Donald Manzullo

Mr. MANZULLO

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

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I would just state that the purpose of my amendment is to reduce the administrative expenses by the same percentage as the reduction in the subsidy appropriation; that is all we are doing, because we are asked to decrease the subsidy appropriation by 2.5 percent, and we are also being asked to increase the administrative expenses by 4.2 percent. So if we are spending less money, they should in essence be spending less money to administer this.

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

Mr. MANZULLO. This is what this is about. We are talking about the largest public works project in the world.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding, I would say to my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois, that Exim's refusal to get involved in financing with several companies could cost this country tens of thousands of highly skilled and highly paid jobs. Is that correct?

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

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment numbered 19 to reduce the bill's $47.6 million appropriation for Export-Import Bank administrative expenses by $3.1 million. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is quite simple. If the Committee on Appropriations could recommend a cut of 2.5 percent for the subsidy appropriations for the Eximbank, certainly they do not need to increase Washington bureaucracy at Exim by 4.2 percent especially if the General Accounting Office found nearly $1 million in overpaid bonuses. This is an agency, Mr. Chairman, that said that it had to take a lot of time in coming to a decision because of the layoff and the shutdown of the Federal Government, and then they turn right around and give almost $1 million in bonuses. This is simply a budgetary priority issue. My amendment would cut Washington bureaucracy at the same percentage level as the cut in the program account at Exim. If Exim programs drop by 2.5 percent, so should a Washington bureaucracy. A 2.5-percent cut from last year's level is not a drastic measure. Every agency is experiencing severe budget crisis. Exim should not be the exception. Mr. Chairman, the President of Exim said last February that the bank made a mistake and they would fix the overpaid bonus problem. Out of 448 employees, 200 were awarded bonuses, but the GAO said that only 10 of the 200 were actually eligible to receive the money. Well, Exim is one of the smallest agencies in the Federal Government. Exim accounted for 25 percent of all bonuses granted governmentwide. GAO concluded that many of these awards did not appear to comply with the statutory requirement. Well, months later the issue is still unresolved, and to add salt to an open wound, the President nominated Mr. Kamarck to head the Eximbank in a recess appointment, allowing him once again to issue bonuses. Finally, the chairman of Exim said in a press conference last week that their services are not needed for the largest public works project in the biggest emerging market in the world. Mr. Kamarck said U.S. companies can win these contracts on their own. I am perplexed at that statement. He seems to question the need for these additional personnel and resources if Exim declines at this time to support our exporters for the Three Gorges Dam project. If Exim immediately withdraws support for both large and small U.S. exporters for this huge project, then Exim does not need the extra $2 million for outreach activities to small businesses. Exim could do more for small businesses by revisiting the Three Gorges Dam decision. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment. If my colleagues are concerned about the deficit, if my colleagues want to cut Washington waste and bureaucracy, if my colleagues want to balance the committee's recommendations for programs with resources, if my colleagues want to sent a message to Eximbank, then support the Manzullo amendment No. 19.

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

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I agree with my colleague from Wisconsin. I think it is disingenuous on the part of Eximbank to say that unless they get their additional appropriations, they cannot reach out to small businesses. But my question is this: Just because an agency wants to increase its outreach, does that mean it has to increase its budget? We are talking about a reordering of priorities, and I would encourage my colleagues to vote in the affirmative on Mr. Obey's Amendment No. 24.

Mr. MANZULLO. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I stand to speak on behalf of the amendment No. 24 from the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey]. I do not know if the Members of this House are aware of a February 1, 1996, article: ``The Export-Import Bank Overpaid Salaries.'' This shows that the Eximbank illegally increased the salaries of about 200 employees by an average of almost $5,000 a year after portraying them as critical workers that the agency could not afford to lose, and the bank's acting chairman, now a chairman who is appointed full-time permanently during the recess, Martin Kamarck, said in February 1996 we blew it, we were aggressive, and made a mistake and will fix it. Well, this is now June 1996, and it still has not been fixed. The Eximbank only has about 400 employees, and half of them, one-half of them, got pay increases, and those 200 employees, I believe, represent 25 percent of all the Federal employees that got pay increases. Now, this is an agency that needs some trimming. We are not talking about cutting back the amount of subsidies that will be available for the purposes of helping American exporters compete overseas. What we are talking about is an agency which will be 2.5 percent, there will be a 2.5 percent reduction in subsidy, and yet the agency wants a 4.2- percent increase in their operations expense. That is not necessary, and simply because the agency requests the amount of money does not mean that we should give it to them. I have an even stronger amendment which I will be offering later on in the course of this debate that will cut the administrative expenses by approximately $3 million. But as to the Obey amendment, it is correct, it should be done, there is no reason why the Eximbank cannot be forced to live within its means, and the $1 million to which the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] is referring I think is a fact that this is a time for the American people to get back the $1 million that was improperly paid to over 200 workers at the Eximbank.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I would state an inquiry to the comments of the distinguished gentleman from Texas [Mr. Wilson], that in an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times about 3 weeks ago, China has asked several countries, excluding the United States, to participate in the first round of over $4 billion in investment going into China. Canada at this time has agreed to it, but Japan and Germany and other countries are presently considering it, seriously considering it.

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

Mr. MANZULLO. I absolutely would. I vote every time there is an opportunity to cut.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, let me state this again. I think it is fiscally inappropriate for the U.S. Congress to reduce the subsidy appropriation of an agency by 2.5 percent, and yet increase the salaries of bureaucrats by 4.2 percent. All my amendment says is very simply, everything is being downsized. How can we as Members of the U.S. Congress vote to increase the bureaucracies of an agency? Every agency is being downsized except the administrative staff of this one. That is all we are doing on this.

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

Mr. MANZULLO. That is correct. I think we can cut bureaucrats at Eximbank and the organization can function just as well.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would continue to yield, if you take the Obey amendment, that is the $1 million that the chairman of the Eximbank should have paid back a long time ago, and he never did. He said back on the last day of January of this year that he was going to make up for the improper bonuses that he paid that cost the American taxpayers $1 million. To date he had not done that. So we start with the $1 million reimbursing the taxpayers that is already owed them. My amendment then says, let us reduce the administrative expenses by the same percentage as the overall subsidy appropriation, which is 2.5 percent.

Mr. MANZULLO. That is correct.

Mr. MANZULLO. I think it is necessary that administrative expenses be cut at a time when the subsidy appropriation is being cut, that is correct.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday last, due to a family emergency, I missed rollcall votes 178 and 179 pertaining to the fiscal year 1997 budget resolution. Had I been present, I would have voted on rollcall No. 178, ``no'' and on rollcall No. 179, ``yes.'' I request unanimous consent that my statement be included following the vote in the permanent record.

Mr. MANZULLO

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, there is a chapter that normally appears in every budget called the generational forecast. It has not been in the last couple of budgets. That states because of the $5 trillion national debt, unless something is dramatically done, the children born after 1992 entering the work force would have a combined State, local and Federal tax rate of between 70 and 90 percent. That is unconscionable.

Mr. MANZULLO. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, we all use charts in this body, and different figures are thrown out; but every day millions of Americans get up, get out of bed, they have their breakfast, they pack their lunch box, send their kids off to school. In many households both spouses work. We talk about the forgotten American, the people that go to work every day, the people in this country that are working harder and harder and taking home less money. Nobody is talking about that portion of the American people. Think about it. The people in this country who get up every day and go to work, they say to me, ``Congressman, I don't understand it. I'm working harder than ever in my entire life, and the money simply isn't enough to make the expenses. I'm not buying new cars, I'm not buying new houses, I'm just trying to do the best I can to survive in this economy.'' Mr. Chairman, here is a chart. Here is the reason why. Americans today are working harder and taking home less money. Americans today are working harder and taking home less money. Americans today are working harder and taking home less money because governments of all sizes are growing and taking away the money. The Federal Government continues to grow. The number of Federal employees declines, but the number of nongovernment employees who receive grants from the Federal Government to carry on the work of all the 10,000 Federal programs we have continues to grow. The man who gets up in the morning and packs his lunch and kisses his kids good-bye to go off to school and perhaps his wife goes off to work also, he takes home less money. And who cares about him? Who is caring about that man in America? He is down here taking home less money. Do you know why? Because government is too big. It is too intrusive. It is too pervasive. One program after another. Try to cut down the size of the Government, and the President adds AmeriCorps. ``Just give me another program. Just one more investment. Just another program. Just have this investment.'' Mr. Chairman, every single one of the 10,000 programs in this Federal Government has its own constituency, its own lobbyists, its own special interests. But who cares about the man who gets up in the morning and packs his lunch and kisses his kids off to school and perhaps his wife has to go to work, also, just to make ends meet? Who cares about him? Let me just reiterate the words I have heard this evening from the other side. The Republicans are extreme. Decentralized genocide. Mean- spirited. Cruel. Radicals on the other side. Assault on America. Do my colleagues know where the assault is taking place? On the American family. Taxes continue to go up. Rob Yedor runs a factory called Myco in Rockford, IL, about 125 employees. ``Oh, with the great budget in 1993, we're going to raise the taxes of the rich, we're going to increase the subchapter S taxes.'' What happened? He pays $250,000 a year more in taxes. Mr. Chairman, where was that money going to go? For three things for his employees: to purchase additional capital, that is new machinery, to fund more fully his 401-K retirement plan, and to increase the wages of the people who work for him. That was the 1993 Clinton budget. Do my colleagues know who got hurt by it? The man who gets up in the morning and packs his lunch and sends his kids off to school, the average American worker. Here is the chart. He is taking home less money because this Government is too big.