Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. That is not a surprise, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I agree with my colleague that this may be perceived as micromanaging. It is micromanaging to the tune of $30 million, it is micromanaging back to the direction of a program that I voted for 3 years ago that said we are going to focus these dollars at local programs, we are going to focus it on the young people, and we are going to try to make an impact at the grass-roots level, and we are also going to be a world-class organization. In too many places with this program we have consistently been disappointed. It is not a world- class organization. We are moving money into bureaucracies and buildings and bureaucrats in Washington. We want, I want, to have the impact at the local level. I have got serious questions about this program after 3 years. But it is kind of like if we are going to do the program, let us move the money to the kids in the local agencies, and that is what it does. Let us not put it in the Presidio, let us not give it to the AFL-CIO. These people that are running these agencies at the local level are some of our most talented people, the people that are involved in the charitable organization are some of the most talented people at the local level. They work for Fortune 500 companies, they are successful entrepreneurs, they know how to manage, they have access to these training capabilities at the local level. We do not need a redundant organization here in Washington or in San Francisco. When organizations at this level, when these people at the local level, are looking to enhance their capabilities and their skills, they are not going to come to the Corporation for National Service to see how they can improve their programs. They have got those skills at the local level. Let us save this $30 million, let us move it to where it can have a positive impact, and I think that that is the right place to go. This is what is characterized earlier today--this is not a mean-spirited amendment. I believe that this is a constructive amendment to move dollars back to the direction where we wanted this program to be when we passed it in 1993.

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

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 18.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, last week I informed the House of two very disturbing examples of waste in the AmeriCoprs Program. The first was the $13 million spent on training and technical assistance contracts with such organizations as the AFL-CIO and the new Multicultural Institute. Both of those were funded for $400,000 each. The other was the opening of the new AmeriCorps Leadership Training Center overlooking the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. This amendment seeks to strike the line-item appropriation which funds what I consider wasteful spending and put the money in the pockets of local and national charities around the country. This amendment moves $30 million back into the direction and the priorities for this program, a program that I voted for 3 years ago. This amendment moves money away from Washington bureaucracy, Washington bureaucrats, and moves it directly back to local charities, individuals, and young people in our communities. Let us talk about these two examples. The Presidio. What is the Presidio Leadership Center? It is nothing more than magical bureaucrats telling local charities, charities like Big Brothers, Big Sisters, you need the Federal Government in order to find a shared purpose or to develop new leaders. This is a myth. Private charities have operated for years without training provided by the magical bureaucrats. I am sure they will continue to do so long after AmeriCorps and its magical bureaucrats are gone. Remember, AmeriCorps is the organization that cannot even balance its books. The real danger here is that the training at the Presidio contributes to the deterioration of the identity of local and national charities and replaces it with a Federal cookie-cutter look and a Federal way of operating. This is destructive to the goodwill of many, if not of all, of these charities. It is destructive of the goodwill these charities have earned in the communities in which they serve. Furthermore, the costs of housing magical bureaucrats at the Presidio are very high. Staff on site of the Presidio have noted that they expected to train only 300 people in 1996. For that they need a budget of $1.1 million. this equals a cost of approximately $3,300 per trainee, not including the cost of transportation or lodging. The Washington office of AmeriCorps disputes this figure and expects costs to average almost $900 per member, again excluding the cost of transportation. Either way, in my opinion, this is an awfully expensive means of training volunteers and their leaders. There is a better way to spend this money. There is a better way that we should do it. This is by moving it to local volunteers. Why are the costs so high? Well, according to the GSA, San Francisco is not the bargain basement place to rent facilities. Rentable space in San Francisco is almost twice as expensive as Midwestern cities. In fact, the rate paid by AmeriCorps for this space, while lower than the allowable amount, is still substantial. Additionally, since grantees are responsible to pay for the cost of getting to the Presidio, its coastal location makes for an expensive trip for the vast majority of AmeriCorps members. It would appear that this site was chosen by magical bureaucrats for its beautiful location and not for its cost or proximity to local charities. This is a fact even AmeriCorps is beginning to see. According to Harris Wofford, the corporation is considering closing the Presidio Leadership Center in line with its reinvention program. A document provided to me last week by Mr. Wofford stated: Given the current investment in reinventing government, the Corporation for National Service is exploring the possibility of whether the services provided by the Presidio Leadership Center could be done more cost-effectively by an outside provider by privatizing the current operations. In short, the Presidio Leadership Center could not pass the reinventing-Government test, and even the corporation is beginning to see that it should be closed. When AmeriCorps started, it was intended to be a catalyst for volunteers at the local level. It was not intended to try to become an national training center. It does not have the capabilities. It does not have the skills to fulfill that mission. Restore AmeriCorps back to the intent and the direction that we put in place. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Michigan, asked us to give one reason why AmeriCorps should be eliminated. I can think of many. Perhaps let us go back to what the President said he was going to give us when he promised us AmeriCorps: a well-run, businesslike program; a national service corporation which will run like a big venture capital outfit, not like a bureaucracy. This year we had oversight hearings. We had oversight hearings because we asked Arthur Andersen, the auditors who took a look at AmeriCorps, to tell us what they found. Over $300 million of taxpayer funding per year. The auditors came back and said this corporation that was going to be the benchmark for the private sector, the corporation lacks strong management controls, the corporation lacks data integrity, the corporation lacks data security, the corporation has failed to segregate accounting duties, the corporation lacks budgetary controls, the corporation could not prepare reliable financial statements. The bottom line: The benchmark of Government service is a program whose books are not auditable. Mr. Chairman, stopping a program like that is not mean-spirited; it is realistic, and it is being good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. The problem with AmeriCorps is, yes, those radical Republican freshmen, they have a vision for service. They know what makes America great. The authentic American spirit is, in 1993, 89.2 million American adults volunteered in this country. They gave on an average of 4.2 hours per week, or 19 billion hours of total service, with an estimated value of $182 billion. Americans also contributed $126 billion in charitable causes. This is in addition to the $324 billion the American people spent on assistance to the poor in Federal, State, and local taxes. We have a great volunteer spirit. The problem in Washington, Mr. Chairman, is that we think Washington defines voluntarism. We believe that the bureaucracies on Independence Avenue, which is more like Dependence Avenue, that they are better equipped to define volunteers; that this faceless bureaucrat in Washington can better define what needs to happen at the local level in voluntarism; that we ask American taxpayers not to send money to charities directly, because they cannot make that decision, send it to Washington so we can make that decision for them, so we can be the bureaucrat that says, ``This charity in your community deserves support. This one does not.'' End this program. Move decisionmaking back to where it should be, back to the local citizens, back to the taxpayers. Let them decide which charities to support, not the Federal Government, which cannot even keep its own books.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman will continue to yield, this amendment includes the Presidio Training Center but also includes significant other funds used by the corporation in training, including contracts with the AFL-CIO and a number of other agencies.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, later on this afternoon I will have an amendment specifically dealing with the Presidio. At that point in time, I would be very willing to incorporate that language into the amendment. Perhaps we could have a dialog between now and then, if necessary, to put that language into the amendment at that time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I withdraw my reservation of objection, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. The agreement is my amendment will come up after the vote on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hostettler]?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Chairman, may I just have an explanation? I believe my amendment was up next.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, this is on the NEA amendment. I will offer the amendment. I will briefly explain the amendment. I will enter into a colloquy with the chairman of the subcommittee and I will withdraw the amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reclaiming my time, there is no doubt that the NEA has probably done some phenomenal things. I watched this movie, all right, 78 minutes, and I invite any of my colleagues to watch it as well. Describing this as art is using the term very, very loosely. I would not show it to my parents. I would not show it to my wife. I would not want my kids to see it. I do not think any of my friends would want to see it. And we paid for it.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for allowing me to take my amendment out of order. I will make this brief. We have been working on a project that we call the myth of the magical bureaucracy, and it deals with what bureaucrats and the bureaucracy in Washington are being asked to do in America. They are being asked to do a number of different things. We are talking about this city. We are talking about what has happened in this city where we have Independence Avenue, which in many cases now has become Dependence Avenue. It is the avenue that is full of bureaucracy that has moved decision making away from the American people and has moved the decision powers to here in Washington. These buildings are staffed by what in many cases we call magical bureaucrats. We call them magical bureaucrats because we are asking them to do things which they were never equipped or able in power to do. Today we are talking about a bureaucrat who we have asked to become a film maker, a film maker for the National Endowment for the Arts. The problem that we have with this film maker, this bureaucrat within the National Endowment for the Arts, of the decision-making responsibilities that they have taken from the American people and how they have made these decisions. Specifically, we want to just highlight one example. It is called the Watermelon Woman. In 1996, after years of debate about the types of arts that were being funded by the American taxpayers, the outrage at the National Endowment for the Arts continues. This film has been described as one of the hottest, as having some of the hottest sex scenes ever recorded on celluloid. That is not the type of decision making that we want in Washington. It is the highlight of the myth of the magical bureaucrat that magical bureaucrats in Washington know more about art than what the individual taxpayers do. The bill to the American taxpayer, the purchase price of the admission for a ticket to this movie, was $31,500. My amendment would have been a clear signal to the National Endowment for the Arts that this has to stop. Out of a $99 million budget, $99 million of bureaucrats describing what art is in America, it would have cut and said to the NEA obviously in 1996, you had $31,500 to waste. In 1997, you are not going to get that money again. After a colloquy with the subcommittee chairman, I will withdraw this amendment because of some other agreements and arrangements that have been made.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume for the purpose of a colloquy with my subcommittee chairman. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the subcommittee chairman.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank the gentleman for that clarification, based on that agreement and recognizing the expectation that that agreement will take place Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I would like to offer the amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, it will be very short.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Yes, Mr. Chairman.