Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I want to thank the gentleman for the time in doing the special order, and I want to reinforce. It is about the numbers. We are still spending over $1.6 trillion dollars a year. Now we have got to make sure that the dollars that we are spending, we are getting optimal results for that spending. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. No. We have a bureaucracy here in Washington, it may not be that big, it is less than 5,000 people. But only again in Washington is a bureaucracy with 5,000 people a small bureaucracy. We met with the governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson. We talked about education. Forty percent of your employees in the State Department of Education are paid for by Federal dollars. So the Department of Education has actually been pretty smart. They only have 5,000 in Washington. But what they have done is they have filtered it out so that I think in Wisconsin it is 40 percent of the employees of the department are paid by Federal funds. I think in Michigan it gets as high as 60 percent. So they farm team their employees out to do Federal work. But the key point here is, you go, wow, am I glad, we have got 760 programs. That was a good thing that in 1979 they created the Department of Education so that they could coordinate all 760 of these programs. Right? And you take a look at it and say, wait a minute, all these programs do not go through the Department of Education. They go through 39 different agencies. And say not only that, this is a big number. They spent $100 billion per year. That is the Washington definition of ``education,'' 760 programs. You got a problem? Throw a program at it, throw a bureaucrat at it, throw some dollars at it and we will fix it. That is not how it works. The other thing that we have done, and I think we are going to be in Wisconsin for hearings later this year, but we have been in California, in New York, in Cincinnati, we have been in Arkansas, we have gone around the country taking a look at what is working in education, comparing that to the Washington picture of bureaucracy, paperwork, every dollar you send to Washington, maybe 65 cents gets back to the classroom. What works. Parental control, local flexibility. The best example that I have is Evonne Chan, who the President has highlighted, Evonne Chan. She runs Lavonne Charter School in Los Angeles. She was a principal in a public school. There are a lot of public schools. I lost my beard because of a great public school in my own district, who went on to become the national champions of the science olympiad. Great work. But in L.A., within the L.A. Unified School District, she said, when I was a public school principal, I had to worry about the three B's. You say, Evonne, what are the three B's? She said, I had to worry about busing, budgets, and the buts. And you you say, what are the buts? She said every time I had an innovative idea, I wanted to do something for the kids that was a little bit out of the ordinary, I went to the L.A. Unified School District and said, these are my kids, they have got special needs, I would like to do this; and they would say, yeah, but if we let you do this, everybody will have to do it.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Seven hundred sixty.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman would yield, I have been working on a project which we call At a Crossroads. Last year we asked the simple question, when Washington defines ``education,'' what does it mean? It came back, the Washington definition of ``education'' when we asked the executive branch, 760 programs. And you say, boy.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman would yield, when we go back and reflect, and I also want to move on to education, but when we reflect back on the welfare debate, when we checked, and I think there were States that had requested waivers for Health and Human Services, they had requested waivers from the bureaucrats in Washington to do what they wanted to do in their State because they thought it was going to help their citizens, some of those waivers I believe had been sitting there for 24 or 36 months. So you have States, Governors, you have legislators in these States who are trying to help their citizens get off of welfare to work, restore dignity to themselves and their families, and we have got bureaucrats here in Washington saying, we really do not know if that is the right thing to do in Wisconsin. We better study this. As a matter of fact, we better study it for 24 months.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. And it has been led by Tommy Thompson. We talked about this issue last year; and we said, just let the governor and just let the State legislature in Wisconsin do what they feel needs to be done and what is going to work in Wisconsin. Because what do the people here on Independence Avenue know about what needs to be done in Milwaukee or Green Bay or Madison? The legislators in Wisconsin, who are closer to the people than what you and I are, they are going to do what is right for their State. So we finally passed welfare reform flexibility. Surprise of all surprise, what is happening? All the reports coming back are saying this appears to be working.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman would yield, we have had this discussion back and forth for the last 3 years or for the 2\1/2\ years that you have been here in Washington. But I know that 2\1/2\ years ago, we had the discussion on welfare reform. And now that we have passed welfare reform where we actually empowered States, I was a little nervous about bringing up National Endowment for the Arts and Americorps because those were such lightning rods. But let us talk about some issues that we implemented. Welfare. Remember when we came down here last year and we said in the welfare bill, let us just give Wisconsin the waiver that it wants. Because the person in HHS or wherever who probably does not know what a cheese head is, maybe knows that the Green Bay Packers won the Superbowl.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. The gentleman is correct. And the disappointing thing here is, and I met with some AmeriCorps volunteers in my district yesterday, and I think they do good things and they will hear me talking tonight and saying they are costing $27,000, did he not understand we are not getting that money? I know what they are getting paid and what they are getting. The bureaucracy and the overhead and the Washington establishment and all that, that is the big sucking sound, sucking this money away from these kids, away from this program. What we have to take a look at is that this is an inefficient way to do what we want to get done. It may be a valiant effort, but when the total system is costing us $27,000, the least we can do, and the least the people on the other side of the aisle can do is join with us and say, number one, the books are not auditable, we should put in a requirement that their books ought to be auditable. We ought to know where the money is going. We ought to sit down and have a debate, not a debate, because this will be a discussion, how do we get the cost to be more realistic and more effective so that either more young people can participate or we can give some of the money back to the American people in tax reduction or we can start paying down the debt.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. About three-quarters time. A full-time person is working about 2,000. So somewhere between three-quarters and a little more than that.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. At the cost of $27,000 a year, they are required to serve 1,700 hours.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I would love to. Here we go again, I am sure someone is thinking this. Last week we did the debate on the National Endowment for the Arts. We on our side of the aisle had a very good proposal to keep the money in the arts but to attack the inefficiency. I chair the oversight subcommittee. This is an agency that spends $99.5 million a year. Only in Washington is that considered not much money. Back in my district that would be a very nice medium-sized company employing 600, 700 people, paying them a good wage. But here in Washington it is not a very big program. When people from Wisconsin or Michigan send that first dollar to Washington for the National Endowment for the Arts, the first 20 cents goes to bureaucracy and overhead, even though the first 35 percent of the money they hand out is by formula. We could hire an AmeriCorps volunteer for $27,000 a year, and in the morning they could write out the 50 checks that take care of the 35 percent of the money and then we could find something else for that person to do for the rest of the year. The first 20 percent goes to overhead, 35 percent gets formula block granted, which we wanted to continue, and then 25 percent of the money goes to one State. Are all the arts concentrated in one area and 143 congressional districts get nothing? All we said is we want to get rid of the bureaucracy. We want to block grant the National Endowment for the Arts money, get rid of the Washington establishment, save that $20 million and take the rest of the $80 million, block grant it to the States for their State grants, because local people know better how to support the arts in their community, and then fund it for arts education. That was one opportunity. AmeriCorps is another great one. This is an organization that spends $600 million of our money and cannot keep its books. It does good work. I mean the young people in that program do good work. They should. The average cost is $27,000 per year.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I have ever debated my colleague from Wisconsin. Too often I find myself in agreement with my good friend from across the lake. I just wanted to reflect on the numbers that the gentleman has been laying in front of us tonight. Number one, the significant progress that we have made over the last 3 years, where there is talk about getting to a surplus budget much sooner than the year 2002, which I think will be wonderful. We are also going through this process to reduce taxes, and we will have in place a plan to save Medicare. And so we are doing many of the right things. I think the other thing that we need to be talking about, and I know the gentleman wants to talk about tax cuts, but also about how we are spending the money. The gentleman brought up AmeriCorps. There is still tremendous opportunity to improve Washington. We have gotten spending under control but we have not gotten effectiveness and efficiency under control.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, the debate that we just concluded was about the Corporation for National Service. It was about the Tiahrt amendment. As the chairman for the oversight subcommittee, I just want to share with my colleagues some of the information that the oversight subcommittee has uncovered over the last 2 to 3 years in dealing with the Corporation for National Service. I visited a Corporation for National Service site yesterday. I met with some AmeriCorps volunteers. I have no doubt that they are doing good work, they are doing good work in this project. But I think it is time to also take a look at this agency. I have no doubt that in the future, if AmeriCorps survives in 10 or 15 years, we would say that without the Corporation for National Service, we would not have volunteerism in America, just like we say we would not have arts in America without the National Endowment for the Arts. But we have to recognize that we do have volunteerism in America. It is thriving. Volunteers in America are active in all of our communities, making heroic efforts to improve the quality of life in their local communities. Now let us take a look at the Corporation for National Service. This was an organization that I voted for in 1993, believing that it could do well, that it could make an impact, and reading the document and reading what the President said about this program, believing what the authors of that bill suggested, that the Corporation for National Service would become the model for Federal Government agencies, that it would model its performance after the private sector. When I assumed as chairman of the oversight subcommittee, we found some very troubling things. Remember, this is an organization that the AmeriCorps portion spends about $400 million per year. What did we find? In October of 1995 Arthur Andersen, a major accounting firm, reported that the corporation's financial reports were unauditable; listen, unauditable, meaning that they had 99 management control and accounting weaknesses, 33 of which they determined to be material, the worst classification for a weakness. What does that mean? It means that the Corporation for National Service could not tell us where the money was going that we were sending it, and what they were spending it for. A follow-up report issued in December of last year noted that the corporation had not corrected 71 of the 99 identified management control and accounting problems, this despite congressional hearings and assurances from Mr. Wofford and the corporation that these problems were being fixed. Now we find in a report that was issued yesterday, so we have moved from October of 1995 to July of 1997, and where are we? Arthur Andersen in their update states that the corporation has again to fix 33 of the 99 material weaknesses. They also have an additional 9 other accounting or managerial weaknesses. The bottom line, what does it mean? It means that the Corporation for National Service, the agency that was going to be modeled after the private sector, spending $400 million to $600 million of taxpayer dollars, cannot produce auditable results for 1994. They cannot produce them for 1995. They cannot produce them for 1996. Now it appears they will not be able to produce them for 1997, and still with major accounting weaknesses, as I predicted earlier, they probably will not be able to produce auditable books for 1998. That is unacceptable. Mr. Speaker, a second problem is as we have AmeriCorps volunteers, we are trying to match up the education awards with individual volunteers; a brand new program, a brand new agency, and what happens? A report released by Peat Marwick 4 months ago noted that the corporation has failed to keep adequate management controls and records relating to the trust fund, the National Service Trust Funds. What does this mean? It means that the Corporation for National Service does not have an accounting system in place that will enable it to match up young people who have worked in the corporation, who have worked in AmeriCorps, with their stipend. We are now putting student scholarships at risk. There are other troubling activities within the corporation. Mr. Huang has worked at the corporation, or the activities of his fund- raising have reached into the Corporation for National Service. There are other questions about five executives for the Corporation for National Service that were kept on despite the fact that their jobs had been eliminated. There is concern about close to $400,000 that the Corporation for National Service has spent in training and development funds. We are going to be having hearings next week to take a look at the $13 million that the Corporation for National Service spends every year in training and technical assistance. There are fundamental weaknesses at the corporation. This is not debating whether the kids and the young people are doing good work, but they are doing it for an agency that does not have good financial controls, and they are doing it at a very expensive cost. The average cost for an AmeriCorps volunteer is about $27,000 per member.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague for yielding this time. As chairman of the oversight committee that has responsibility for the National Endowment for the Arts, we have done oversight work, and the reason I am supporting my colleague's amendment today is because I believe it addresses the worst abuses that we have uncovered in the National Endowment for the Arts. It does not address them all, but it addresses the worst ones. What are they? As this amendment does, it takes away the $20 million in administrative overhead that the National Endowment spends each and every year, $20 million to distribute an additional $80 million. That is an unreasonable cost. Where does the money go? The National Endowment for the Arts, as an example, has spent $21,000 per employee on a computer system. Not bad. The disappointing thing is that computer system still is not up and running and does not even do e-mail. The second abuse that this program deals with is the distribution of funds. I do not think this House would ever develop a program from scratch that would ensure that 143 congressional districts get no money directly from the program. We would never develop a program that sends 25 percent of the funds to one State. This amendment assures that we will equitably distribute funds throughout the country. And the third thing that this amendment does is it moves decisionmaking for the local arts programs to where those decisions can be best made, where they will be supported by the local community, where they will be supported by the American public, moving decisionmaking for arts projects back to the State level, and the money, the additional funds, are moved into arts education for our kids. This is a great program, this is a good amendment, it does not go exactly where we need to go, but it moves the program in the right direction and handles the worst abuses for an ineffective bureaucracy.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think it is interesting. I have two of my colleagues who came here in January 1993, the three of us came here. What we were faced with was raising taxes, growing rapidly the size of government, nationalizing health care, no concern about the deficit, deficits in the $200 to $300 billion range as far as we could see. It is really amazing. I think if we would reflect back to where we thought, I still remember walking about across the street saying, how can we be part of this? Four and a half years later we are getting close to a surplus. We are cutting taxes. This is a sea change. As my colleague said, this is like popcorn. We are debating the right issues. This is not enough right now, but we have a much different debate than what we had in 1993.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for the American people to recognize the story that was in the Washington Post today. We are in a position to be able to provide tax cuts because of the restraints that we have put on spending over the last few years. The economy is good, revenues are growing. We may be in a position to get to a surplus budget much earlier than what we thought. Then we will be able to start having some additional wonderful debates here about what do we do with the surplus. I think we will be arguing about are we going to use it to pay back the money in the trust funds, the money we have borrowed out of the trust funds? Are we going to be able to give additional tax breaks? I do not think any of us are going to be here arguing that we should use it for increased Federal spending, but how are we going to get it back to the American people, how are we going to pay ourselves, get ourselves out of debt, and how are we going to give this money back to the American people from where it came originally? So this tax package is in a context of continuing to make progress in getting to a surplus budget. We have a lot of things moving in the right direction.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Just been fascinated listening. I think there are a number of things that I would like to build off that some of you have talked about. No. 1, I think we want to personalize this. What does it actually mean to the average family? You are talking about the families with three children, $1,500 more per year. That is $30 per week in an increase in take-home pay with a per-child tax credit, $30 per week, not gross, where the Federal Government comes in and takes their share again, $30 per week increase in take-home pay. And we talk about the death tax and the reduction in the capital gains tax. We are talking about creating an economy that will create more jobs. More jobs, more opportunity, greater investment, greater investment which will enable our workers to be working in the highest value-added jobs in the world, and when they are adding more value than any other workers in the world, it will enable them to continue to be the highest-paid workers in the world so that they can maintain the highest standard of living. We are going to kick off a project, we just got approval yesterday, which we call the American Worker at a Crossroads, which is going to examine these issues on a longer-term basis. What kinds of things in addition to the kinds of tax cuts that we are proposing, and we are going to pass this month; what other kinds of things do we need to do as we take a look at labor law? As we take a look at the billions of dollars that we spend on job training? Are we getting the kind of impact, are we creating the economy, are we creating the necessary framework to make sure that after the year 2000 our economy is still going to be the envy of the rest of the world? Today we work under and we have an economy, we have a work force, we have an employee management labor relations model that is based on decades-old labor law. Is that still the best framework to rein in our workers? Or are there better ways to do that? Are there new opportunities with a different kind of work force, the different kinds of jobs that they are engaging in, the high-tech? So that is going to be a project that we will begin that will build on these tax changes. Tax changes create the environment to encourage investment. Changes in labor law, changes in Federal spending will enable us to better equip our workers to be the best and the most talented workers in the world. We combine those two things, and we can ensure a great economy for our kids and for our future. That is what it is about.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure today to honor Galen W. Brookens, who is retiring this year as chief of police at the Fremont Police Department in Fremont, MI. Chief Brookens began his distinguished career with the Fremont Police Department on March 16, 1963, as a patrolman. He served in this capacity until January 1, 1968, when he went to work as an investigator for the twenty-seventh circuit court. In December 1968, he returned to the Fremont Police Department after accepting the position of chief of police. Throughout his career, Chief Brookens has played an instrumental role in the community he has served. In 1979, he aided in the development and institution of the 911 system in Newaygo County, the second county in Michigan to provide this service, and also worked to establish the Silent Observer Program. He has served as chairman and board member of the Michigan Law Enforcement Officers Training Council, the Newaygo County Administrative Officers Association, and the Michigan Chiefs of Police. In 1982, Chief Brookens received the ``Service Above Self'' award from the Rotary Club for his role in the development of an alcohol rehabilitation program in Newaygo County, his willingness to speak and teach at Fremont High School and various civic organizations, and his service and devotion to the First Reformed Church as a Sunday school teacher, deacon, and choir member. In addition, Chief Brookens has been given numerous awards, certificates, and commendations for exemplary police work and selfless service to the community of Fremont. For 33 years, Chief Brookens has dedicated his career to serving others. His work in the community has been an invaluable asset that has affected, and will continue to affect, the lives of many. As he retires, I would like to give him my thanks for his years of public service to the citizens of Fremont, and wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to salute three outstanding young women who have been honored with the Girl Scout Gold Award by the Michigan Pine and Dunes Girl Scout Council in Muskegon, MI. Debbie Christenson, Shannon Jones, and Randi Durst were honored May 15, 1997 for earning the Gold Award, the highest achievement award in U.S. girl scouting. The Girl Scout Gold Award symbolizes outstanding accomplishments in the areas of leadership, community service, career planning, and personal development. To receive the award, a Girl Scout must earn four interest project patches, the career exploration pin, the Senior Girl Scout Leadership Award, and the Senior Girl Scout Challenge, as well as design and implement a Girl Scout Gold Award project. As members of the Michigan Pine and Dunes Girl Scout Council, Debbie, Shannon, and Randi have been working toward the Girl Scout Gold Award for over a year. Debbie completed her Gold Award project in the area of developing pride for girl scouting in younger members by honoring the Girl Scout founder, Juliette Low. For her project, Shannon coordinated and promoted the 85th anniversary celebration of girl scouting, while Randi's project was in the area of scholarship funding for wider opportunity participants. I would like to commend these three young women for the significant service they have provided to their community and their country and congratulate them on receiving the Girl Scout Gold Award.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me this time. I would also like to congratulate the chairman and the ranking committee member for the work that they have done on this process, because I think what they have really enabled us to do is that they have taken away the debate about the size of Government, at least for the next 2 to 4 years; they have enabled us to develop a path to getting to a surplus budget. We can start the discussion on how to pay down the debt. But they are also going to liberate all of the authorizing committees to really focus on solving the problems facing this country within the context and the framework of this budget, so that we can take a look at how more effectively and more efficiently we can address and solve the problems facing this country. Specifically, the other committee that I serve on, the Committee on Education and the Workforce, we can now go back and take a look at the 760 education programs that we have, the 40 different agencies that are working on educating our kids, the $100 billion that we spend each and every year and say, how can we improve education in America? In meeting with our ranking member, the gentlewoman from Hawaii [Mrs. Mink], we have already agreed that we can go forward and we can eliminate the 100 programs that have not been funded over the last number of years. We know that we can work on consolidating programs. I expect that we are going to be able to work together on focusing on how to get parents more involved in the education process of our children, how we can get more dollars to the classroom. We can take a look at why are we losing 30 to 40 cents of every dollar we spend in education, why are we losing it in the bureaucracy, so that we can definitely have more effective plans to deliver safe schools, so that we can move control back to the local level. We can answer the question of why a local school may only get 6 percent of their dollars from Washington, but 40 to 50 percent of their paperwork, so that we can focus on developing an emphasis on basic academics in the classroom. Education needs a major focus. We now have the framework to get that done. I thank the ranking member and the chairman for giving us this opportunity.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. In listening to the dialog, this budget does not do everything that we would like it to do, but it is an important next step in the process. It moves us forward. It moves us towards fiscal responsibility and it does so in a very positive framework. It keeps us moving not towards balance, I do not think we will ever have a balanced budget. What it does is it moves us to surplus. We will actually have a surplus, hopefully, before the year 2002 but probably no later than the year 2002. It begins reform of entitlements. It slows the growth of Federal spending. Yes, it does return some tax dollars back to the American taxpayers. That is a solid framework for which this Congress can be proud, and it is a bipartisan step forward. We now need to build on this agreement. In the next 45 days, we need to pass the legislation that puts in place the actual entitlement reforms, and we need to put in place the legislation that actually reduces the tax burden on the American taxpayers. I think in another way this agreement is a very positive agreement, because now for a period of time there will no longer be a debate about the size of the Washington bureaucracy and the size of Washington government. We now can do and go back and perform a very important congressional responsibility, which is oversight. We have talked about public housing. I am not sure that pouring more money into the same public housing framework is the best way to spend our dollars. We can probably get more bang for our dollar. I wanted to talk a little bit about the work that we have been doing in education. There are some that are saying, and this agreement allows for more spending on education, but before we put more money into the current education framework, Congress needs to step back and say, what are we getting for the current dollars that we are spending? How does Washington define education? Washington defines education in a framework like this. It is a fairly complicated chart because the education system in Washington is fairly complex. We have the red boxes signifying the number of different Federal agencies that are involved in education. We have over 40 different agencies that are concerned about education in America. They operate over 7,820 different programs, and they spend over $100 billion per year to educate and train people in America. Rather than pouring more money in this, in debating whether it should get bigger or smaller, we have now agreed on what the education spending will be for the next few years. We can now step back and say, is this the best way to educate our children, to train America's workers. Let us step back, let us take a look at what is working and let us reform the education process in a bipartisan way. We need to do the same thing with improving the work force climate in America. How do we increase our international competitiveness? How do we improve the quality of life for America's working people? How do we ensure that they are the highest quality, the best trained and the most productive so that they are the highest paid workers in America? That is now what this budget framework will allow us to do, to step back from arguing about the size of government to take a look at increasing its effectiveness and efficiency. Let us use this budget agreement to move forward. We agree with the President on education. The President said in March 27, 1996, we cannot ask the American people to spend more on education until we do a better job with the money we have got now. Let us have that debate now that we have put the debate about the size of government behind us for a period of time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, is that 21 weeks before they may ever get an answer from the Education Department as to whether they are going to receive a grant?

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2.