Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment be modified in the form that I have at the desk.

Mr. FLAKE. And I have the right to close?

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

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman. I thank him for that clarification. Mr. Chairman, no Member of Congress will ever say that, in his district, there is full employment and that there is no need for outside assistance. This particular entity isn't just receiving this earmark. It received an earmark for nearly $250,000 in the FY09 omnibus bill that we passed just a few months ago. So we have last year's bill, this year's bill and likely next year's bill. There are organizations all over the country that would like, one, to compete for SBA funds on merit rather than on earmark, and there are private-sector organizations that would like to provide this assistance, but they're competing with government entities that are providing some of the same services, a lot of these services that are indicated here--strengthening entrepreneurs, group-based learning, peer support, access to various business services. These are services provided by the private sector all over the place as well, but these private-sector organizations now have to compete with government organizations to survive. In some cases, it is no wonder there aren't private-sector organizations. They're crowded out by their government counterparts. So, rather than continuing to fund entities that have received earmarks year after year and that have no real prospect of not being reliant on Federal Government funding in the future, we've got to say enough is enough. We can't continue to spend money this way when we're running a deficit that might approach $2 trillion this year. With that, I urge support of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, to be honest, I'm not sure how much more help southwestern Pennsylvania needs in the way of defense procurement assistance. And I'm not sure how much more the taxpayers in this body can actually afford. According to usaspending.gov, the district in which the Economic Growth Connection of Westmoreland appears to reside has benefited from nearly $1.4 billion in Federal contracts from 2004 to 2009, hardly the poorest of the poor. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Defense Logistics Agency make up four of the top 10 contracting agencies, and more than 60 percent of these funds were not subject to full and open competition. Similarly, usaspending.gov indicates that the district of the sponsor of this earmark has benefited from more than a billion dollars in Federal contracts from 2004 to 2009, with less than half available for everyone to compete for. Among the list of contractors receiving these funds, according to usaspending.gov, are many that we've come to know very well, all too well: Kuchera Defense Systems, Argon ST, KDH Defense, and Concurrent Technologies. Kuchera Defense Systems. That is a defense contractor for whom the sponsor of this earmark requested funding over the past 2 years, was raided by the FBI in January, suspended by the Navy, reported for ``alleged fraud,'' including multiple instances of incorrect charges, along with allegations of defective pricing and ethical violations. Argon ST has been in the news lately because it purchased Coherent Systems International in 2007. It has been reported that the former head of Coherent Systems pled guilty in Federal Court Tuesday, just this last Tuesday, to a kickback scheme and defrauding the U.S. Air Force. KDH Defense also made headlines when Roll Call reported that the bulletproof vest company received millions of taxpayer dollars to build a sonar system that it had no experience to design. Concurrent Technologies has long been the focus of defense earmark critics. For example, at the end of 2007 the Washington Post highlighted that the National Defense Center For Environmental Excellence that was managed by Concurrent had received more than $600 million in funding, and that little of the center's work had been useful to the Department of Defense. How long can we continue to provide defense-related procurement dollars for an area with so many organizations that have been associated with conduct that I think people in this body would say are certainly not deserving of more earmarks? Yet we're doing it here again. How much longer are we going to do this, Mr. Chairman? With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I have an amendment at the desk, No. 17, my final amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. For the purpose--the gentleman has time, I believe. I will yield the gentleman 30 seconds.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment be modified to the form I have at the desk.

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

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman. He makes an important point. We have traditions in this House that we ought to uphold--and one tradition is appropriation bills being brought to the floor under an open rule. And we shouldn't be able to change that just because we feel like. What I'm trying to do is return to the traditions of the House and allow Members to bring the amendments that they would like to offer; that their constituents, with their voice in Washington, would like them to be able to offer. But we're not allowed to. As the headline out there right now reads, ``House Democrats muzzle GOP on sensitive issues.'' Now this amendment that I would like to have offered instead of mine would allow the School Choice Initiative in Washington, D.C., to continue. Funding will go away for everyone except those who are currently in the program. Over the past several years, thousands of residents of D.C. schools have been able to go to the schools of their choice. Now, because of this bill being passed today, unless an amendment is accepted otherwise, those children will be denied that choice. Now that is an amendment that has support on this side of the aisle and the other side of the aisle. It was an amendment that was offered at the Rules Committee that was fully germane. It was in order to be considered. It was simply rejected because the majority leadership did not want this body to vote on it. I don't know why. We will have to all speculate. But the fact is that we're taking the time that could have been offered for this amendment and allowing that one to be offered instead. So we're not increasing the time for these appropriation bills. The majority party is still objecting to that unanimous consent request. Now, with regard to this amendment, this amendment would prohibit $285,000 from going to Idaho TechConnect, Inc., for the Proof of Concept Center, and reduce the overall cost of the bill by a commensurate amount. This Idaho TechConnect accelerates Idaho's innovation-based economy by connecting people, resources, and ideas. Here's another one that's pretty much indistinguishable, I think, from the last one. It's a business incubator of some type that a group here, Idaho TechConnect, seems to think is worthy of Federal largess or an earmark. It doesn't want to compete for dollars that might be in an account that Congress, through its role under article I, has instructed the agency to set up. No. It attempts to earmark dollars beyond that. The last gentleman mentioned that Congress has the power to appropriate. It certainly does. That's what we do here. That's the most important part of what we do here. And we tell the agencies what they can fund and what they can't, and we provide the money for them to do so. We will often tell them to set up a program by which individuals and organizations around the country can compete for Federal dollars. But instead, here what Congress is doing is saying, We don't like what you've set up so we're going to run a parallel program, we're going to earmark dollars for these programs, because if the organization in my district had to compete for those dollars, they may not get them. There's only a 98 percent chance that they would get them. I want to make sure they do. Or, there's a 5 percent chance they would get it. I want to make sure that they get those monies. And so we run a parallel track here. I would say that I can't find the word bureaucrat in the Constitution, nor can I find the word earmark. Congress has the power to appropriate. But we authorize, we appropriate, and we have oversight functions. And we're circumventing that process when we earmark in this fashion. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I'd like to engage on my time a colloquy with the gentleman, the chair of the relevant subcommittee, if I could. I'm just wondering why the majority doesn't want to consider these amendments that weren't made in order.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman and the gentleman's comments, the minority leader. We ought to allow substitution of this amendment. There's no reason, other than the majority party simply doesn't want to have the debate or have the vote. With that, I urge support of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I ask unanimous consent that my amendment be modified to the form I have at the desk.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment be modified in the form I have at the desk.

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

Mr. FLAKE. This amendment that I had hoped to substitute was an amendment offered by the gentleman, Mr. Gingrey of Georgia, which would simply have prohibited union activity on government time. Apparently, it's an amendment that the majority leadership did not want--it's a debate that they didn't want this body to have. It's an amendment they didn't want this body to vote on. Now, it's a shame because it would be a 5-minute time limit, or 5 minutes per side, just the same as this amendment. This isn't an issue of time. There were a lot of amendments submitted to the Rules Committee. Far fewer were made in order, but now we have the time established and we're simply wanting to substitute one germane amendment for another germane amendment, but the majority party is objecting once again. So I think that the headline that was just out-- House Democrats muzzle GOP on sensitive issues--is completely correct, and it is a shame, Mr. Chairman. This amendment would prohibit $200,000 in funding for the Northeast Entrepreneur Fund, and it would reduce the cost of the bill by a commensurate amount. According to the sponsor's Web site, the Northeast Entrepreneur Fund has helped start, stabilize or expand more than 1,100 local businesses and helped train or retain more than 3,000 jobs. The certification letter indicated the funding for the Greenstone Group would strengthen 500 entrepreneurs in the region through group- based learning, peer support and access to various business services. Again, here we have another business incubator. This is something that private-sector organizations, chambers of commerce, trade associations, and other businesses offer and do all over this country-- hundreds in every State. Yet here we are singling one out and are saying this one is worthy of a Federal earmark, and we're going to give $200,000 to it. That's not right, Mr. Chairman. We can't continue to spend money this way. Every dime that we are spending over and above what we spent last year, and a lot of what we spent last year is borrowed. When will we decide enough is enough and that we can't continue to do business as usual and fund earmarks in this fashion? I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. I have an amendment at the desk designated No. 16.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, we passed a milestone that probably we shouldn't be proud of. Just last week, I think, the Webster dictionary finally put the definition of ``earmark'' in its dictionary, not the traditional definition that I was used to as a kid on a ranch where you mark cattle, but rather, earmark as a designation of dollars from the Congress by a particular Congressman. When we passed that milestone, I think we've probably gone too far. When it's in the lexicon so frequently that the dictionaries are now picking it up, the appropriators have been trying to find earmark in the Constitution for years without success. At least they will find it now in the dictionary. That's not something we should be proud of. At some point we do have to stand up and say we've got to stop this when we have thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks in appropriation bills over the year and we can't seem to cut funding for one of them here. I don't know when we're going to cut funding. I don't know when we're going to get a hold of this deficit that we have unless we start somewhere, and I would suggest that we start here on this amendment.

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

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

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, yes, this isn't about unfunded mandates. Unfortunately, it's about the only opportunity we have to stand up, and we'll stand up later when the rule is discussed, but I'm here because the Rules Committee would not make in order the amendments that Members wanted to offer on an appropriations bill. These are bills that are brought to the floor under open rules, traditionally, to allow Members the opportunity to represent their constituencies; but here we're being gagged and told we can't do that because we're only going to allow the amendments that we want to hear, the ones that are noncontroversial, the ones that we have debated before and that we know won't impact negatively on us. That's not any way to run this body. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. FLAKE. I don't blame the Member for not wanting to talk about this. And I really feel for members of the Rules Committee that are forced to carry out the bidding of the leadership, because this clearly, this clearly is a decision from the top, this year, to declare martial law on appropriation bills and not allow Members of Congress to bring amendments to the floor under an open rule that we have traditionally, and this has been the hallmark of this institution-- openness. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) mentioned that he'd been in the Chair in previous years where, for 3 days we debated amendments to the Interior bill. Many of those amendments were amendments that I offered, some of which were uncomfortable to people on that side and on this side, earmark amendments or others. Yet, we did it for 3 days. This party has said, the majority party now has said we can't take 3 days on that bill. Okay, then let's limit the time. So we agreed here; we have time limits already set for the Financial Services bill. I have 11 amendments that were made in order. I'll be asking unanimous consent later, when I offer my amendments, to swap a few of those amendments out to modify them to reflect the amendments that were offered by Members and were not allowed by the Rules Committee. So it's not going to be an issue of time. We've settled the issue of time. It will tell us whether or not the majority party simply wants to muscle, not just this side of the aisle, but certain of their Members as well. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) stood up to oppose the rule because the amendment with regard to Federal funding for abortion was not allowed. That is one amendment that I will try to modify instead of one of mine, or have mine modified to reflect that amendment. Again, it won't be an issue of time. The question will be, can or will--they can--will the majority allow that modification and allow that amendment to be offered. Under rules of unanimous consent, or under the rules of this body, under unanimous consent the majority party can agree to modify any amendment that is offered by a Member. And so it's not a question if they can. The question is if they will.

Mr. FLAKE. I have 3 minutes. I'd like to, if I can, on my time, engage the gentleman in a colloquy about the rule. I was told earlier that I was discussing an amendment, I'm sorry, a point of order on unfunded mandates so we couldn't really talk about the rule. But now we are talking about the rule, so I'd like to have some kind of window into the mind of the Rules Committee as to why certain amendments were allowed on an appropriation bill and certain amendments weren't. If I could engage the Member in a colloquy, I'd enjoy that.

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.