Scott Garrett

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Let me just finish this thought.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that mirrors the President's budget request to eliminate funding in the bill for the Alaskan Native Education Equity Program. By so doing this, it will save our Nation's taxpayers $33.9 million. Now, as with many of the programs that you will be hearing us discussing both yesterday and today and in the future, this program does, in fact, support a worthwhile goal, and that is providing additional educational services to Alaskan Natives. The services provided to Alaskan Natives that are students through this program, however, are redundant of many of the other types of programs that are provided through various other agencies, most notably through the Department's other education programs. See, our funding priorities must be exactly that. When we come together as a conference and then as a body to support appropriation bills, we are called upon by the American taxpayers to set those things, priorities, just as the American family budget is created each day, each week, each month in American families across their country and they sit down at their kitchen table to decide what are their priorities when it comes to spending their hard-earned dollars. They have educational interests in mind as well. They may have children that they have to decide whether they're going to be sending them to college this year or next, to a high-priced college or a moderate-priced college, et cetera. They have to set priorities when it comes to how much money will they be able to set aside in their savings account for educational purposes. Or if their kids are in a K-12 system, whether it's public school or private school, likewise, the American public has to set their own priorities, decide how much money they can set aside if they choose to send their kids to a private school. Or if their kids are going to a public school, how much money will they set aside so that they can spend on their children when it comes to educational purposes for extracurricular activities or supplements to the school program. American families are called upon to do this every single day, every single week of the year with their budget. And all we are asking right now is that the U.S. Congress and the Senate do the exact same thing with their hard-earned tax dollars that they've entrusted to us. In this matter, what we are doing is saying we have several programs, the same laudable goals. We are eliminating one and shifting the dollars to the another so that the program gets done. I would now like to bring my colleagues' attention to a recent report by the Nonpartisan Tax Foundation. This report details how much money each State taxpayer contributes in Federal dollars and how much money each State taxpayer receives back. This is very interesting, especially if you come from the State of New Jersey, as I do. According to this report, Alaska, which is the subject of this amendment, ranks second in the Nation, getting $1.80 back for every $1 that the taxpayers up there pay in Federal taxes. In contrast, my good State of New Jersey ranks dead last. We receive back a paltry 63 cents back for every dollar that a New Jersey taxpayer sends to Washington. What does that mean? That means that New Jersey taxpayers, working just as hard as the taxpayers up in the great State of Alaska are, are sending one dollar in with their paycheck each week, or multiple dollars as it is. But at the end of the day, when they see how Congress appropriates those dollars, New Jerseyans find out that they're only getting back 63 cents on the dollar. Conversely, we look up to Alaska, the subject of this amendment. How much does every taxpayer get back from the dollar that they contribute to the good of the country and the State? They get back $1.80. It's a fairness issue, quite honestly, Madam Chairman. Where are our dollars going? And with the new Democratic majority passing the largest tax increase in American history recently in its budget, the burden on New Jersey taxpayers will only continue to rise. Yet at the same time, we are providing nearly $40 million for redundant services in a State that is already nearly on a 2-1 ratio on every dollar that it sends to Washington.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I am not yielding. I am finishing my thought.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I rise right now to offer what really is a modest amendment with the hopes of returning some degree of discipline to the annual appropriation process. When the President submitted his budget request, he proposed the elimination of a number of programs that were duplicative and unable to demonstrate effectiveness or otherwise not worthy of the priority of spending American taxpayers' money. Generally speaking, with the savings achieved from eliminating ineffective programs, we can use it to do things such as pay off the debt or support programs that have a proven track record of success. I guess that last line I should reiterate: To support programs that already have a track record of success. As I also often do, I will refer this back and make the analogy back to the American families' budget. This is really no different from what American families do every month at the proverbial dinner table. Think, for example, when it comes to TV. If a family is paying for both cable TV and DirecTV, or what I have in my house, Dish TV, chances are that they would probably decide which service suits them best as a family, and then cut one or both of the other services out. You only need one service coming into the house; cable, Direct, Dish or what have you. That is what a family would do; prioritize them. Mr. Chairman, given the content of our spending bills, if the Federal Government were a homeowner and how the Federal Government operates now, well, it would pay for both the cable TV, the Dish and DirecTV, and the cable at the same time, satellite, all three or four coming into the house. If the Federal Government were a family and they continued to operate as they do right now, they would probably decide that they were going to have gas heat in their house and oil heat in their house and electric heat in their house and wood heat as well. It would probably pay to dig for its own water and have a well in the backyard, all the while continuing to pay for city water coming into the house from the front. That, unfortunately, is how the Federal Government operates itself. I think it is time to change. We do a disservice to the American people by not eliminating duplicative and ineffective programs. It proves that the Federal Government is unaccountable. By increasing the size of the U.S. budget, it takes that money, again, out of the family budget by sending it to Washington as tax dollars. So the amendment that I am offering now would only reduce this by $2.3 million, out of a $607 billion appropriation. I used the paper before while I was sitting here trying to figure out how much of a percentage of that is. That is a .0002 percentage point reduction. I think what it does do, more importantly, is to make a statement that there are truly areas within the Federal budget where money can be saved. What my amendment does is restore funding to the level requested in the President's budget. The administration zeroed this account out because it duplicates other Federal programs. The Migrant and Seasonal Farm Workers, the MSFW, Program provides discretionary grants to make comprehensive vocational rehabilitation services available to migrant and seasonal farm workers with vocational disabilities. Now, if I ended right there you would think, well, what is wrong with that? Well, according to the OMB, here is the problem: This program serves the exact same population and provides the exact same services as another separate Federal program already is doing, and that is the Vocational Rehabilitation State Grants Program. The acronym is VR. The authorizing legislation for the VR State Grants Program contains provisions in it to ensure that State VR agencies must reach out and serve all individuals with disabilities within the State. That includes minorities and unserved and underserved populations. So what this means is that under the MSFW program, which is what we are talking about here, the Federal Government is in essence micromanaging, if you will, what essentially is a State and local government issue that is provided Federal funds through the VR program. The VR State Grants Program in the bill already is expanded by $36 million on top of the increases that were there before in the fiscal year 2007 levels. So there is little need to be spending an additional $2.3 million on, yet again, a separate program that does essentially the same thing. The government, you see, does not need to buy both cable TV and satellite TV at the same time. The government does not need to be providing funding for programs that do the exact same thing. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I didn't want to interrupt your comments, so I waited to be yielded time here just to respond to your statements through the Chair. No, I have not ever administered or run a school. For that matter, I imagine that out of the 435 Members of Congress, there are probably one or two or three who have ever run or administered a school. And I would hate that to be the barometer or the test that we would have to take before we could ever propose an amendment, vote on an amendment, or even consider legislation that comes before the House. If that were the case, programs like the VR program would never be established in the first place. If the test is whether a Member of Congress has experience in it to propose a new program or expand a program, there is not enough educators here or people who have run title I schools to get the backing of legislation in the first place. So I would question the gentleman's premise. Now the gentleman on the other hand questions our basic premise for supporting this amendment. Our basic premise is that you don't have to actually run the school to know that perhaps the best way to serve a particular segment of our country is to make sure that the dollars go to programs that are up and running and do serve that program. The administration has looked at this and has seen that the program in place that we are talking about now has been in place since 1970 as a demonstration project. ``Demonstration,'' the word itself connotes the fact that this is temporary in nature. Since that time, we have the VR program, which I pointed out earlier, maybe the gentleman did not hear my testimony, the VR program handles these same services. In fact, it says: ``The activities needed to successfully serve the migrant and seasonal farmwork population do not differ from those that benefit a much wider group of VR consumers.'' For example, the outreach activities in churches and community centers may be effective for identifying farmworkers with disabilities, what this amendment deals with, but they also assist in identifying other persons with disabilities who visit these places. The hiring of bilingual counselors will assist all consumers who are monolingual in a non-English language, whether they are farmworkers or not. And the provisions of the transportation services for rural areas will benefit all rural residents, whether farmworkers or not. The bottom line is, our basic premise is, if you are going to serve a segment of the population, in this case individuals with disabilities and migrant farmworkers, let's do so, but let's do so with programs that are already up and running and have a track record. That is what this underlying bill does. It even does it with spending $36 million more. I think we can make sure that program runs and eliminate the duplicative program.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. There is none so blind who shall not see. I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia for coming to the microphones and asking all of us to open our eyes so that we shall see the values of these things, despite the personalities otherwise, and I support the gentleman's amendment from Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I will not use the whole 5 minutes. I just want to make one point. The gentlelady from Minnesota, I believe, who was just speaking, I want to concur with a portion of her remarks with, A, the remarks with regard to the physical problem with childhood obesity in the country, and that is of a concern nationally. And, B, the problem that she set out with regard to NCLB not funding to the level necessary so that school districts across the country are put in what you might call a catch-22 situation. And a catch-22 is, okay, do we, A, comply with NCLB? In which case we spend a lot of our own money on tests, fourth and 8th grade reading and math tests; or, B, if you don't comply with it, then of course you get written up in the local newspaper because your school failed, or your school didn't do very well on the test and you've become an underperforming school. And, instead, provide the funds where you would like to put them, which may well be in physical education programs. So I concur with her comments on that and suggest that the solution to the problem may be multifaceted. Part of it is the gentleman's amendment right here can be one aspect to address it. And I support the gentleman's amendment to make sure that the dollars that are coming from the Federal Government go to those programs that are effectively getting the job done, including the issue of physical education and childhood obesity and what have you. And just like all the other amendments, I'm sure the gentleman will concur that you want to make sure that the money goes to those programs that really accomplish something, and are not duplicative. The other aspect of the problem, however, is with NCLB and the burden that they put on the schools as saying, do I do this or do I do that; do I comply with NCLB, or do I do what I really want to do locally? And I think the answer to that is to say this: NCLB is just too top town, ordering the schools, basically you've got to do this or you've got to do that when, with all due respect to all the educated, I'll say bureaucrats, who are in the U.S. Department of Education and in all due respect to the Secretary of Education, a very nice lady and well- intentioned, the people who really can decide where the dollars can be spent best is the teacher in the classroom, the local school board in conjunction with the parents. They know whether their school has more of a problem in the area of childhood obesity than other schools. I find that, from the studies that I've seen, that it is in certain areas of States and certain demographic regions as opposed to other ones. Those are the people who really know how to decide these things. And so I would concur with the gentlelady from Minnesota and suggest that the solution is, A, put the money where the dollar should go to effectively; and, B, get out from under the rubric of NCLB and just let the schools, the teachers, the parents, the local school boards first and foremost make those decisions, because they know best. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. I also take up the comment that the gentleman from Texas was just making reference to which the gentleman from Alaska stated in his statement what was ``my money'' or it is Alaska's money. Well, maybe that is the problem we have had in this Congress for too long, even when Republicans were in the majority and now that the Democrats are the majority, too. Too many Members of Congress see the dollars that we appropriate here not as the taxpayers' dollar, but see it as their very own personal checking account. Maybe that is the fundamental problem that we have with why we spend more and more each year. I remember when the Democrats were running for office this past election. They were railing against the Republican Party, that we were the party out of control, spending more and more and more. If they were elected to office, they would come here and rein things in when it came to spending. And I served on the Budget Committee when the Democrats were in the minority, and how they railed against us from the other side of the aisle. And at times I even agreed with them on some of the charges that they made, that we were spending too much money. And now when the Democrats take control, what do they do? Give us the largest tax increase in U.S. history, and we see spending continue to go through the roof. Where do those dollars come from? They come from American taxpayers, from the family budgets, from men and women in Alaska and New Jersey and across this country, working hard just to get by, and yet they are being forced by the Democrats' tax increases to send more dollars here to Washington. When the gentleman from Alaska comes forth and says it is ``my money,'' maybe that is why in some respects when there are projects that are appropriated such as bridges to nowhere and the like, the American public says that is our dollars going to Washington, and it shouldn't be looked at for just such frivolous things as this. The amendment that's before us right now is an appropriate amendment to say that the hard-earned tax dollars should go to programs that are necessary but be spent in an effective manner. Members from all 50 States see the need to educate our children. Members from all 50 States, including the State of New Jersey, see the need to deal with the issue of Alaska native students, and that is why this administration has already requested appropriations of $1 billion for that, $118 million in other categorical aids such as that. So all we are doing is saying make sure that those dollars that come from New Jersey and elsewhere are spent effectively. Finally, to close on this point of ``my money,'' maybe the gentleman from Alaska was not listening at the opening of my comments when I said that New Jersey taxpayers send a dollar to Washington and only get 63 cents back on the dollar, whereas his constituents, yes, they do much better. They send a dollar to Washington and then they get $1.80 back. I would ask the gentleman from Alaska and other Members from the Democrat side of the aisle, where do they think that other 80 cents on the dollar is coming from? I will tell you it's coming from the good, hardworking taxpayers from the State of New Jersey and Connecticut and New York that are donor States to States like Alaska, that we are subsidizing their programs. I would ask the gentleman from Alaska to refrain from, therefore, referring to it as his money. It is the taxpayers in the Fifth Congressional District and the rest of New Jersey, whether you're in a Democrat district or Republican district, who are helping fund these programs.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding for just a moment. As the Representative from the Fifth District of the State of New Jersey, I remind the gentleman from Alaska that the State of New Jersey has 13 congressional Representatives from both sides of the aisle. And so when the gentleman from Alaska makes reference to our Representatives from the State of New Jersey not doing their job and not appropriately representing the people of the State, I remind him that it is an accusation not against simply this one gentleman who is standing at the microphone right now proposing this one amendment, but it is an entire body of 13 gentlemen from both sides of the aisle who I say, and I commend both Representatives from the Democrat and the Republican side of the aisle, for appropriately and admirably representing the good citizens from the State of New Jersey. My colleagues from the other 12 districts do not need to be defended against these rash accusations by the gentleman from Alaska. But I do come to the floor now to appropriately defend them, nonetheless.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last part.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Is there a manner in which I can rephrase the question so that the Chair will be able to answer the question or comment on the previous speaker's statements?

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Is it appropriate political decorum for a Member to say that he represents his State in a better manner than the entire delegation of another State represents their State?

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Is it a violation of parliamentary decorum by suggesting that a Member not be reelected in the State of New Jersey?

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I make a point of order.

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, is it appropriate for the speaker to say that the people from New Jersey should be electing----