John Campbell

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. CAMPBELL. If I can reclaim my time, and I understand--the gentleman from Washington and I have discussed this. Frankly, some day I hope--maybe after this, which is the last appropriations bill--we can sit down and see if we can figure something out here. Because this says, ``The entity to receive the funding for the project is.'' If that's not dispositive, I don't know what is.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Well, then, don't list the entity. If somebody requested the money, and the expectation is that they're going to get it, then where is the competitive bidding? Shouldn't we just simply say, Here is a project. Here is what it is. There is no name. There is no indication. Let whoever wants to bid for this thing compete for it, and require that there be a minimum of three bidders or the earmark doesn't go out. Because sometimes these things are written to a specific product that perhaps only one company makes. I understand the gentleman from Washington's point on this, but I hope you understand mine. Mr. Chairman, this is a stain on this House. I don't want to be doing this. We've all got better things to do. There happens to be a recession going on. There are a lot of people out of work. There happens to be a big and legitimate debate about how health care should go forward in this country. We have a lot of things to do. But this has been a stain on this House, these earmarks, particularly the ones on private companies. I don't do any earmarks; and arguably, if I were king, I don't think we should do any in this House at all. I understand the legitimate argument for them, but I absolutely reject any thought or idea that earmarks that go to private entities like this, with a direction to a private entity, are anything but a stain in this House. Mr. Chairman, there are former Members of this body in jail today because of earmarks to private entities. I wish I could say that there will never be any more, but I don't know that. But the way we won't have any more is if we stop this practice, and we don't do this sort of thing again in the future. This really is about this House and the integrity of this House and the view of the integrity of this House to the outside world, to our constituents, and to the people of the United States. I would ask a couple of more questions. I am almost out of time. But did the company submit for defense procurement and was turned down, is that why you have this earmark? How did you determine the price, that $3 million is the right price? And will you, as other Members have, commit that you have not received and will not accept campaign contributions from company executives, employees, shareholders or lobbyists on this entity? Other Members on this floor have made that commitment. With that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, I have amendment No. 8 at the desk.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, first, before I discuss this amendment, I would like to make a comment relative to the gentleman from New York's defense of his earmark before. If, in fact, these shelters are necessary--and I'm not going to dispute that point with the gentleman, they may in fact be--then why do we not have a designation that the Defense Department shall procure 9,000, 90,000, whatever it is, items of shelter, and they should procure them from a U.S.-based source, and they should do it under competitive bidding and get at least three bids and pick that which is deemed to be the highest quality and the lowest cost? Wouldn't that be an appropriate way to do this? And that's what I am saying, and I think the gentleman from Arizona before me is saying. We are not here--and certainly I am not here--to say that it is not Congress' right to appropriate funds. It is, in fact, the right, as you have all pointed out, as enumerated in the Constitution. However, there is a right way to do that and there is a wrong way to do that. And with these 552 no-bid, going-to-private- companies earmarks, amounting to $1.3 billion, which if the 18 minutes of debate in committee were spent entirely on the earmarks means that each earmark received 2 seconds of debate, this is not the proper way to do it. This particular earmark, Mr. Chairman, would strike $1.5 million designated for the Green Laboratories and Clean Rooms project and would reduce the overall funding of the bill by an equivalent amount, and this money is intended to go to Amethyst Technologies. And again, as we have discussed, if this is competitively bid, why does the sponsor's letter, which I have here, of certification of this earmark say, and I quote, ``The contact name and address is Ms. Kimberly Brown, President, Amethyst Technologies, 1450 South Rolling Road, Suite 2041, Baltimore, Maryland, 21227?'' Mr. Chairman, again I would ask--and I don't think I see the author of the earmark--but let me ask someone over there, whoever is going to deal with this, why, again, is only one company listed if it is to be competitively bid? If there is no response to that, then I guess I would ask, did this company submit this to the Defense Department for procurement? Did this company even try to go to the Defense Department and make their case with those in the military whose job it is to determine what is best for the military?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I will yield, yes.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Reclaiming my time, Donald Rumsfeld is no longer Secretary of Defense, has not been for some time, and there is a different President. We are dealing with appropriations for a fiscal year that begins later this year and goes into 2010. Look, if you think this is necessary, just don't say it's for this company, that it's $1.5 million. Because another question I would have is, how do you determine the $1.5 million is the right price? What are you getting for $1.5 million, and how do you know you couldn't get the same thing somewhere else for half that? And I will yield.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Just reclaiming my time, I'm happy to exchange, but if there's nobody, then isn't that something the Armed Services Committee should be dealing with? And I would yield.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Reclaiming my time----

Mr. CAMPBELL. Reclaiming my time, could I inquire as to how much time I have remaining, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I am going to reserve the balance of my time, and I would ask that the gentleman please continue his argument on his time.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, one other question, one that didn't get answered on the last earmark, and I will ask it again on this particular earmark. I understand the sponsor is not here, but will the sponsor commit, as other people have done on this floor, that he has not received and will not accept campaign contributions from the company, its executives, its stockholders, employees, or lobbyists, or other people who can benefit directly from the earmark? Because, Mr. Chairman, if people won't do that, then as the gentleman from Arizona and others have suggested, that is where, perhaps, we can get in deeper trouble on these sorts of things in the future. Mr. Chairman, I ask for an ``aye'' vote. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Does the gentleman see a problem with doing these in the future without a company name?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Will the gentleman yield?

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

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Speaker, this is a flow chart which the Democratic leadership doesn't want you to see, but this is a flow chart of the Democratic socialized medicine--I will use that term--but government- run health care plan. You see, you are here, your doctor is here, and all this stuff is somewhere in the middle. Now this plan adds 53 new departments, agencies and commissions. Mr. Speaker, this plan is going to tax more. It is going to cost more. It is going to spend more. It is going to borrow more. But there is one thing we're going to get a lot less of, and that's jobs, by some estimates, nearly 5 million less jobs. Why would we want to do this? This isn't health care reform; this is just nuts.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding. Mr. Speaker, PAYGO is a sham. Now, that's a very strong word, but the facts that support it are equally strong. In the last Congress since Democrats took control and PAYGO was enacted, $420 billion of new spending was exempted from its provisions. Over the last few weeks, this House has passed nine new spending bills. Every one of those new spending bills increased spending over the last year by as much as 22 percent, and not a single dollar of those spending increases was paid for. Every one will add to the deficit, add to the debt, and about 46 cents of every one of those dollars will be borrowed, primarily from the Chinese, Indians, and other foreigners. The deficit has gone from $160 billion to nearly $2 trillion since PAYGO started. How does that make this a good thing? How is that an example of how this has worked to control spending and be fiscally responsible? And in PAYGO, spending increases don't have to be paid for but tax cuts do, and there is nothing in here whatsoever to deal with our ballooning massive debt. Mr. Speaker, PAYGO is nothing more than a public relations effort to make the most profligate Congress ever appear to be less profligate. The American people are not buying it.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. Americans know they should save for their retirement, but it's tough because you've got to put money away now for later, and there are things to spend it on now. You know, there is a nice dinner to go to; there is a vacation to take, maybe a TV or a car to buy or something like that. So what do we do? I do it. Probably many people listening to this do it. Your employer takes it out of your paycheck so that you kind of never see it, and it goes straight to your retirement so you can save it so that you know it will be there when you need it. What that is is an external discipline, making us do the thing we know is right for us to do but that, as human beings, we have a hard time doing ourselves without that external discipline. Mr. Speaker, this bill is that external discipline. Because Members of Congress are no different than anybody else. When we have money, we spend it. When Republicans were in charge, we spent too much money. We overspent by hundreds of billions of dollars. Now the Democrats are in charge. They're overspending by trillions of dollars. But whether it's hundreds of billions or trillions, whichever majority has been in this Congress, we have spent more than we have taken in. I can't remember the exact figure; but I think that for 43 out of the last 45 years this Congress has spent more money than revenue that has come in and has run a deficit, regardless of who was in the White House or who was in charge. We can't do that. What this bill says is you can't increase spending faster than people's incomes. It's that simple. Because if you do, if the Federal Government spends more money, increases spending by more than people's incomes have increased, there's only two ways to do it, borrow it or increase taxes. And if we continue to do it, we continue to borrow and we continue to increase taxes until we will have no economy and no growth left. Mr. Speaker, that's where we are right now.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Speaker, that is where we are right now. We don't have to wait 10 years, 15 years or 20 years. We are in that position right now. The American people are taxed too much, and we are borrowing way, way too much. This bill, this discipline, this Republican substitute will bring that to an end; and I urge us all to support it.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, President Obama told us that all this reckless spending he was doing was going to create jobs. Mr. Speaker, where are the jobs? Instead of jobs, we get a so-called ``health reform'' bill. And this provision of that bill tells Americans that they will be prohibited from having their own insurance. They will be forced into a government health plan run by something like the IRS. Mr. Speaker, this health plan is socialized medicine, pure and simple. And in addition to that, it will cost more. It will increase taxes on the wealthy and a whole lot of other people. It will increase the deficit. It will lower quality. It doesn't cover everyone. And it is projected to lose another 5 million jobs of Americans. Mr. Speaker, this is not reform. This is just nuts.

Mr. CAMPBELL

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would strike a $1 million earmark that is for--and being from California, I will apologize in advance to the gentleman from Massachusetts if I butcher the name of the river, the pronunciation of the name of the river, but is it Housatonic? You can correct me when it's your time, but the Housatonic River Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and it reduces funding in the overall bill by that amendment. Mr. Chairman, it is not unusual lately to see amendments for funding of museums in local communities and around the country, but this one's particularly unusual, I believe, because, as far as I can determine from the Web site, this museum doesn't currently exist. And if I am reading the Web site for this museum correctly, they're still in the design and development phase of this building, and it would appear that this is a $1 million earmark to go to a museum in Massachusetts which does not currently exist and which, according to their own Web site, would not even have construction completed until 2012. And of course, this is the appropriations funding for 2010, so this funding would be available for the museum 2 years before even their Web site indicates they might be completed. So this appears to be an amendment for a museum, $1 million for the museum that doesn't exist. And I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, I have no doubt that it sounds like the museum is going to be a very neat, cool, useful museum in the local area, but I guess I would ask the gentleman a question. Does this museum currently exist? And I would yield to the gentleman. Does it currently exist?