Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. That is not my point. I did not say it was unauthorized, I said they spent clearly more----

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Oh, I see. So what is the excuse going to be next year?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding, I thank him for his graciousness with which he is managing this debate, but I do have concern about the $4 billion. My question is: When we discovered that there was $4 billion that was unspent because, as he said, it turned out that they did not need to spend it, did we recapture that for the U.S. Treasury and use it to reduce the deficit? My problem is that my information is, no, the people who in fact were responsible for the overspending and no accounting essentially were allowed to spend it for other purposes or give it to the Defense Department, which means they have been given them zero incentive not to do this again. And if, in fact, it was unneeded spending, why did we not recapture it and apply it to reducing the deficit?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would essentially hold this year's authorization at the current spending level. It is a 4.9 percent reduction from the authorized figure, with an exception made for the retirement disability fund. That fund is held at the authorized level of the bill which is what is necessary. So it has no negative effect there. This amendment, if adopted, would give to the executive branch officials the ability to reprogram within the totals. So they need not apply the restriction across the board. It is a 4.9-percent cut. Because of the vote just taken, I may not say in public what it is 4.9 percent of, because then the Iranians would have valuable information and endanger our security. But I can say that it is a cut of well over a billion dollars. The key question is, will we, as we move to a zero deficit and severely reduce the amount of money available for discretionary programs, not only exempt from any reduction national security but continue to give them rates of increase well above the rate of inflation? This is a proposal before us, an authorizing bill, that raises the money from the current spending by nearly 5 percent. As we continue that pattern, Members must understand that inevitably means that environmental cleanup and health care of a discretionary sort and education and public safety and transportation get hurt. We read recently of the difficulty of the Committee on Appropriations in the allocations. They wanted to give more for the veterans and more for health care and more for job training and education. They had to do that at the expense of infrastructure and environmental cleanup and energy and water. This is the reason we face such terrible choices. As you increase the national security budget, you inevitably require greater decreases everywhere else. Members have said, well, it is still a dangerous world even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yes, it is. But let us reject now the argument that says it is a more dangerous place. We have heard Members say that it is a more dangerous place now that the Soviet Union has collapsed. This House floor may be the only place where we have nostalgia for the good old safe days of a heavily armed Soviet Union because apparently people felt more secure then. Members say, well, we no longer have the Soviet Union but we have North Korea, we have Iraq, we have Cuba, those threats, and they are threats that grew only since 1990. What we had 8 and 9 years ago was all of the threats, the Soviet Union and all of those other nations. Now we have a substantially diminished Russian threat and those other nations. This amendment does not even call for a reduction, although I voted for the previous amendment that would have. What we have here is an effort to give more and more money to national security, inevitably at the expense and intelligence of every other program. I would argue, if you look at the collapse of the Soviet Union, outside threats have diminished some. This does not even call for a reduction. It calls for level funding. Let us again remember that this is the agency which accumulated a $4 billion surplus in funds. This is the agency that was given more money than it needed by its own admission because it took $4 billion and did not spend it. That is undeniably an acknowledgment that they got more money than they needed. How do we deal with this agency which got more money than it needed and squirreled $4 billion away? We give them one of the largest increases any Federal agency would get, a 5-percent increase in the authorization, 4 percent more than the President asked to give. This is an increase of more than a billion dollars over what the President wanted to give them. At a time when I believe environmental threats and public safety threats and incomplete education, those are much graver problems, we have to choose. You cannot reach a zero deficit within the time frame we have chosen, increase, reward the national intelligence agencies for their $4 billion squirreling away by giving them a big increase and still have the funds to do other things. I urge adoption of this amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I am glad to hear the gentleman say we should give support to the administration. We can do that in part by abiding by their budget request and not spending well over $1 billion in this budget than the administration requested. We will deal with that in some later amendments. sequential votes postponed in committee of the whole

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I say to the gentleman, continue this trend of ever-increasing appropriations and authorizations for this agency, even when they have shown it is excessive by building up these surpluses, and you mandate deeper cuts in the environment and law enforcement and college education and public safety and everything else, because we are in a zero-sum situation. The $4 billion they accumulated without the knowledge of this committee is taken out of other important programs. We would be gravely mistaken if we did not try to recapture that for other purposes.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I will take back my time to say this, Mr. Chairman; the record is clear. As the gentleman from Vermont said, you always have an explanation of how everything is fine. I understand this is difficult. They are very sophisticated things they are doing. I do not believe it was an honest error. I believe they figured out a game. The central point I want to make is this, and I am not for hanging anyone, but the fact that an agency was able to accumulate a surplus greater than 10 percent of the total authorization here is an indication that you are giving them more money than they need for the purposes you say you are giving it to them for. In fact, what you were doing, that $4 billion, that is the entire Community Development Block Grant Program for the United States. It was twice the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program for the United States. You are talking about the deficit, and people should understand, because we are going to get to a zero deficit.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. They just lost $2 billion? With their satellites they could not find $2 billion?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Who did not know?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. They hid $2 billion from you.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. You were telling us $2 billion.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman, where did it get to $4 billion.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. When?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. If the gentleman will yield. How much? Of the $2 billion that he saved and did not spend, or his predecessor, how much of a reward did he get of that to spend on other things?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I support the gentleman, but I begin to get second thoughts because maybe we have found a way to really cut the deficit. This hidden money that we lost track of started out at a billion. Then within a couple of months it was $2 billion. Now it is $4 billion. There is not revenue source in the Federal Government growing at so rapid a rate. Maybe we ought to leave these people alone, because at the rate these people salt away money and have it increase, pretty soon we will get rid of the deficit.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, we have never had a clearer demonstration of the importance of an amendment. We are constrained by one of the dumber laws in the United States from telling the American people what the overall intelligence budget is. If we cannot tell people what the overall intelligence budget is, we cannot tell them the percentage, because even the accountants at the National Reconnaissance Office could figure out what that meant the total was. But I can say this, Mr. Chairman. The $4 billion that has hidden away and spent for purposes other than was legally authorized, and let us be very clear, there is no doubt about that; what the gentleman from Texas said was it turned out they did not need to spend that.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is both fiscally and constitutionally required. Fiscally, because it would give us at least some reduction in the 5-percent increase that is otherwise being voted; but it is also important as a matter of constitutional government. The following facts are not in dispute: About a year ago, some newspaper reports came out that the National Reconnaissance Organization, the entity that is the subject of this amendment, had squirreled away $1 billion. There was $1 billion we did not know they had. People said well, they had a bad accounting system. I reject the notion that the people who know all, see all, are everywhere, from whom the world has no secrets, did not know how much money they had. Of course they did. What they counted on was the laxity of this body's supervision. They counted on being able to put that money away so they could in effect supplement their own appropriation. These people have invented the new parliamentary device, the autonomous supplemental appropriation. They can supplement their own, by hiding the money as it goes along. What this means, of course, is it turns out that some of the money we voted for them was not necessary. They were able to accomplish certain objectives or for other reasons they were not able to spend some money. They did not turn it back. They did not come and say reprogram it. They just kept it. At first we were told there was $1 billion. Then we heard there was $2 billion. Then the committee intervened. Riding to the rescue of fiscal integrity came the Intelligence Oversight Committee, and they adopted some rules to prevent this from happening. And it worked, because thanks to them, we no longer had a $2 billion surplus hidden away. We had a $4 billion surplus. Thanks to the effective oversight, the committee said ``We took some steps a year ago.'' They took some steps, and as a consequence of the steps, or perhaps irrelevant to the steps, the $2 billion became $4 billion. Now, as I suggested earlier, maybe what we should do is simply withhold here, because we seem to have a great, surefire deficit reducing device. First they found $1 billion. Then the $1 billion became $2 billion. Then the $2 billion became $4 billion. I do not have my calculator, but it seems to me in a very few years, if we let these people go at the rate they are going, they would make a very substantial reduction in the deficit. They are able to produce the greatest surplus in a shorter period of time than anybody I have ever seen. But they should not be able to do it without this body voting on how to spend that money. We were told they have been disciplined. Somebody was fired. But as an entity, this is undeniable, they have benefited from that. They have gotten more money to spend. People said well, we are trying, Mr. Deutch is trying. I believe Mr. Deutch is trying. I believe the committee was trying. But Mr. Deutch has a broad set of responsibilities. The members of this committee have very broad sets of responsibilities. No, if you have got people who are specialists, particularly when they are working in a technically sophisticated area where secrecy is involved, no one will be able to out-account them, no one will be able to stop this kind of game playing, except if we say to them, we penalize you. There is one way to put an end to this, and that is to pass the gentlewoman's very thoughtful amendment so we say to these people there is a penalty for this kind of game playing and avoidance of the rules, and it is you will not get the full benefit from this. There is no danger they will be hurting financially. An entity that was able to squirrel away $4 billion while doing everything they were supposed to do is hardly going to be hurt when they get their share of a 5-percent increase and still have kept some of what they had. None of it has gone back to the deficit. Let us at least in this amendment give the American taxpayers some benefit from the $4 billion in savings. I hope the gentlewoman from Colorado's amendment is adopted.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I would just point out to the gentleman, when he says if we make this cut it goes not to domestic but to defense programs, that is so because the House voted it that way. There is nothing in the law or Constitution that would require that. We would have the option. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations on the House side has just gone through the difficult process of doing the allocations of funds among subcommittees. If we were to reduce that by $1.5 billion plus, he could then take that out of the national security allocation and give it to others. Indeed, interestingly, $1.5 billion is a figure that, as I understand it, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee has said he needs to distribute to other domestic programs to prevent real carnage, so this one amendment would ease that. It is true if we reduce this authorization and made no other change, they would gobble it up; but we have, by the same vote that we reduce this authorization, the ability to reduce overall appropriations and allow the reallocation. It is entirely within our decision.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I think those of us who have the privilege of serving in this body are extremely lucky to be able to work as we do. There is only one major downside to our job in my experience--our inability to be in two places at one time. June 6 is one of the occasions when I will very much regret this limitation. We will be in session and I will therefore be in Washington. In Boston, on June 6, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston will present the Warren B. Kohn Award in Jewish Communal Service to Barbara Gaffin, who serves as the JCRC associate director. It is not only a well-deserved award, it is an award which could have been designed with the recipient specifically in mind. Barbara Gaffin has been an extraordinarily dedicated and effective citizen for her entire adult life. She was a leader in the effort to save Jews worldwide from the oppression that they faced in many countries, and had a major role in the efforts many of us made here in Congress to protect Jews from being victims of oppression and death. For the past few years, she has worked in Boston as the associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council and continues to be an invaluable source of intelligence, energy, compassion, and good judgment on behalf of the wide variety of causes that the JCRC undertakes. I am regretful that I cannot attend the ceremony at which this award is presented to Barbara Gaffin, so I ask for an opportunity to note here how important her work has been to myself and to others. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that Barbara Gaffin's husband, Doug Cahn, was for many years my administrative assistant here in Washington. I was very lucky to have him working for me, and I was additionally lucky that this brought me into such regular contact with Barbara, who is truly an exemplar of the ideal of Jewish communal service.