Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of engaging the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, who I think wrote an extraordinarily good bill, in a colloquy. Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that this bill is the first step toward eliminating the Department of Commerce. As Senator majority Leader Dole said yesterday in a Wall Street Journal opinion page piece, and I quote: ``We are firmly committed to eliminating the Commerce Department this year so that we may establish, in practice, the principle that wasteful programs and agencies no longer have permanent tenure in the Federal Government.'' I will be entering this article into the Record. [[Page H 14107]] Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Rogers], am I correct in assuming the Commerce dismantling language must take place in the authorization process.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much. [From The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 5, 1995] `Reinvent' Commerce Department Out of Existence (By Bob Dole and Spencer Abraham) The 1994 Republican landslide came about because we had a clear message that resonated with the American people: Government should be smaller, more local, less intrusive, and less costly. Our welfare and budget measures constitute large steps in the right direction. But to fulfill our mission we also must reduce the size of the federal government by eliminating programs that are unnecessary, duplicative and wasteful. No agency fits this description better than the Commerce Department. The department's own inspector general calls it ``a loose collection in more than 100 programs.'' The nonpartisan General Accounting Office notes that it shares its ``missions with at least 71 federal departments, agencies, and offices.'' And this loose collection of ill- defined programs has no unifying purpose or goal. Former Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher notes that the department's is ``nothing more than a hall closet where you throw in everything that you don't know what to do with.'' Even the president's own Office of Management and Budget acknowledged the department's lack of purpose by sending home 67% of Commerce's bureaucrats as ``nonessential'' during the recent government shutdown. We are firmly committed to eliminating the Commerce Department this year so that we may establish, in practice, the principle that wasteful programs and agencies no longer have permanent tenure in the federal government. This is not to say that we can or should begin a wholesale dismantling of the federal government. But as a federal bureaucracy, the Commerce Department simply has no reason to exist. Defenders of the Commerce Department contend that it has a clear purpose: to promote U.S. international trade. They claim that the department's trade advocacy and counseling efforts ``returned * * * to the federal Treasury for every * * * in export promotion.'' According to this view, it is federal bureaucrats who secure foreign contacts for American businesses, thus holding the American economy together. This is obviously not true. As former Clinton economic adviser Robert Shapiro of the Progressive Policy Institute says: ``All you can do with [export promotion] is increase jobs for companies with the clout to get the subsidy. But that's at the expense of industries that don't have the clout. You're just shifting things around.'' Many of the department's other programs are simply taxpayer subsidies for some of America's biggest corporations. The U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration subsidizes tourism, while the Technology Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology subsidize corporate research. These programs take money from taxpayers and successful companies to fund bureaucrats' favorite companies and projects. And this comes at a heavy cost--the cost of employing 37,500 bureaucrats at an average salary of $42,000. That's about $10,000 more per year than the average Kansas or Michigan family earns. In reality, most of the tens of thousands of bureaucrats in the vast Commerce Department building on Pennsylvania Avenue do nothing to promote U.S. trade. Some claim that the Commerce Department is required by our Constitution, because that document makes regulating commerce a federal function. But, in fact, about half of the department's $3.6 billion budget is consumed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation's weather and ocean mapping service. And while 19 federal agencies are charged with promoting U.S. exports, Commerce directs only 8% of federal spending toward trade promotion. The Commerce Department's functions can be done without, or done more efficiently by other agencies, or the states, or the private sector. This does not mean, however, that we would or should terminate all the department's functions. Instead, after eliminating the umbrella organization and its bureaucracy, we would eliminate unneeded programs, transferring or privatizing programs that are necessary. An example of a Commerce program that needs to be eliminated outright is the Economic Development Administration. At one point, 40% of the EDA's loans were in default, while economic assistance grants were being distributed to such affluent areas as Key Biscayne, Fla. Even when it is effective, the EDA duplicates the efforts of numerous other programs in other departments. Other programs that should be eliminated include the Technology Administration and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The latter outfit issues telecom grants; for example, it recently gave $200,000 to HandsNet Inc., a California-based Internet service used by liberal lobbyists. The last thing our government should be paying for is lobbying aimed at making it spend more taxpayer dollars. While those programs should be eliminated, others, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, should be moved to more appropriate agencies or to private institutions. For example, seafood inspection should be transferred to the Agriculture Department, which already carries out most food inspection programs. As for international trade programs, the bulk of these should be sent to a single, unified trade agency incorporating the existing U.S. Trade Representative's office. This is the way to effectively ``reinvent'' government. Our Commerce Department elimination plan would save $6 billion over seven years. By eliminating unnecessary programs and bureaucracies, like those now churning away within the Commerce Department, we can bring federal spending under control. And guess what? The really essential functions of government will be done more efficiently than ever before once the federal bureaucracy isn't wasting its time on so many unnecessary efforts.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I appreciate that very much from the gentleman from Maine. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Smith].

Mr. BROWNBACK. If the gentleman will yield for just a moment, I think there is another pressure point here. I do not know how many people caught what Chairman Greenspan said yesterday of the Federal Reserve in front of the Senate Banking Committee. He said if Congress fails to balance the budget in 7 years, interest rates are going up, they are going up. This is the chairman of the Federal Reserve saying to Congress there are many incentives and one of the key ones is what will happen to this economy if you fail and what will happen immediately and directly as a consequence of your failure. To just hook onto one of the points of the gentleman from Arizona, we are talking spending $12 trillion over 7 years. This is $12 trillion in Government spending. This is a lot of money that we are going to spend for the Government, $12 trillion. It is enough to run this Government on.

Mr. BROWNBACK. An amazing thing to think that we were not under the same laws but we were not. But right now we are about to engage in one of the most historic things in reshaping this Federal Government right now and that is balancing the budget. I do hope the administration is watching and going to participate in actually forming a 7-year budget that goes to balance, zero deficit in year 7, so that we can get rid of this deficit. I get worried that the administration is not going to participate in this. I certainly hope that they are going to and that they are not just going to criticize the budget plan that we are putting forward. We have put forward a very specific budget plan and I hope the administration puts forward an equally specific budget plan of how we get to balance in 7 years. It is critical for our future, it is critical for our priorities, and we need to have a legitimate dialog and debate just about that.

Mr. BROWNBACK. That is what I find out when I go home, that people are surprised that we are. That they go and say, ``I really support and agree with what you guys are doing. You know what, I love it because this is what you said you were going to do and you're doing it.'' I even have had people that said, ``I didn't vote for you but I'm going to this next time because you're doing exactly what you said you were going to do.'' I do not know why this should be any great shock but it is in a political system that we are getting that done. I would like to if I could compliment the gentlemen as well on the reform efforts we are getting done, gift ban passed 2 weeks ago, on the verge of lobby reform. Campaign finance next year. Those are key things that the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] has done a tremendous amount of work on.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I went to those places during the campaign. I am a freshman in this body of Congress, and I will say, one place I went to is Lyndon, KS. It was a grade school, and I was asking the grade school students there how much each of them owes here, how much each of those children owes of the Federal debt. They would say, I do not know. I said, it is over $18,000. A little fourth-grader held his hand up. He held his hand up and he said, ``How do I owe $18,000? I have not spent anything.'' And he had not. We have. That is what is cruel, that is what is immoral, and that is what we are trying to stop today, continuing adding to that poor little fourth- grader's debt. The President says he balances this budget; this is his plan, about 25 pages of press release to balance the budget. We support balancing the budget. Here is a real document, a real plan. I say, it is time to stop arguing about this, it is time to get down to the specifics of balancing a budget in 7 years with CBO scoring.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Burton amendment, and I state as well at the very outset that I think the people that are bringing this amendment and supporting it are doing so in all good faith and what they are trying to do is a positive statement toward this body. I disagree on what they are doing versus another approach, and I also impugn no one's character and suggest that no one is selling their vote for a gift. But to me this issue is about public trust, and the public does not trust when Members of Congress receive expensive gifts, they do not trust that system, and, when we have that failure of trust in a representative democracy, that is a very, very dangerous thing to have. That is what this issue is about. It is about the issue of public trust and a system and a public that does not trust this system, and that is why I disagree with the Burton amendment even though it is offered in all good faith by the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] and those who support it, because it is a disclosure system, but it continues to allow a system of gifts to be able to be given to Members of Congress, a system that the public does not support. Mr. Speaker, I support rather the Speaker's approach to going to a complete ban on all gifts, and I would urge Members to support that. The Waldholtz approach I think is a good approach as well for as far as it does further limit, but I think it is probably time to do just what the commercial days and just say no to gifts.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman for his kinds words. Briefly stated, this is a very important reform on trying to reestablish some public trust in elective office. I say this not to impugn anything or anybody at this institution or body, but simply that people do not trust the system. We have to change the system. I think until we ban gifts completely, they will not trust the system. Indeed, half steps forward may actually take us backward in the public's perception of this body and trust. And that is what this is all about, about public trust. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment, to just say ``no'' to gifts, to ban them, and to start to reestablish that public trust in this body. [[Page H 13089]]

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. I would just like to state very briefly that I am going to vote for the temporary debt ceiling even though it does not contain the elimination of the Department of Commerce, which I think is a very key and important thing for us to do in producing a smaller, more limited, more focused Federal Government, and this is something that this House has already agreed to and voted for. We received assurances from the Senate leadership that they will push for the elimination of the Department of Commerce the next available opportunity this year, so I urge my colleagues to vote for this temporary debt ceiling as we continue to move forward and we do what the country is asking, and that is just a very simple thing of what everybody else has to do, and it is balance the budget. I sit here on this floor, and I listen to the debate, and it seems to me it is terribly harsh about something that we have been negligent in doing for so many years, and that is just simply balancing the budget, and I would urge the American people to look past the rhetoric and say, ``Yes, you have got to do it. You have got to deliver, and you've got to deliver a balanced budget.'' This is a critical step to be able to accomplish that goal.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Thank you very much. To the gentleman from Ohio, I very much appreciate that. I appreciate the leadership of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot] on this issue he is taking on the Committee on International Relations and also here on the floor to be able to have this discussion taking place. Mr. Speaker, today the Republican Conference voted overwhelmingly to support legislation introduced by our colleague, the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Hefley], to prohibit the use of Department of Defense funds for deployment of United States ground troops into Bosnia without an express congressional authorization. I think simply that the President must seek and receive congressional support for U.S. participation in this peacekeeping mission. More importantly, however, the President must make his case to the American people before a single United States soldier is deployed to Bosnia. I would just like to raise a couple of questions I think the President needs to take to the American people. A number of questions already are raised here this evening, and raised quite well, but there are several others as well. Take the case to the American people. The President has failed to answer so many questions about the peacekeeping operation, the American involvement in the operation, and most importantly, the justification for American involvement in the operation. We heard earlier the statement, which I think is accurate, that if you have a peace there, you do not need peacekeepers, and if you do not have a peace there peacekeepers are not going to work. That just seems to make such fundamental sense. [[Page H 11928]] I would like for the administration to explain how we intend to be perceived by the warring parties as neutral when we have bombed one of the warring parties and helped train one of the warring parties that are involved in this particular situation. I would like to raise another question that came up earlier, actually even this year, and that was in regard to Haiti and the payment for the operation in Haiti. We have not talked yet this evening about the cost, the actual dollar cost of this operation, but what domestic programs is the President willing to cut, willing to reduce, to be paying for this operation in Bosnia? We have not talked dollar figures, because frankly, there are much more serious matters about the lives of our young men and women that are involved here. But if we have to get down to talking about dollars as well, Mr. President, where are you going to make the cuts to pay for this operation? I think that is a very legitimate point, as earlier this year we had to do a defense appropriation supplemental bill to pay for what the President's operation was that took place in Haiti. Where are we going to make those cuts? The President has not explained to the American people to the point that they are able to believe that this is going to be a short-term peacekeeping operation, that there is not going to be a lot of bloodshed involved in this region of the world that has had bloodshed and hatred for centuries. Finally, I would just raise a continued standard that I think we should look at with any operation like this. That is a simple one of, is the case sufficiently in front of us, is it sufficiently compelling, do we have a sufficient vital and strategic interest of the United States that I personally would go? Would I send my son to go, or my daughter to go into this operation? I would have to say a dramatic ``absolutely not, in this case.'' Mr. President, you have not made your case to the American people, you have not made your case to this Congress. Now we are talking about deploying troops before any of that takes place. That is wrong. Come to this Congress, come to the American people with your case, if it is so compelling that we can say with a good conscience, yes, I would go.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I certainly applaud the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] in her comments, and her fight against cancer and her fight against cancer in this institution as well. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join my colleagues to ask the President to go to the American people and tell us why we must send troops to Bosnia. It is a simple request, but it is one that must be made, and it is one that we must have the President address to the American people. I would submit, from the calls and comments that I received from the folks that I represent in Kansas, that he has not made his case to the American people. He has not make his case to the Congress. I sit on the Committee on International Relations, and we have heard from several of the Secretaries in this administration, and they fail to put forward a clear plan, a clear reason, a convincing case, a compelling case, for why we should send our young men and women into Bosnia. Now it seems to me that we have discovered the way to handle these sorts of issues some time ago, and particularly this was exercised during the Persian Gulf war when that President, President Bush, initially said, well, Congress, I need a vote of the Congress, but then there was so much pressure he decided, no, I will get a vote of the Congress, and he took his case to the American people, and he explained why we needed to be in that region of the world, and explained it clearly and concisely, and said here is the reason, here is how we are going to go in, here is what we are going to accomplish, here is how we are going to get out, and it convinced American people and convinced this body. A vote was taken, and a supportive vote was taken, and we conducted that engagement very successfully with a great deal of support of the American people. Mr. Speaker, we have to do that in this situation in the world, in Bosnia. The vital interests of the American people have to be explained by the Presidency, and it has not been done to date. Earlier today a colleague of ours, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon], supplied a certain standard for sending young men and women into combat that I thought was a very good one that we should apply into this case when the President presents his case as to why we should send our troops in He asked the question simply this way: Would I be willing to go? Would I be willing to send my daughter or my son into harm's way for this cause? It seems to me that is the same standard we should apply in this particular case once we get from the administration what the plan is. Why we are going in? What are the strategic and vital interests? And that has been taken to the countryside, because maybe then we will be convinced that we should be going into Bosnia, we should be protecting that region of the world. But as of today, we have not seen any compelling case or any real case at all from the administration as to why we should go. Why should we vote or appropriate the funds or allow the use of funds to send our troops into harm's way in that part of the world, when we do not even know what our plan is to go in, to occupy, and how to get out, and what will we declare as victory once we are there. I have a lot of questions of the administration myself. What is the deployment strategy we are going to have? Let us take that out to the American people. What are the military goals we are going to pursue in this particular area? What is the exit strategy? Mr. Speaker, I simply ask the President of the United States to do what we have learned over years and years of the history of this country when we engage in military conflicts, when our young men and women can be sent into conflict and some can come home not alive, and that is simply this: Take the case to the American people first. Explain to the American people first what are our strategic and vital interests of why we need to be here. Why do we need to do this? Take it there first. And then, Mr. President, come to this body. Come to the Congress and ask for a vote of Congress, so each of us in our conscience can look and ask ourselves, would I be willing to go? Would I be willing to send my son or daughter into harm's way for this cause? And then let us have a vote. That is how a democracy should operate. That is how we should operate in this particular case. I call on the administration to act that way. It is in their best interests and the best interests of the American people.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, today I can say I am proud to be a Member of this Congress. Since 1969, this body has rejected its responsibility to balance the Federal budget. Today we vote to accept that responsibility, and I am proud that we are accepting that responsibility. We were elected to this Congress to balance the budget, and this bill does that. We were elected to Congress for another reason, too. That was to make the Federal Government smaller, more efficient and more focused. This bill starts that process as well. For instance, it eliminates the Department of Commerce, an agency that leads the list of those providing corporate welfare. This will be the first time in the history of the Republic that we have actually eliminated a Cabinet-level agency. That is in this bill to do it. We save $6 billion in the process of doing that. This budget reconciliation bill balances the budget, makes the Federal Government smaller, more efficient, more focused. This makes it a proud day for me, a good day for this country and a great day for my children and your children.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, our American wheat farmers and producers of vital wheat gluten are in dire danger of falling victim to what could become a virtual monopoly of European wheat gluten exports to the U.S. Currently, because of existing European tariff and subsidy programs, which are being used unfairly, increasing imports of vital wheat gluten are being dumped in the U.S. at prices below the cost of production. USDA reports that European wheat gluten production will double in the next several years. In combination with predatory pricing, this could destroy our gluten producers. Wheat gluten supplies will become so large and prices so low that the effect would be the inevitable erosion of the U.S. high protein wheat industry. Mr. Speaker, this must not be allowed to happen. Today I call on the Clinton administration to help stop this unfair practice that could prove devastating to American farmers. I call on Ambassador Kantor and Secretary Glickman to take action now to negotiate a resolution to this issue.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the bill today. The bill does a number of things that I think are very important and necessary. What it does immediately is, it makes tough choices and it does it now. It cuts $11.1 billion out of a $256 billion set of funding. It does so now and does not put off future decisions so that we do not have higher deficits into the future. Mr. Chairman, I have heard a lot of talk on the floor recently about private agendas or that we need to help people out. We clearly do. I would contend the best way to do that is to pass bills like this one that cut back on Government funding. They cut back on Government programs so we can get to balance. The cruelest thing we can do to the people of our Nation is to continue to add to this deficit. This bill terminates 170 programs, so we can get to balance, and it does so now. It is what we need to do. Mr. Chairman, this is not a private agenda; this is a nation's agenda of balancing the budget, and that is what we have got to do. We have a nation's agenda of balancing the budget, and it involves making tough choices. Mr. Chairman, the committee has done an excellent job of doing that. I commend them and rise in strong support of this bill.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to stand on the floor of the House of Representatives and recognize an important part of Kansas and American history and that is the 100th anniversary of the Kansas Technical Institute. One hundred years ago, the State of Kansas created the Kansas Technical Institute that changed lives, providing careers and training for hundreds of men and women. It became a source of information, inspiration, and guidance to thousands. From the beginning, the KTI was more than a school. To the school family, it became a mission to assist black women and men in pushing back any boundaries, real or perceived, that limited their lives. The institution was founded in Topeka, KS, in 1895 by Edward Stevens and Izie Reddick. It was called the Industrial and Educational Institute and Mr. Stevens was its first President. The institute underwent many changes over the years, including several reorganizations and expansions. In 1919, it was made a regular State school by the legislature and in 1951, it became the Kansas Technical Institute. In its 60 year history, this African-American institution graduated thousands of students in technical trades. Many of the institute's graduates went on to become business owners, doctors, nurses, lawyers, and other professionals, making one of the most significant contributions to the development of black leadership in the State of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the Kansas Technical Institute for its critical part in our history. menninger hospital honored as best hospital in psychiatry in the nation Mr. Speaker, on another matter that happened in my district this past month, U.S. News and World Report named America's best hospitals. In its sixth annual hospital guide, U.S. News worked with the National Opinion Research Center, assessed hospital care nationwide and ranked hospitals across the country in 16 specialties. A random selection of American Medical Association members and nonmembers were asked to rank the five hospitals they considered the best among the best in the Nation's 1,600 tertiary care centers. I am proud to state that Menninger Hospital, located in Topeka, KS, was named the best hospital in psychiatry in the Nation. Since its beginning, the Menninger clinic has been the foremost institution in applied psychiatry in the world. Menninger offers an unparalleled scope of treatment services, research, professional education, and prevention programs. In the past 12 years, Menninger has been recognized as one of the country's top psychiatry centers of excellence 14 times by national publications. So, Mr. Speaker, I stand here pretty proud of what has happened in my district in the past month; proud of my district for all it has contributed to the Nation, for African-American leadership development, for leadership in psychiatric care, and I am pleased to be able to recognize that on the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in strong support of the Hefley amendment. I would just like to make a couple of comments in closing of this debate. Jack Kemp, the former Secretary of HUD, who I do not think anybody would say is any sort of slackard on trying to take care of people in these particular situations and empower people rather than using bureaucracy, has called for elimination of HUD not because good people do not work at HUD. Good people do work at HUD. It is a fairly centralized planning model. Secretary Cisneros, a very talented gentleman running HUD currently, is making the fourth attempt to reinvent HUD's bureaucracy. This is the fourth time since 1965 that they are trying to reinvent the HUD bureaucracy. I think it is just time to say we have been there, done that, tried that. We need to send a clear message to the bureaucracy. The centralized management system does not work. We need to give power to the people. Send this message through by cutting back on the funding to HUD, the bureaucracy, not the programs, and that is why I think the Hefley amendment is an important step in sending that important signal of change forward.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I intend to vote for final passage of the appropriations bill because this is the beginning of the end of the Department of Commerce. Yes, the bill could have gone further and more programs could be eliminated outright, yet this will be done in cooperation, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] just stated, with all of the relevant authorizing committees as part of the reconciliation process in moving forward. Mr. Chairman, the Department of Commerce cannot and should not be eliminated in one appropriations bill. We must craft responsible legislation to do certain things. Privatize certain functions, localize certain functions back to State and local government. Consolidate certain functions within the Federal Government and eliminate some outright from the Department of Commerce. While we speak, authorizing committees are moving to construct legislation to do just this. We have received solid commitments and firm commitments from the leadership and from the authorizing committees to move this package forward aggressively this year. Mr. Chairman, our goal of improving commerce in our vast and diverse Nation will not be accomplished by a centralized bureaucracy. We do not promote commerce by erecting crippling taxes and a regulatory maze that you need a cabinet and department level to break through. I think we promote it by free enterprise. A recent Business Week poll of executives illustrated their support of eliminating the Department of Commerce by calling for its elimination by a vote of two-to-one. The American people have spoken. They want a smaller, more limited, more focused Federal Government. I urge my colleagues to work with the authorizing committees to eliminate the Department of Commerce this year.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, we look forward to working with the appropriate authorizing committees and thank very much the appropriating committee for working with us.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I think some valid points have been raised here. Let me be succinct and brief on this. There are real cuts that are taking place in the agriculture programs. There are real cuts that have been taking place since 1986. I think I have lived through a fair number of those. I was Kansas Secretary of Agriculture for the past 6 years. I think I have a little bit of an idea what that is about. They are proposed in the budget resolution that has been passed by both Houses to a further cut next year of $1 billion of what the farmers receive out of the program, $1 billion. The bureaucracy that we are talking about, and I recognize the valid comments of the gentleman from Illinois, the bureaucracy we are talking about is flat line spent for the next several years. It is a flat level spending while the farmers get less money in their pockets. I simply think we are going to have trouble going out to farmers and saying, yes, we have to balance the budget, make these cuts, and you are going to have less money. They say, ``What about the USDA in Washington, the bureaucracy?'' We say, ``We have to have the same amount of money, people and everything in the centralized office.'' I think this is a good, prudent amendment. It is a 4-percent overall cut in the upper levels, the bureaucracy here, not out in the field staff, not out in the field offices. A second point I would quickly make is, the first year I came in as Kansas Secretary of Agriculture, I was presented a 7-percent across- the-board agency cut. Recognize, I am talking millions at the State level and this is billions here, so I know the magnitude of the difference. But what it forced me to do is make real changes in my operation, the things we knew we needed to have take place but we did not have the political impetus and force to do it. It think it will help as well. What we are talking about, ladies and gentlemen, is being able to go out and face farmers that are going to be facing real continued reductions, and we have had reductions already since 1986, real continued reductions so that, yes, we start if first in Washington, we make real cuts there, and this is going to be difficult, but this whole process is.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being able to speak to the body about what has taken place here recently, and that is the House audit that occurred yesterday and was released to the public yesterday. The reason I want to bring this up is this last weekend and for a number of months and throughout the campaign that I went through in eastern Kansas, a number of people talked to me about the things that they saw that they wanted to see changed. They wanted to see reduction in the Federal Government, and they wanted to see us return to basic values. But one of the big things that they saw that they really wanted to see happen was the reform of the Congress. They had lost faith in this institution to represent them and not be just self-serving to itself. Well, yesterday, a second big step occurred on that, where we had an audit released to the House of Representatives for the first time ever. I say second big step. The first big step was taken on January 4 of this year when this body agreed virtually unanimously to conduct its first ever audit. Why it took so many years, I do not know. But we finally agreed on January 4. That was a historic step, to audit this body, that has had so many scandals to it, the post office scandal, the bank scandal, the restaurant scandal. The second big step was the audit that came out yesterday. It was quite revealing. The auditors themselves say that they cannot issue an opinion as to the fiscal conditions of the House of Representatives because the records are so bad. They just cannot even issue an opinion about what is the condition of the financial records here in this audit. They identified millions of dollars that are not accounted for in the body. They make over 200 recommendations of changes that need to take place, like privatizing the gift shop, privatizing [[Page H 7252]] the supply store, centralized personnel records, establishing storage space fees to make warehouse storage for congressional inventories self-supporting, eliminating and contracting out the House office furnishing functions, and they go on and on and on. The reason for me to point this out is this past weekend I was in Pittsburgh, Kansas, in my district, for a four State farm show. We had about an hour and a half town meeting at this farm show where a number of people gathered underneath a tent and we carried this on radio throughout much of the southern portion of my district. And it was interesting. The lead question was not about what are we going to do about the farm bill, although there was interest on that, and it was not so much really about how are we going to reform what is taking place within the Federal Government. The lead question I got was when are you going to clean up the House itself? I noted the reforms we have done, a one- third cut in staff reductions, reducing ice buckets, or eliminating ice buckets being delivered to our office, and some of the proposals being put forward about the gift ban. But one of the biggest things we have to do to reinstill the faith and confidence of the American people in their representative body is follow through on this audit, wherever our noses lead us to, whatever we might see that needs to be changed to open up. The second big step has taken place. We have got a lot further to go, and I recommend that many people look at this audit and see what is in it. It is a scathing indictment of the financial condition and how his House has been operated in the past. It is scathing. I have never seen an audit of a governmental body that has been declared such a mess of an institution. The first two big steps have been taken. We have got to keep pressing forward with these reforms that are suggested in the audit and keep looking and searching and finding until we lift the dome off of everything and show the people what has been going on.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. The gift ban is pretty simple. It is a ``just say no'' gift ban. That is just simple, saying ``no'' to gifts. The American people in many respects think the institution is bought and paid for sometimes by very small gifts and trinkets, other times by very big things, and the gift ban legislation says ``just say no,'' do not accept it, you do not need to take it, why have it. We are paid a reasonable salary, and we get reasonable pay for what we do here. Why do we need to have all of these gifts, plus why are we given gifts in the first place? Is there something going on untold that takes place? Some people think it is, some not.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes, I guess I didn't realize it, but to never have been audited, to have this sort of lack of ability to even be able to render an opinion, I mean the financial situation just stinks. What I am happy to see is we have blown the lid off of that. OK; it is no longer just this hidden little dirty secret that is only known around Washington. Look, here is the audit. I have got some summaries here. The audit is inches thick that we have released out today. Here is what it is, folks. Let us get to the bottom of this, and at least we have blown open the lids on the Capitol, and given the people's House back to the people, and to me this is part about reestablishing the faith of the American people in representative democracy which we absolutely have to do to continue to make the tough choices for the future of our great Nation, which I was just home in Kansas, and I was down in Pittsburg, KS, this past weekend, and people there are saying: ``I'm scared for our Nation.'' ``I'm scared for our future.'' What's going to take place in the future of this country?'' Because they are just fearful we are going to be self-serving, we are not going to take care of the real business we need to, we are not going to clean up the House, and this is a further statement: ``No, we are.'' It is a start. We passed the audit bill. Here is the first installment. We are going to continue on it, and we have got to get the bad odor out of the place that we are finally started on.

Mr. BROWNBACK. If the gentlewoman would yield for just a moment, I think those are absolutely appropriate comments, and that is what the American people want us to do. They want us to clean our own house up first. They want us to produce a smaller Federal Government, clean up the House of Representatives, and return to the basic values that built the country, and we are getting a good start on doing those things. I am just amazed that when I ran for Congress, and I ran a lot saying, ``We're got to change Congress,'' I did not comment about-- enough about how bad the institution had----