Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. And will that be granted?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, is there a planned quorum call at this time? Can the Chair advise as to the planned quorum call?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry. The CHAIRMAN: The gentleman will state it.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote. A recorded vote was refused.

Mr. COBURN. Yes, I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this amendment is that the $463,000 represents over a 7 percent increase for this department, Office of Budget and Program Analysis. Again, I will restate the obvious. I believe that the money that we spend on agricultural programs ought to be going to our farmers, and I object to the fact that we are increasing overhead and bureaucratic expense, and that this money is not available to the farmers in my district. This money is not available to put the FSA offices back close to the farmers instead of having it 90 miles away from my farmers. So what we have done by this increase over the baseline from last year is spend money in Washington and not spend money on our farmers. The purpose of this amendment is to bring us back to last year. I again want to go back. Any dollar that is spent that should not be spent is a dollar of Social Security money stolen from our seniors and our grandchildren. The Social Security Administration estimates that in the year 2020 to 2022, to stay even with Social Security, despite no other changes, that we will have an effective FICA tax rate, a Social Security tax rate of somewhere between 22 and 24 percent, somewhere double where we are today. So if we continue to have this kind of spending, which we know, if it is not absolutely necessary, will be taking money from our grandchildren, our grandchildren will repay this money. Any money that is spent in this bill for a service that is not absolutely necessary is a dollar stolen from our Social Security. What does that mean? That means, number one, that the Social Security surplus is less. Number two, that means the debt, external debt that we hold today will not decrease by that amount, and that is what we have been doing with the excess Social Security money; we have been paying off bankers and foreign governments who own our Treasury notes and Treasury bills and putting an IOU in the Social Security system. So that also is a lost opportunity for savings on external debt. Number three, it pretends to be a situation that rationalizes that in hard times, like we are in today spending money on a war in Yugoslavia, we can afford to have a 7-plus percent increase in bureaucratic overhead. It is my feeling that the people in my district are best represented when the money that is spent for agriculture goes to our farmers, not to the bureaucratic administration of that aid to our farmers. So, therefore, Mr. Chairman, I would make the point again that we are going to have close to $149 billion in excess Social Security payments in the year 2000, and that this one small area, this one small amount of $463,000 is enough to supply Social Security in the future for several of our grandchildren, especially if it is not spent and compounded and earned. Mr. Chairman, one of our colleagues, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Sanford) took 6 years, the years from 1944 to 1950, and took the amount of money that was put into Social Security. Had that money been saved and not spent and invested at a rate of 6 percent return, there would be $3 trillion from those 6 years in Social Security today. So by spending money, rather than saving money as it was initially intended, what we are doing is losing opportunity for our children. Mr. Chairman, I plan on offering this amendment. I am in hopes that people will support the fact that we do not need to have this much of an increase to be able to accomplish this as the purpose of this budgetary office. It is my hope that we can have an acceptance of this amendment, that the chairman will look favorably on this amendment, knowing that the dollars to pay for this will come not only from the seniors who have trouble getting by today, will come from the commitment that we made not to touch one penny of Social Security.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. COBURN. Again, I want to be clear about what we are doing. We are cutting nothing. What we are saying is we are holding to last year's level. I understand the Farm Bureau. I have worked with them a great amount. A large number of the people who supported me to come here are from that organization. But I would also say that there probably would not be anything that they would probably say was a good idea to cut out of this bill, because that is not what they are set up to do. They are set up to make sure that their members are protected in this bill. I just wanted to state, and I thank the gentleman for being so kind as to yield to me, there is not a cut in the bill. It is the old Medicare scam cut, hold spending or cut. What we are saying is, let us not increase the administrative overhead that has been proposed in the bill.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COBURN. The gentleman makes the point that I was not before his committee on the cuts. That is a valid criticism, but that does not deny me the right to raise the issue on this floor and to say that I do not have the right to raise the issue on this floor because I was not before his committee. Simply because of the way the House operates, as the gentleman well knows, you cannot be at all those at one time and fulfill the rest of your duties. The point is, do you agree or do you not agree that we should trim some of the administrative overhead out of this budget? If you do not agree, then, fine, that is what our debate is all about. We are in the Committee of the Whole. That is what this is. That is why we are doing it in the Committee.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I would disagree. I think that the American people benefit from seeing the debates on how we spend money; and the closer that we put the magnifying glass to it, the better we are as a country. And I understand the pride of ownership of the Committee on Appropriations as they work hard to bring these bills up. And I am going to remind my colleagues again, when we talked about the rule, I said when we talked on the general debate hour that this was a good bill. I want to try to make it better, and I also want us to not be in a position where we are going to spend the first dollar of Social Security surplus.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentlewoman that we have not proposed a cut. What we have proposed is leaving it at last year's level.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. COBURN. I do not object.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, if I am not incorrect, and I will be happy to be corrected on this, we still have the amendment before us that was rejected in terms of it; and if we have spoken, we can not speak again. I am not sure I recall whether the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) has spoken or not.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, first of all, the reason I was hesitating responding to the gentleman is I do not think I can respond to the gentleman in the time that is remaining. I am going to ask for unanimous consent for additional time. This is not about dilatory tactics, in spite of everything the gentleman hears. I do not say things I do not mean, and I mean exactly what I say. That is something different than what this body is known for, unfortunately, over the last 40 years, as we have confiscated and put $5.6 trillion on the books owing by our children. My purpose is to reduce this and to have a discussion, as is my right in this body, so that the people of this country can hear the people's business. I want to tell the Members, there are some farmers out there right now talking about the 420 percent increase. They had no idea the money was spent that way. I guarantee a lot of us will hear about it tomorrow in terms of strategic planning.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COBURN. The gentleman makes some good points. However, Mr. Chairman, there is one underlying point that I disagree with, and the underlying assumption with his statement is that the Department of Agriculture is efficient now and that the money used, and just let me finish my point, the money that is going to be appropriated above last year to accomplish these things, that there is no way it could be found anywhere else. That is my objection. It is not what the gentleman is doing or how he is doing it, it is where the money comes from. The fact is, we do not have the courage to say the Department of Agriculture has to do this and we are going to write it into the bill and they will find the money there and they will have to make sure it gets done because we will have the oversight to make sure that the Department does do it. My objection is that this is an inefficient organization. That is not a slam on the employees, it is a slam on the organizational structure that we have piecemealed together through the last 40 years or so.

Mr. COBURN. That is not part of the amendment. It is intended that the conference could make that adjustment as a technical correction, and we amended exactly what we intended to amend in this change.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?