addition, the amendment clarifies that States may provide mothers with postpartum services for 60 days after they give birth. Many States' definition of coverage for a pregnant woman leads to the strange legal fiction that the adult pregnant woman is a ``child.'' Surely it was not the intent of anyone who developed the State Children's Health Insurance Program to allow a loophole for States to define a woman as a child. Surely we can agree that the child who receives health care in the womb is a child receiving care along with his or her mother. My amendment will also allow for coverage of the mother, whereas the pending legislation only allows for pregnancy-related services. There are many conditions that can affect a mother's health during pregnancy that are not related to her pregnancy. Under the pending legislation, a pregnant mother could not get coverage for any condition that isn't related to her pregnancy. We should be allowing mothers to stay healthy so that they will have healthy babies. This also leads to reduced costs associated with premature or low-birth weight babies. Eleven States are already using this option to provide such care through the State Children's Health Insurance Program. If the intent of the sponsors is to provide coverage for the pregnant woman and her unborn child, then they should have no problem supporting my amendment. We should ensure that pregnant women and their unborn child are both treated as patients. This is a matter of common sense. Every obstetrician knows that in treating a pregnant woman, he is treating two patients--the mother and her unborn child. Keeping this coverage in the name of the adult pregnant woman alone is bad for the integrity of a children's health program, bad for the child, and even bad for some of the neediest of pregnant women. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment 3455, the Allard amendment.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ALLARD. My amendment is very straightforward. Right now there is a provision in law saying that Amtrak is supposed to be financially self-sufficient. To be clear, the provision does not even apply to Amtrak as a whole. It only requires Amtrak to be operationally self- sufficient, presuming, of course, that the Federal Government will continue to provide capital subsidies. I was surprised and even disheartened to learn that S. 294 would repeal this provision in law requiring Amtrak to become operationally self-sufficient. I strongly believe that this goal should be maintained. My amendment would strike the provision in the bill that repeals the self-sufficiency goal. I am quite puzzled that the Commerce Committee report noted: This repeal is technical in nature and not meant to indicate that Amtrak should not strive to reduce its dependency on Federal funds or improve the efficiency of how it spends Federal funds as elaborated through this bill. This statement makes no sense. If we repeal a provision calling on Amtrak to become self-sufficient, we are saying they have no need to reduce their dependency on the taxpayers. There is no other way to interpret it. We need to be crystal clear that we expect them to reduce their dependency on Federal funds, and the only way to do it is to maintain this provision in current law. To be clear, even with the provision in law, Amtrak has made little progress toward becoming operationally self-sufficient. According to the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, Amtrak continues to incur substantial operating losses, and over the last 5 years, annual cash losses, excluding interest and depreciation, have fallen only modestly, a little more than 3 percent a year. But modest progress is not a reason to eliminate the operational self-sufficiency provisions. Failure to meet a goal is not reason to lower the bar sufficiently to redefine success. Rather, it simply means that more work must go toward meeting their original goal. The Office of Inspector General went on to say: The problem with the current model exists beyond funding. There are inadequate incentives for Amtrak to provide cost- effective service. Amtrak, as the sole provider of intercity passenger rail service, has few incentives, other than the threat of budget cuts or elimination, for cost control or delivery of service in a cost-effective way. Amtrak has not achieved significant cost savings since its last reauthorization. That is what the Inspector General had to say in his report. The question I have is, given that we have so few incentives for cost controls, why would we eliminate one of the few provisions in law calling on Amtrak to control their costs? While passenger rail has a role in an efficient, modern transportation infrastructure, I am concerned about how Amtrak has performed in providing that service. As my colleagues may know, I am a strong proponent of results and outcomes. Amtrak and other government-funded entities should not be judged based on how much they receive in Federal funding but the results they can demonstrate with those taxpayer dollars or the fees they charge passengers who ride their trains. In the case of Amtrak, I am afraid these results are not very impressive. In the administration's PART assessment, their tool for evaluating the effectiveness of programs, Amtrak was rated as ineffective. In fact, it was the only program in the entire Department of Transportation to receive an ``ineffective'' rating. I want to be clear on what this rating means. From the administration's description ineffective, programs receiving this rating are not using taxpayer dollars effectively or the fees they are charging the passengers to use their services. That seems pretty clear to me, and I hope Members of this body will agree with me on that fact. If Amtrak is not being effective with the money they spend, it would make sense to reduce the money we spend there. Instead, we are talking about increasing their subsidies and eliminating provisions calling on Amtrak to be more careful in how they spend tax dollars. Again, that makes no sense. Right now Amtrak's Federal subsidy is nearly equal to its total ticket revenue per year. To put it a different way, for every dollar spent on a ticket, the rail passenger receives another dollar from the taxpayers. Given the subsidies on some routes, taxpayers would save money by actually paying passengers to take another mode of transportation such as flying. Calling on Amtrak to become operationally self-sufficient is not about being antirail. It is about being for taxpayers and for those riders who use that service to hold down their costs. It is for efficiency and for common sense. Even if Amtrak were to become operationally self-sufficient, it would continue to receive sufficient Federal subsidies under my amendment. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Amtrak is by far the most heavily subsidized mode of travel in the United States, even though it carries less than 1 percent of the intercity passenger market. Amtrak costs $210.31 per passenger, per thousand miles, compared to $4.66 for intercity buses and $6.18 for commercial airlines. Because motorists pay far more in Federal user fees than they get back in Federal transportation spending, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that the Federal Government earns a profit of $1.79 per passenger, per thousand miles from automobiles. This bill proposes to spend $11.3 billion on Amtrak. It is entirely reasonable for Congress and the American taxpayer and their passengers to tell Amtrak that they should work to reduce those subsidies. If we are too timid to even tell Amtrak to reduce their need for operational subsidies--remember, this is operational subsidies, not capital investment--how can we expect that they will ever do it? Many of us are parents and have worked to raise our children to become independent, self-sufficient people. When my daughters graduated from college, my wife and I expected them to get jobs to support themselves. If we had simply paid their rent, bought their groceries, paid their utilities, and given them spending money without any conditions or expectations of independence, why would they want to work and make the tough choices necessary for change? It is the same with Amtrak. Unless we are clear that we expect them to change and become operationally independent of the Federal Government, things will never change. It is critical that we keep this goal in place for Amtrak. They must hear loudly and clearly from Congress and from America that they need to make the tough choices necessary to get out on their own. My amendment will ensure they hear this message. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALLARD. My amendment is actually very simple. I will ask the clerk to read the amendment, if she will.

Mr. ALLARD. If I may address the Senator through the Chair.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALLARD. The section I am repealing puts in some guidelines, and it is not date specific but it says that the goal of Amtrak should be to become self-sufficient; in other words, work toward less subsidies from the Federal Government. For some reason or other that was taken out by the committee staff. It is appropriate we continue to keep that in law instead of repealing it. Since they are not driven by competitiveness within the fixed rail system, I encourage them to note that the Congress expects them to work for efficiency and to repeal it. I recall in Boston, for example, we had a situation where Amtrak runs through Boston and is part of their mass transit system. So a committee chair looked at a contract they let out for the Boston fixed rail. It was the most expensive contract, providing the least service to the passengers. This kind of provision is an incentive. It gives Members of Congress a way of expressing to Amtrak that we hope that they work for an efficient, effective system. I don't think it is particularly Draconian; at least I do not view it that way.

Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, I wish to respond for a moment, if I might, to clarify. No. 1, I am a strong proponent of fixed rail. As chairman of the Housing and Transportation Subcommittee in Banking, I worked hard for mass transit and, obviously, fixed rail. So I agree that rail needs to be a vital part of our transportation system. All this amendment does is put in law a goal we want self-sufficiency for--not capital investments. So as to the signage the Senator talks about, the rails on the ground that need to be laid, buying the new transportation, it does not apply to that. It applies to operational costs. It is not a hard line. We have been going for several years without meeting this goal. I think we have done some work in that direction, but as far as I am concerned, the amount of efficiency has been pretty minimal. I think we can do more. Even if it is minimal, at least we can keep it in there so it continues to encourage them to be more efficient and review processes and procedures they use in the operation of Amtrak. That is not capital investment. That is operational, things they can do to bring efficiency to their services, which I think is to the advantage of the rider, as well as to the taxpayers of this country. I wanted to clarify that for the Senator from New Jersey. Thank you, Madam President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I have just introduced a piece of legislation called the Public Land Fire Regulation Enforcement Act. I wish to spend a moment talking about that. Mother Nature possesses a beauty like no other; this beauty sometimes allows us to forget the ferocious might that she can bring to bear. The tragic fires in California provide an all too real reminder of this. My thoughts and prayers are with folks in California, because it was not so long ago that Colorado fund itself in a similar situation. Each year people out West live with the constant and growing threat of wildfire. In 2002, nearly 400,000 acres burned. Then Governor Bill Owens said that ``all of Colorado is burning''. Unfortunately, some folks--through ignorance, carelessness, or malice--ignore Federal guidelines and start fires during high risk times. In order to deter this action and provide an added measure of security Senator Salazar and I are introducing the Public Land Fire Regulations Enforcement Act. This bill will strengthen current law by increasing the penalties for individuals who disregard public safety and start fires during restricted times. It increases possible fines and doubles the maximum time violators could spend in jail. I hope that the fires burning in California are contained soon and that the damage is minimized as much as possible. I also hope that the legislation I introduce today will help prevent future catastrophic fires from being started.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I have just introduced a piece of legislation called the Public Land Fire Regulation Enforcement Act. I wish to spend a moment talking about that. Mother Nature possesses a beauty like no other; this beauty sometimes allows us to forget the ferocious might that she can bring to bear. The tragic fires in California provide an all too real reminder of this. My thoughts and prayers are with folks in California, because it was not so long ago that Colorado fund itself in a similar situation. Each year people out West live with the constant and growing threat of wildfire. In 2002, nearly 400,000 acres burned. Then Governor Bill Owens said that ``all of Colorado is burning''. Unfortunately, some folks--through ignorance, carelessness, or malice--ignore Federal guidelines and start fires during high risk times. In order to deter this action and provide an added measure of security Senator Salazar and I are introducing the Public Land Fire Regulations Enforcement Act. This bill will strengthen current law by increasing the penalties for individuals who disregard public safety and start fires during restricted times. It increases possible fines and doubles the maximum time violators could spend in jail. I hope that the fires burning in California are contained soon and that the damage is minimized as much as possible. I also hope that the legislation I introduce today will help prevent future catastrophic fires from being started.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. I would like to take a minute to briefly explain the amendment.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of the time in opposition.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, it is my understanding at 5:30 this evening we are going to have a vote on my amendment, the Allard amendment No. 3369. I wish to take a few moments to review with my colleagues the amendment, and then I understand before we have the vote I can briefly describe the amendment again. The Office of Management and Budget reviews Federal spending programs with a nonpartisan analysis to determine what taxpayers are receiving as far as the value of the taxpayers' dollars is concerned. This program is called the Program Assessment Rating Tool or PART. They utilize the same procedures that business executives use frequently to determine whether their company is meeting specific goals. In this particular instance, the Congress has directed the agencies to put in place a similar system where they set up goals and objectives and then determine through that process whether the program is ``effective,'' ``moderately effective,'' ``adequate,'' ``the results are not demonstrated''--they have not made the effort yet--or the last category would be ``ineffective.'' Well, a small percentage of programs receive an ``ineffective'' rating. Programs receiving this rating are not, according to OMB, using your tax dollars effectively. As they elaborate on the PART Web site at ``expectmore.gov'': Ineffective programs have been unable to achieve results due to a lack of clarity regarding the program's purpose or goals, poor management, or some other significant weakness. Now, my amendment cuts 10 percent of the funding under this bill for programs labeled ``ineffective'' under the OMB PART program and transfers the funding to an account previously established to pay down the national debt. This amendment is supported and scored by the National Taxpayers Union and Citizens Against Government Waste. We are not ending any programs or zeroing out any agencies. All we are doing is taking one dollar in ten from programs that cannot justify their effectiveness and using it to begin to address our over $9 trillion national debt. I understand many people have fond thoughts for some of these programs, but fond thoughts and good intentions do not equal good government. I am not one to make sweeping statements, but I think I can say with some certainty that the vote total on this amendment will stand as a rough proxy for what percentage of the Senate is committed to fiscal discipline. So I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this amendment. I believe it is a commonsense amendment to a problem we need to address. We wish to make sure our taxpayer dollars are being used in a way that can be described as effective. That is the ideal situation. Certainly those programs that are classified as ``ineffective'' you have to question. Even though there has been a mission drawn out that may be somewhat appealing, when you get right down into the workings of the agency and nothing much is happening to accomplish the goals and objectives the Congress had in mind at the time it passed the legislation, those particular programs rated as ``ineffective'' is where my particular amendment is targeted. I think this is a commonsense amendment that brings some fiscal sanity to the process. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for the amendment when we vote on it at 5:30 this evening. So, Mr. President, having said that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments the Senator from Iowa was making. I was not elected to this body--I do not think the Senator from Iowa was either--to make easy votes. This can be a difficult vote. There are programs on there that I support, I support wholeheartedly, but I want them to be effective. How can I go back to my taxpayers in the State of Colorado and say: Well, we are spending billions of dollars on this program, but it is ineffective. It is not measuring up to the standards which most businesses would be expected to measure up to for performance, or maybe other agencies are going to measure up to for performance. I do not know how else to get the attention of the bureaucracy except to deal with them where they pay attention. That is their pocketbooks, their budget. I think when we have an ineffective program, we are not doing our jobs as Senators if we do not figure out a way to bring accountability to the program. Now, this is a modest attempt to try to bring some accountability. We do not eliminate any programs. We do a reduction on a few programs that are listed as ``ineffective.'' In the business world, they use the same process that OMB puts in place. This is not a partisan process. You know, you referred to President Bush's actions on it. It may be a Democratic President 3 years from now. He is going to be dealing with the same problems this President is dealing with, that he has programs out there that simply are not measuring up. So let me get back to what the standard business world does. They look at a program and say: Well, look, we are spending a certain amount of money, and it is not performing. Because it is not performing, we have either got to redo the program, which is an option the Congress can look at, or we eliminate it altogether, or we create some other kind of modification that is going to make it accountable to the stockholders of that company. The stockholders in this case are the taxpayers of the country. They are the ones putting money in this program. They are the ones who expect the program to do what it says, for what it is set up to do. This is a program that has been in place for 10 years. It is not a new program. The agencies have had plenty of time to respond and react to this particular effort. I would credit those agencies or programs that are listed as ineffective for at least having tried to comply with the law. There is another group there I did not address. There are those where results have not been demonstrated. They are sort of thumbing their nose at the Congress and saying: Heck, we are not even going to bother to set up any goals and objectives for our program. We are going to let it run on auto. In some cases they have a legitimate reason for doing that, but I do think the Congress does need to look at those programs that are ineffective and make some judgments. Now, if the Senator from Iowa has a better suggestion on how we may bring accountability to the agencies, I would be glad to hear what it is. I think a modest reduction in their budget will send a message to them that you have got to get your act in order, and then hopefully, as we go down through the years, they will begin to understand that it is the Congress that controls the purse strings, and you need to get your act in order; we need to have accountability in the program. I think this is a commonsense amendment. It is being supported by Citizens Against Government Waste. The National Taxpayers Union is supporting it. I have sat down with groups on how it is we can bring forward effective, efficient Government. We do not want programs out there that make all of these grandiose claims but then do not deliver. They waste taxpayers' dollars in the process. So this is what this amendment is trying to address. I ask my colleagues to support me in this effort. It is a modest amendment. It is something that I think can make a difference. If you want the legislative branch to have a little power over the executive branch through the purse strings, this is the way to do it. Again, I ask my colleagues to join me in voting for this amendment.

Mr. ALLARD. If I may respond, it is not a sledgehammer approach. It is a mild little push to try to improve the program. I agree, some programs can be improved if we increase appropriations, and that is what we need to do. But maybe to get their attention, to get things moving in the right direction, maybe we need to start out with a reduction in spending. This is a commonsense program. We can argue about it. I have never been in any committees where they talked about it in this way. I think it needs to be talked about more, and that is why I am introducing the amendment.

Mr. ALLARD. The Allard amendment is a commonsense amendment. It looks at those programs that are rated as ineffective by the Office of Management and Budget. It is a nonpartisan process. It was set up by the Congress more than 10 years ago. It is time the Congress expect some accountability in that program itself. One can look on expectmore.gov which lists the agencies that are performing and those that are not. Some of these programs are my favorite programs. I voted for them and support them. But we have to bring accountability so that when we are supporting a program, it actually does what it says it is going to do; that all the money doesn't go to the bureaucracy and none of it gets to the beneficiaries. We are trying to bring some accountability to this process. That is the reason for the amendment. My hope is that the Senate will vote for this in strong numbers so we can send a message to agencies that they need to begin to get their act in order, those that are rated as ineffective. We need to, in the committee process, refer to this rating. Let's put them on record in committee meetings to hold them accountable for their programs.

Mr. ALLARD

Mr. ALLARD. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendments and call up amendment No. 3369 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.