Ander Crenshaw

Mr. CRENSHAW

Mr. CRENSHAW. I thank the gentleman for yielding. On behalf of the Republican participants, I want to congratulate Captain Yarmuth and his team for their outstanding play and for their narrow victory, and I want to thank all the members of the Republican team for participating and for showing up. I think the big winner is The First Tee. I want to thank all the sponsors because, over the years, they've raised over $1.5 million for this organization that is involved in all 50 States and that touches the lives of about 5 million young people in order to teach them through the game of golf about honesty, integrity, character, and about sportsmanship. So, again, I thank everyone for being involved. I just remember the words of those people who watched the University of Florida football team, which are: Wait until next year.

Mr. CRENSHAW

Mr. CRENSHAW. I thank the gentleman for yielding the time. I just want to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this continuing resolution. This body has been doing a lot of things to try to get the economy moving again, to try to put people back to work, create jobs. One of the ways we can do that is to change this culture of spending into a culture of saving. Quit crowding out the private sector so that the private sector can come in and do the job creation that we know they can do. We've taken some giant steps on stopping all the spending that's gone on here. Last year we did some good things. Eventually we funded the government at less than last year's level, and this year we hoped that we would come in and do the individual Appropriations subcommittees. In the House we passed six of those through the full House. Unfortunately, the Senate only passed one, and so we find ourselves now in a situation where we have to pass a continuing resolution. But, again, all the subcommittees that came before this full House funded their subcommittees at less than last year's level. We now have a continuing resolution that has funding that's less than last year. It's been agreed to by the House, agreed to by the Senate, and agreed to by the President. And we can argue about the process. We can argue about whether it should be a little more or a little bit less. But we'll give ourselves until November 18 to finalize all the work that needs to be done. And so I think it's appropriate that we pass this, move forward, and continue to try to get a handle on the spending to help get our economy moving again.

Mr. CRENSHAW

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Speaker, in 1961, Lester and Anne Scaff took a leap of faith and purchased a small market on US 41 in Lake City. At that time, the young couple had no idea that their lives and their business were about to grow into a lifetime of joy and community involvement. Over the years they purchased more stores which came with new challenges to learn and grow. With a strong belief in customer service, the Scaff's growth continued through the 1980s and beyond. They expanded into eight surrounding counties and were able to target their growth to become a leading employer in the region. That original small company now owns 44 convenience stores and 3 Scaff's Markets. However, from their corporate office, Lester and Anne Scaff still engage in the daily operations using the same careful, guiding hands that crafted the small one-store operation that grew into the people oriented, customer friendly business that exists today. They continue to be thankful for their customers over these 50 plus years. S&S Food Stores and the Scaffs take pride in being good neighbors. Their commitment to serving their communities has been evident with the many fundraising activities and charitable contributions donated throughout the years. In fact, the S&S team members have collected close to a million dollars for the Children's Miracle Network/Shands Hospital. Congratulations to Lester and Anne Scaff and the employees of S&S Food Stores for their 50 years of service to the State and their community.

Mr. CRENSHAW

Mr. CRENSHAW. Reclaiming my time, that's an interesting question too. I appreciate that question. And that $30 million is there to use to make sure that we protect the health and safety of people in our buildings here. So I understand it won't cost any more money, but it's just a brand- new Federal program that I think is not a good time to be trying to do that. Again, if you've been trying to do that for the last 15 years and no one has been listening, then it must not be all that great a program. But once again, I appreciate your being a champion of that, and maybe someday it will come back to life. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I would just simply say, as I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this, again, I thank the gentleman for bringing it to our attention. It seems strange that it hasn't been funded for the last 15 years. I think this is not the year to crank it back up, resuscitate it. I think we have plenty of bipartisan research that's available to the Members. And maybe there are some private and nonprivate corporations, big foundations that might want to do this on a voluntarily basis. But again, I urge a negative vote. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chair, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chair, I yield myself 1 minute simply to give you three good reasons why we should defeat this amendment. Number one, it really doesn't do anything because we don't spend any money in this bill for House restaurant services. They are funded through a revolving trust fund, and that money comes from another source. So it wouldn't have any impact in the first place. Number two, if it did have any impact, all it would do is raise the cost of everything in the restaurants, which would be passed on to the folks. That's not a great thing, to spend more money. Number three, my last good reason, the gentleman mentioned that this year there was a bipartisan letter from the chairman of the House Administration Committee along with the ranking member to say we tried this program and we're going to end it. So for those three reasons, I think it is appropriate to vote ``no.'' I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California, Chairman Lungren, the chairman of the House Administration Committee and the author of the letter that ended the program in January.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. CRENSHAW. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. CRENSHAW. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Well, reclaiming my time, if this was simply a question of education, I hope the gentleman has been working diligently for the past few years as hard as he worked for the last 24 hours to make people aware and to crank this thing back up. But again, this is the wrong time to try to start a new government program.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I appreciate very much the gentleman from New Jersey's passion for this program. He mentioned that they turned out the lights in 1996, some 15 years ago, and I can't help but wonder why the lights haven't been turned on in the last 15 years. I talked to the gentleman yesterday, and I didn't know much about the OTA, but I couldn't help but wonder why, in the midst of the financial mess that we find our country in, he would pick this time to try to resuscitate a program that has lay sleeping for 15 years. I don't know whether he has tried every year to resuscitate this program and nobody was listening. I hope he has tried before. There were probably times when money was more plentiful and he might have had a better chance of bringing back a new program, a little more government, but I think this is just bad timing. I told him that if he wants to continue to try to educate the Members and tell them what a wonderful program this was up until 1996, there may be some day that it would be resuscitated. But the Members should know that in 2008 we gave $2.5 million to the Government Accountability Office to do these kind of technological assessments, and they've been doing that for the last 4 years.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the further consideration of H.R. 2551, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. CRENSHAW. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. CRENSHAW

Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet on Monday next, when it shall convene at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate and noon for legislative business.

Mr. CRENSHAW

Mr. CRENSHAW. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during consideration of H.R. 2551 pursuant to House Resolution 359, the following amendments be permitted to be offered out of the specified order: Amendment No. 9 by Mr. Moran; Amendment No. 12 by Mr. Holt.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2551 and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Mr. CRENSHAW. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen of the House, this is the funding bill for the Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch of the Appropriations Committee for 2012. Everybody knows that we are in the midst of some very difficult economic times. I don't need to tell the Members that we have had deficits of over $1 trillion for the last couple of years. I don't need to tell people that we've had about $4 trillion added to our national debt in the last 2\1/2\ years. We all know that we have $14 trillion of national debt, and that equals our entire economy. The one thing that everyone would agree on is that we just can't keep spending like that. That's just not sustainable. Everyone says that. So we bring this bill in the midst of that kind of discussion, and we want to try to do our part in getting a handle on the way we spend money around this place. We want to try to stop this culture of spending and turn it into a culture of savings. So when we bring this bill, this Legislative Branch appropriations bill, it will spend 6.4 percent less than last year. That's $227 million. It will spend 14.2 percent less than what was requested, that's $474 million. Now, it's our best effort to keep the commitment that we're going to try to do things more efficiently and more effectively than we have before. How do we do that? Well, we listen to the facts. We had eight formal hearings. We had numerous informal hearings. We listened, we set priorities, we made some tough choices, and we have the bill before us. I certainly want to thank the members of the subcommittee for their involvement, for their participation, for their hard work, for their input. And a special word of thanks to Mike Honda from California, the ranking member, who was involved in the process all along the way and knows the difficult choices that we had to make. I certainly want to thank our staff, both the majority and minority staff. A lot of times we go home at night and they stay and keep on working, and they helped us get to where we are today to have this final product. Now, let me just give you some of the highlights of this bill. If you look at the legislative branch, about 36 percent of the spending goes to the House of Representatives. That's where we are tonight. Half of the money that goes to the House goes to what we call Members' representational accounts, the so-called MRAs. And so we thought that since we've asked every agency in the Federal Government to rein in spending, we've asked them all to tighten their belt, to do more with less, to be more efficient than they ever have been before, we've subjected them to this kind of scrutiny, and we thought it would only be fair to apply that same process to us. That's why the MRAs in this House are reduced by 6.4 percent. All of the committee staff budgets, they are reduced by 6.4. The leadership budgets are reduced by 6.4 percent. Now, those MRAs, that's money that's taxpayers' money. We have it available to us to run our offices. We can hire staff. We can lease space. We can buy equipment. We can do a lot of things. We have a lot of discretion. Now, some people say we shouldn't cut the MRAs. Some people say we cut them too much, that we can't continue to do our job. Well, it seems to me that if we're going to ask every other agency of the Federal Government to do more with less, then we've got to look at our own selves, and that's what we've done here. We've said that we want to lead by example. We want to share in the sacrifice that everyone is sharing throughout the Federal Government. And that's why we did what we did. Some people say, well, we might have to fire somebody. Again, Members have the money available to them. They can decide how they want to spend it. If they want to have lots of staff, they can have lots of staff. If they want to send lots of mail out, they can send lots of mail out. The MRAs even allow Members to lease a car. There will be an amendment later on to say you can't lease a car if it costs more a thousand dollars a month. So when you hear people say this is going to make it very difficult for us to do our job, I think what it's going to do is make us as Members be more responsible, be more efficient, set the right priorities and continue to do our job. Because some people say we ought to cut even more. But I would say that if you look at the facts, we've cut this legislative branch funding by 9 percent over the last 2 years. We cut the MRAs again. Last year we cut them 5 percent. The Appropriations Committee was cut by 9 percent last year. And so I think we've struck a balance between doing more with less, being more efficient, and yet being able to do the things that we need to do in a very efficient and a very safe manner. Now, there are other agencies that we oversee, and some are extensions of the House, so to speak. The Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office, these are agencies that provide service to the Members of this body. And as extensions of the House, we felt like they should be subject to the same scrutiny that we were. Their budgets are going to be reduced by 6.4 percent as well. That means they are going to have to be a little smarter, set priorities, work more efficiently. Actually, as Members, Mr. Chairman, we're going to have to be more judicious in the things that we ask from these agencies. Sometimes we just willy-nilly say, I want a report here, I want a report there. We need to decide what we really need and what we don't necessarily need, and I think they will be able to continue to do the job that they've been doing all along to supply us with the information we need to be effective Members of this body. We also oversee the Library of Congress, a wonderful historic building that you can see from this House of Representatives. Very important to us. Their budget has been reduced. They are working with us to make sure that they can continue to provide the services that we need. We oversee the Architect of the Capitol. He's charged with overseeing over a million square feet of offices all across this Capitol Hill. His budget is being cut, and he's got a list of the projects he needs to do. He's set a priority there, and he will do what needs to be done, but he'll make sure that he doesn't impair the health and the safety of any Members of this House, any staff, or the people that work on the Hill. We reduced the budget of the Government Printing Office. Finally, we oversee the Capitol Police. And a lot has been said about our ability to make sure that we're safe in this area. We didn't reduce the spending for the Capitol Police. We recognize that security is not a luxury; it's something that we need. But we also realize that Members can be more diligent, we can be more aware. What we learned from this situation in Arizona with our fellow Congresswoman is that our service is not without risk, but many of the things that we need to do from a security standpoint have to do with our own common sense, our own awareness, our own diligence. So we provide the Capitol Police with the money that they need to not only make sure that we are safe in this House, our staff, and those that work in the Capitol complex are safe, but also the millions of Americans that come here, to make sure they're safe as well. So I think, Mr. Chairman, we have a bill that strikes the right balance. We recognize the difficult times we're in. We've taken the money we have available. We've set priorities. We made some tough choices. And I think this bill represents some fiscally responsible savings that will allow us to continue to do our job, to do it in a safe and efficient manner. As we have put all of these agencies around the Federal Government under this scrutiny to see if they can do things more efficiently, we have not exempted ourselves. [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH21JY11.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH21JY11.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH21JY11.003 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH21JY11.004 I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. CRENSHAW. I reserve the balance of my time.