Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I raise this point of order today not to debate a point of unfunded mandates, although there are probably some in the legislation. It is simply the only opportunity that members of the minority have to stand up and talk about this process. We are only given a minimal amount of time on the rule, itself, and, on the bill, just an hour of debate and then amendment debate. Unfortunately, although we have had an open process in terms of amendments on appropriation bills for as long as any of us can remember--for decades and decades and decades--for the last couple of years, we have had structured rules come to the floor where members of the minority and the majority aren't allowed to offer the amendments that they would like. Traditionally, Members could offer any amendment as long as it was germane and as long as it struck spending from the legislation and it was legislated on an appropriation bill. Yet this year and last year, for the first time, Members can't bring amendments to the floor. They have to submit them to the Rules Committee. Then the Rules Committee decides which ones they want to allow on the floor and which ones they don't or they will decide, Oh, you've offered 12 amendments, but you can only offer four. This limits the ability of the minority, in particular, to actually stand up and try to save money in the legislation. We have to remember that every bill we consider this year, every appropriation bill--and unfortunately, probably, we are only going to consider two until after the election. Of the ones we consider, 42 cents of every dollar we spend we are borrowing. We are borrowing 42 cents of every dollar we are spending for whatever we spend it on. Now, I think it is perfectly right and proper to ask: Is this right to spend, for example, money on, well, in this case, 461 earmarks in this piece of legislation alone? Some of them are for bike paths and street beautification. These are all good things, but they have no Federal nexus. They shouldn't be paid for by the Federal taxpayer. Yet, when we try to bring these amendments to the floor to debate them, only a few are allowed. Why is that? I would ask if the gentleman representing the Rules Committee can explain why this is happening, why in the world we are so hard-pressed for time now, apparently, that we can only consider a couple of amendments, 22 percent of those that were offered. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 1569 because the resolution violates section 426(a) of the Congressional Budget Act. The resolution contains a waiver of all points of order against consideration of the bill, which includes a waiver of section 425 of the Congressional Budget Act, which causes the violation of section 426(a).

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman. Madam Speaker, slamming the door on the legislative process. My taking 10 minutes to talk about this rule is slamming the door on the legislative process. How is that? What I am here to talk about is how the door has been slammed on the legislative process. The inability of Members to come and offer amendments to appropriation bills to try and save money is what is slamming the door on the legislative process. It has nothing to do with somebody's standing up and claiming time to speak against the rule. So that is just baffling to me and to anybody out there, listening, when they learn that I offered 11 amendments. There were 461 earmarks which were costing nearly $330 million. I should note, this year, Republicans have taken a moratorium. So, of those 461 earmarks, only six were sponsored by Republican Members--six out of 431. I commend my Republican colleagues for the position that has been taken this year. Let me just read a list of the ones that I will be challenging today: I was allowed to choose four out of the 11 I submitted. Now, I could have submitted a lot more and could have tried to have been dilatory about this, but I said, I'll offer just as many as I would if that were the number that I could actually offer coming to the floor. But I was only allowed four. I should mention many of my Republican colleagues who offered earmark amendments were not given any, not any. Some of them had a great case to make here. They would have asked, for example, why it is that certain Members requested, say, $4 million for an earmark and got more than that, actually, given to them. Why is it, if you take the position that some Members take, that, hey, I know my district better than anybody else, better than those faceless bureaucrats we always hear about in the bureaucracy, so I need $4 million for this bike path or whatever, and you get $5 million, how is that? That's a good question to ask. It would have been nice to get the answer for that, but we won't be able to because those Members were denied the ability to come down and offer their amendments. I'll be offering amendments to strike funding, for example, for the Blackstone River Bikeway in Rhode Island. It might be a good bikeway. They might need it there. But I can tell you, the Federal Government doesn't need to pay for it. The Federal taxpayer doesn't need to pay for it, especially when we're spending 42 cents of every dollar--we're borrowing, I'm sorry, 42 cents for every dollar we spend. I would challenge any Member who will vote against my amendment to strike funding from the Blackstone River Bikeway in Rhode Island to go home and say, with a straight face to their constituents, yes, I think it's proper that we borrow 42 cents from either the Chinese or from your kids or grandkids because we can't pay for it now, for the Federal Government to pay for a bikeway in Rhode Island. Or for downtown Tacoma streetscapes, a downtown Tacoma streetscape improvement project in Washington. Why in the world should, in this case, a powerful member of the Appropriations Committee be able to get an earmark to pay for downtown Tacoma streetscapes? Again, we're borrowing 42 cents for every dollar we spend there. Go home to your constituents, I dare you, and say, yes, I voted to uphold, to keep that earmark in there. It was so important that we got the downtown Tacoma streetscape project that we're borrowing 42 cents from your kids and grandkids to pay for, just so I can go home to my constituents and say, hey, I bring home the bacon. Or the restoration and improvements to the historic Darwin Martin House Home and Complex. Now, it might be good. Why is the taxpayer paying, through the Federal Government, and borrowing 42 cents on every dollar to do that? Or the construction of a children's playground. It might be a good playground, the children might need it somewhere, but it's not the Federal Government's responsibility. And go home to your constituents, I dare you today, anybody who votes to strike my amendment or votes my amendment down to strike that funding, go home and explain why in the world we need construction of a children's playground and borrow, those kids who are going to be playing on it, borrow their money because we can't pay for it now. But it's so important for us to go home and say I brought home the bacon that we're going to approve that earmark. Let me tell you another reason why we can't reform this process very easily. This chart will show you the appropriations process this year. And it looks, people have said, like a PAC-MAN chart. But the red there is the percentage of earmark dollars that are associated with powerful Members of Congress. Those are either appropriators, or those who chair committees, or those who are in leadership positions. That makes up about 13 percent of the body. In this bill today, and this is one of the lower ones, 42 percent of the earmark dollars are going to just 13 percent of the Members of this body. Now, for those who say, hey, we're here to earmark because we know our constituents better. We know our district better than those faceless bureaucrats, apparently you only know your district if you're a powerful Member or you're a member of the Appropriations Committee. That seems to be the determiner of whether or not you know your district. And I just don't think that's right. I said earlier in a 1-minute something, and I was wrong and I want to confess that. I said that it takes 10 minutes to debate a suspension bill. And in that same 10 minutes of debating a suspension bill we could debate an amendment, an amendment takes 10 minutes. I was wrong. It takes 40 minutes; 40 minutes are allotted to debate suspension bills. So we could actually debate four amendments for the time that it takes to debate one suspension bill. And let me remind those who are watching what a suspension bill is. It's a bill that doesn't go through the regular process. It's brought to the floor because it's typically noncontroversial. This year we've done a lot of suspension bills. We have recognized the important role of pollinators, as I mentioned, H.R. 1460. We spent 40 minutes supporting the goals and ideals of Railroad Retirement Day. We spent 40 minutes supporting the goals of National Dairy Month. Those might be good things, but we don't need to spend 40 minutes debating on the floor the goals and ideals of National Dairy Day, or supporting the goals and ideals of American Craft Beer week, or congratulating the Chicago Blackhawks, spending 40 minutes there, when every 40 minutes you spend apparently is 10 minutes, or 10 times 4, that we don't do amendments here on appropriation bills. So the notion that we're running out of time, somehow, and we don't have time to do appropriation bills, typically, the months of June and July are reserved mostly to do appropriation bills. This is only the second appropriations bill we've done. We've done the last one yesterday. We're going to start and finish this one today. In years past, we've taken sometimes 3 or 4 days to do one appropriation bill. That's perhaps as it should be because this is important. We're spending a lot of money here. That's what Congress does. But we ought to take care, and we ought to allow Members who have amendments to try to save the taxpayer money to actually offer them. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I want to say just a few words about missed opportunities and misplaced priorities. This is typically appropriation season, but this is only our second appropriation bill--and maybe final appropriation bill that we do all year. We typically have an open rule where any Member can bring any amendment to the floor as long as it is germane to strike spending and save money for the taxpayers, yet this year the Rules Committee only saw fit to allow 22 percent of the amendments offered to go onto the floor today. Typically, any Member can offer any amendment they would like to as long as it saves money. But instead of saving money this year, we decided to spend time doing things like H.R. 1460, recognizing the important role of pollinators, or supporting the goals and ideals of Railroad Retirement Day, or congratulating the Saratoga race course. These are suspension bills that take 10 minutes to debate on the floor; that's the same amount of time that we give for amendments. And so instead of doing amendments to save money, we're actually honoring racehorses and things like that.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I do thank the gentlelady on the Rules Committee for making this amendment in order, at least a few of mine. I do appreciate that. But I am just baffled that the other side would continue to talk about--let's gain perspective here--we're just talking about a little money, and to basically belittle any attempt to save a million here or a million there. I just think that says we're out of touch completely with what the country is going through, to say, hey, we've got a $1.4 trillion deficit this year, we've got a $13.2 trillion debt that we're going to need to pay off, our kids and grandkids will be doing this forever, but we say, ``Well, we can't start here because it's just too big. We really need to tackle those entitlements.'' Although I don't see a plan of anybody here on this side of the aisle who has presented this bill to actually tackle the entitlement programs. Some of us have presented something. This road map that the gentleman from Wisconsin, the colleague of the gentleman who spoke before, has introduced is a great plan to actually address entitlement spending as well. But we're here today to vote on four specific amendments to save specific money from specific projects; and that's what you'll have to go and answer to specific constituents about: whether you voted yes or no on amendments to strike a million dollars that could be saved from a project like this one, from an earmark like this one. I would venture to guess that your constituents and my constituents would want you to do that. And it will be tough to explain by saying, ``This is just a little part of the budget. We can't save here. We're not addressing entitlement spending, so we're not going to address discretionary spending, either.'' I would urge support of the amendment. And, remember, people are watching here. They're watching what we're doing. When you go home, you'll need to explain, if you vote against this amendment, why you didn't want to save the taxpayer a million dollars when we have a deficit of $1.4 trillion and a debt of $13.2 trillion. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 4, part B.

Mr. FLAKE. I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 2, Part B.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, let me just say, I misspoke earlier; I left off three zeros. This amendment would save $1.2 billion, not $1.2 million. It's easy to mess that up these days, given all the zeros we're talking about. The U.S. Department of Transportation calculates that the average Amtrak passenger receives a $210 Federal subsidy for their ticket. Larger subsidies obviously go to underperforming routes and those traveling in first class or sleeper cars. In fact, the Federal Government says that it could actually save money by buying a plane ticket for every passenger on some of the worst performing routes, like that from Orlando to L.A., for example. This has been going on for a long, long time, and we're always told that Amtrak will be self- sufficient just around the corner, or that something else will happen; and it simply never does. It's kind of the transportation version of corn ethanol subsidies. So, I don't want to anger another group here. But anyway, it just seems to never, never end; and we keep subsidizing on and on. It might be one thing if we were running a big surplus to do this. We're not: 42 or 41 cents on every dollar we spend this year will be borrowed from future generations, from the Chinese, from other bond holders. When we're spending, when we're borrowing 42 cents on every dollar, I think it behooves us to look for areas where we can save; and this is a modest area here, to cut some, just a small portion, of the subsidy that we currently provide. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I wish to offer the amendment on behalf of Congresswoman Bachmann.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Before I start on this amendment, let me address what was just said here. We're told by challenging these earmarks, $300 million in this bill, that we, those who want to save some money here, know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. I think we better translate that into Chinese. And the next time we try to auction our bonds and we have no takers and the Chinese won't buy this paper, say, ``Hey, you know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.'' See where that gets us. It does matter what kind of deficits we run and what kind of debt we have. It matters. It matters a lot. We may say that it doesn't around here or that we'll get serious about it later or that we can fund all of the bike paths we want this year or streetscapes or whatever we're doing because we'll get serious about it next year, but we never seem to do it. I've been doing this for several years now, and I hear that all the time. ``Yeah, we'll get to it later. This year we've got to do this,'' and we never seem to get to it. So I would just challenge the cost of everything, the value of nothing, those sayings. Yeah, they're nice to hear, but when you're running a deficit of $1.4 trillion, I think there's a little too much cost there, and I think people across the country would agree. This amendment would prohibit a million dollars going to the downtown Tacoma streetscape improvements in Tacoma, Washington, and reduce spending in the bill by a commensurate amount. According to the sponsor's Web site, the recipient will be the City of Tacoma, and the funding would be used toward streetscape improvements along Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma. The City of Tacoma, I believe, has received a similar earmark in 2010 for $800,000 to develop complete streets, including new bike paths, widening sidewalks, installing medians, street trees, and other amenities. When do we stop here? Why do we choose this one and say the City of Tacoma deserves another earmark, this time to use for streetscapes. There are a lot of cities around the country that need streetscapes, a lot of them that are probably deserving. But why in the world did we choose this one? Again, it goes back to the spoils system I talked about. Powerful Members on certain committees get the spoils, a huge, disproportionate percentage of it. So you can talk all high and mighty about how Members know their districts better than those faceless bureaucrats, but apparently, unless you're a chairman of an important committee or you're on the right committee or you're in leadership, you don't know your district very well. So it's a spoils system that shouldn't be done. We ought to be saving money where we can. And let me just remind Members here that people across the country, it's all well and good to say we couldn't take 1 percent or one-half of 1 percent from that bill because that's indiscriminate; it would cut out all programs. Here, we're talking about one specific project. And you're going to have to justify voting against amendments to remove funding for a streetscape in Tacoma, Washington, that was picked for who knows why. So I would just caution those who want to support this kind of earmarking that people across the country are fed up with it, and they know when Members vote specifically on amendments to strike funding for these projects that they would rather fund a project like this than actually help pay down the deficit we have. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. This amendment would prohibit $1 million from being used for a restoration and improvement project at the historic Darwin D. Martin House and complex and would reduce the overall cost of the bill by a commensurate amount. According to the sponsors of the Web site, the entity that would receive the earmark is called the Martin House Restoration Corporation, whose purpose is to restore a structure designed by Frank Lloyd Wright at the turn of the 19th century. The MHRC's Web site says that it was formed in 1992 with a clear mandate. First part of this mandate: Raise the money to restore the complex to its 1907 grandeur. There are a lot of historic buildings around the country, a lot of them, that need a lot of restoration. My own home needs a lot of it. A lot of people are losing their homes. Those homes need a lot of restoration. A lot of them are losing them because of the Federal Government's spending ways. Yet here we are designating one project to receive a million dollars. Again, let me say it one more time. This is not as if every Member comes here and is designated a million dollars to take home and spend in their district on restoring homes. They aren't. The spoils system runs well here. If you're on the Appropriations Committee or you're in leadership, you get the spoils. That's why 42 percent of the earmarked dollars in this bill are going to just 13 percent of the Members of this body. In that sense, you can't justify it nor can you justify spending a million dollars in this way when we're borrowing 42 cents of every dollar that we'll spend this year. We have a deficit of $1.47 trillion. We have a debt of $13.2 trillion. How in the world can we continue to do this, to earmark money for projects like this, when we have that kind of deficit and we have that kind of debt? I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I don't think we want to talk about bull. I don't know how it is in Wisconsin, but in Arizona, to have a bill that has more than 400 earmarks worth more than $300 million is not an insignificant sum. Now, you can have a chart that takes the overall amount that the bill spends and then make $300 million look pretty small. But only in Washington will people say, yeah, that looks pretty small. Anywhere else in the country they're going to say that's a pretty big amount. And everybody knows how the game works here. Earmarks are, as has been said by many, the gateway drug to spending addiction. Once you start getting earmarks, you start approving bloated appropriations bills worth $67 billion. And if you didn't have your earmark in there, you wouldn't be likely to keep increasing the amounts that we spend every year. Now, some may point out, hey, we are down this year from last year, but we were up 28 percent last year from the year before. That is what has got us into this problem where we have a deficit of $1.4 trillion and we are borrowing 42 cents on every dollar, and then we dismiss $300 million as insignificant. I mean you can use a magnifying glass and try to make it sound like it's small, but it's $300 million. And people across the country are saying if we don't start here, where do we start? If we can't do this, will we ever reform the entitlement programs we have to reform?

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the Chair. This amendment would prohibit $150,000 from being spent on the construction of a child's playground. Now I am the father of five children. I understand the importance of having a place for kids to play. Believe me, kids need to let loose and expend some energy somewhere. But Federal spending has been let loose, far too loose, so loose that we have this year a $1.4 trillion deficit. We are borrowing 42 cents on every dollar that we spend. When we are doing this, we can't just all of a sudden say we are going to build playgrounds anywhere as a model for economic development or anything else. We can't continue to spend money this way. This is one of the smaller earmarks. We have to start somewhere. I would urge those of you who want to oppose this amendment to go home to your constituents and say, I wanted to put you $150,000 more in debt because I thought it was important that we spend money; the Federal Government, mind you. Municipal governments, State governments, if they want to spend money on playgrounds that's great. But why is the Federal Government doing it here? Why are we doing it when in May of 2010 the national debt hit $13 trillion. It's now 13.2. According to The Washington Post, that works out to be more than $40,000 in debt for every U.S. resident; $40,000 of debt for every U.S. resident. Then we are saying, ``Well, this is just small. We can't save this money; we can't go at the deficit this way. We have to deal with those entitlement programs.'' We certainly do, but we need to start somewhere. This is a great place to start. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Again, you have got to have a Federal nexus somewhere. If you are spending taxpayers' money, it helps to say why in the world should the Federal Government be involved at all. I would submit that if you argue that the Federal Government should be paying for playgrounds around the country, where does it stop? Where is there no Federal nexus? What is the Federal Government not responsible for? How in the world would our deficit stay at $1.47 trillion this year if we say the Federal Government is in charge of all playground-building around the country? I would remind my colleagues, when we vote on these amendments, these are specific amendments to save specific money on specific earmarks. And you can't get by with saying, well, that was indiscriminate cuts and it would have affected this program or that. We are talking about here on these four amendments saving money on street beautification. Where is the Federal nexus there? On a bike path in Rhode Island, where is the Federal nexus? Why is the Federal Government doing that when we have a deficit of $1.47 trillion and a debt of $13.2 trillion? Why in the world, when every citizen of this country is in debt more than $40,000, why in the world are we saying we are going to pile more on you simply because we can't control ourselves here? I would urge you again, you are going to have to go home and not say, well, I voted against an amendment that would have cut that program indiscriminately. This is specific amendments for specific programs, specific earmarks that the country knows the Federal Government should not be doing or that the Congress should not be directing money toward. With that, I urge adoption of the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 11 in part B made in order under the rule.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Again, this bill has 461 earmarks, $328 million in those earmarks. I wish we could challenge them all. We can't. We've only been allowed the opportunity to challenge four of them. So we will have a rollcall vote on four amendments to strike these earmarks. So Members will have to go from this body back to their districts this next month and say why they voted against an amendment to strike an earmark for downtown beautification in one city that was just picked by the Appropriations Committee and why in the world it's better to borrow 42 cents of every dollar we're spending here from our kids and our grandkids and our foreign debtors, why that is a good plan for economic development, why it wouldn't be better to actually pay down the debt to lessen this deficit a bit. That's what this is about. So don't think we can hide behind, well, these were indiscriminate cuts. This is a specific cut to cut a certain earmark from the bill, in this case, that would cut a million dollars. It's not insignificant not to anyone outside of the Beltway. This is a specific amendment to strike a million dollars in spending for a streetscape for beautification in a certain city. I think we ought to beautify the appropriations process a little bit by actually having fewer earmarks and saving a little money. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. This amendment would prohibit $1 million from going to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation for the Blackstone River Bikeway, and it would reduce the overall cost of the bill by a commensurate amount. This particular earmark would fund a project to construct a 3\1/2\ mile route or portion of a bikeway in North Smithfield, and Woonsocket, including the construction of sections that would connect a public library, a planned middle school complex, and several bridges. Here we have a project that is described as a cyclist's paradise of mill villages and farming communities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. According to the Web site of the project, the bikeway is being developed thanks largely to Federal transportation funding, and it's an effort among Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and on and on, some other entities as well. Well, certainly Federal transportation funding is right. There is a lot of it going here. And a lot of earmarks have gone this way as well. Over the past several years, this project has received several earmarks. In fact, Citizens Against Government Waste has in their waste Pig Book this project has received five earmarks in transportation appropriations bills worth nearly $7 million since 2002, including, last year, same project received a $475,000 earmark; in 2005, a $500,000 earmark; 2004, a $1.5 million earmark; 2003, a $3 million earmark; 2002, a $1.5 million earmark. Why are we doing this? Here we are, as we just mentioned, running a deficit of about $1.4 trillion this year. We have a national debt north of $13 trillion. Forty-two cents of every dollar we spend this year will be borrowed. Yet we can't wean ourselves off these kind of earmarks. Bike paths. I love biking. I will go home this weekend and bike. But why in the world should the taxpayers at the Federal level be on the hook for an earmark for a bike path in Rhode Island? Why did we just choose this one? That's part of the problem of this system of earmarking that we have. I look at this chart. The contemporary practice of earmarking is very much a spoils system. And if we look at the bill that we are considering right now, THUD, this is actually one of the least egregious offenders. If you look at the red area, that's the percentage of earmark dollars that are claimed by members of the Appropriations Committee or members of leadership or chairmen of committees. They represent about 13 percent of this body, yet they claim, look at this, look at the red, some bills, in the ag appropriations bill 76 percent of all earmarks will go to these 13 percent of powerful members. In this bill, 42 percent. That's the problem. How do we choose this bike path as opposed to one in Utah or one in Alaska or somewhere else? It's a spoils system that has to stop. And if we can't stop it this year, when we're running a deficit of $1.4 trillion, when will we stop it? I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk designated as No. 10, part B.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would simply reduce funding for capital and debt service grants to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation for capital investments by $1.2 million. I reserve the balance of my time.