Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I wish to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Georgia. The gentleman raises an absolutely critical issue that there are examples of all over the country. We are more…
Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, I wish to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Georgia.
The gentleman raises an absolutely critical issue that there are examples of all over the country. We are more than willing to work with you on a continuing basis.
You may be happy to note that we have cut $1.7 billion from the public buildings fund in this continuing resolution. But we've got a lot more work to do. And as we prepare the FY 2012 spending bill, I think that we'll find more examples. It's very critical to save every penny we can.
I just want to thank you so much for your dedication to finding all the waste that we have in the Federal budget.
I move to strike the last word, Mr. Chairman.
I rise in support of the Cole amendment because I think political candidates should rely on private donations rather than tax dollars for their political campaigns.
And I might mention to my very dear friend, Mr. Serrano, that I think that the President of the United States today showed the best example of people all around the country of every financial means contributing to his campaign. Friends of my children did $5 a month or offered $10. I mean, that was the most incredible show of involvement that I've seen in my life. And so to say that it would be against this precedent, I think, is just not fair.
I also think that this amendment adds to the good work done by Mr. Cole and our leader's office, with the YouCut bill, H.R. 359. And according to the CBO, this amendment will actually save $38 million. And $38 million is $38 million. And quite frankly, we're looking to save as many tax dollars as possible.
So, Mr. Chair, I would strongly support this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
I rise in support of this amendment. As the chair of the subcommittee that has oversight over FCC from the appropriations standpoint, I feel very strongly that in spite of what my friend on the other side of the aisle said with regard to the authorizers doing their work because they are doing a good job, but the fact of the matter is, as usual, the regulators have swept in again and without authority, or at least moving well past authority that Congress provides to agencies, and particularly to this agency, they have run in with a sweeping regulation that if we don't do something today about it, they will put small businesses like Boycom in my district, which is a family-owned business, husband and wife who own a small company, who will be devastated by this regulation.
The fact is that it is our responsibility to legislate, and the regulators should follow the legislation that we write and we pass and get signed into law, not create it on their own. Certainly this is very, very important for us as appropriators. As a result of the FCC overstepping its bounds, we have to get involved. So I would urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment.
I yield back.
Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, I would love to allow my very close friend and colleague from New York to continue. However, I will say that I do agree with him--and we will discuss this later this evening-- that, in fact, the White House is the White House, and it's a historic building, and it should be cared for. But the issue at hand is the number of people not subject to Senate confirmation who work there.
I want to rise in support of our colleague from Louisiana's amendment to address the issue of czars in this administration, and I will admit that there were too many in several of the past administrations as well. And I also hope that the Oversight and Government Reform Committee will actually mark up the Scalise bill so that we can address this issue once and for all.
I do know for a fact that, in spite of what my good friend from New York said, the health care czar who is no longer in that position--and that is why we have actually eliminated that position as well as the climate change position in the continuing resolution--I believe that several colleagues had set many, many meetings with the health care czar in the White House when that position was filled and that she was actually coordinating all of the work done on the current health care law. So the statement that these folks don't have any power is absolutely not true, based on personal experience with the person who actually held that position.
I love the idea of getting rid of more of these czars. It will save us a lot of money. We have excellent people, even if we don't agree with them, who are the heads of agencies and departments in the government. They should be allowed to do their jobs themselves instead of having interference from even more people.
So with that, I support the amendment from Mr. Scalise.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Will the gentleman yield?
But the money and the funds still exist; so we're trying to save some money here.
Will the gentleman yield?
I'm pleased to tell my good friend that that position is removed from this legislation as well.
Yes. I must tell you, my good friend, that you must have received a copy that perhaps missed a page. Do you have the diversity czar or the pay czar?
Will the gentleman yield?
I would just like to tell my friend that the Office of Financial Stability in the Department of the Treasury, which does oversee all of this, still remains and it is mandatory funding.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.
Since 2001, in the wake of the Enron scandal, this committee has more than doubled the SEC's budget. In fact, the SEC's budget has increased 163 percent since 2001. I would like to remind my colleagues that in 2001 the SEC was funded specifically at $423 million; and last year, with the fiscal year 2010 act, this committee provided the SEC with an appropriation of $1.1 billion.
Yet even with all of the money that we have given them and the opportunity they have had to begin upgrading their computers so, yes, they could deal with flash crashes and the like and hire more people and tougher enforcers, in spite of that they missed two major Ponzi schemes. They have had difficulty every single year since 2004 submitting clean budget statements for audit. They have had consistent trouble in their leasing practices, which has led to millions of taxpayer dollars wasted. And just even more specific to the Ponzi schemes, regarding them, the SEC has had multiple complaints filed against both entities over a decade before either individual was even charged.
So how is it also that the agency that's in charge, as my good friend said, and needs to be in charge of regulating our financial market, can't even produce an accurate financial statement of their own since 2004, in spite of the fact that since 2001 we've increased their budget.
In addition, the SEC's own inspector general has cited the agency for poor leasing practices, which has led to millions of taxpayer dollars being wasted on unused leased space. I'm sure my colleagues have read in the newspapers about the hundreds of thousands of square feet of leased space that they leased in anticipation of the work they might do on Dodd-Frank, but they leased it before the bill was even passed and money appropriated.
So when my colleagues argue that the SEC doesn't have enough funding, I've got to argue perhaps they do but they're not using the funding in the appropriate ways. All of us have had to tighten our belts. And I understand the need for us to have strong regulation. I am not opposed to strong regulation of the financial industry--of banks and nonbanks and hedge funds and the like. But at a time when we're all trying to do more with less, I think that it's important for all of the agencies of the government to do more with less, too. And so even with the cuts in this bill, the SEC is still going to be funded at over a billion dollars.
I believe very, very strongly that we must make this agency understand that they've got to try to revamp the systems they've got within and to use the moneys that we've given them, in addition to all the fees they've collected, more appropriately. And they need to try to do that. If they can't, then we can discuss this again. But we need to continue saving money.
Plus, my colleague has taken too much money from the GSA in addition to the $1.7 billion we've taken. So you're cutting them or you're cutting the IRS by over $600 million. We are cutting the IRS. We are cutting the IRS by over $600 million. You want to cut on top of the 600 that we're already cutting it. What you want to add to what we want to add perhaps cuts the legs out from them.
So, consequently, we have to vote against my friend's amendment.
I will yield to the gentleman.
I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding.
Madam Chair, I just want to point out a couple of things that I believe need some clarification.
Number one, yes, we had the Inspector General in our committee earlier in the week. I want to say, when he was talking about the loss of 600 jobs, that would be if we were to go back to funding at 2008 levels, which we have not done in this continuing resolution.
Number two, this agency has probably received more money than any other government agency in the last decade, and it has hired over 1,000 employees during that time period. Certainly, with that complement of excellent staff, they should have been able to see all of the problems with regard to Madoff, Stanford Financial, and other things.
At the end of the day, they've got to prove their own ability to manage money. They have to do their financial reports correctly. They have to, perhaps, take the structure they have and make it work in order to comply with Dodd-Frank. In the new bureaus, there is a lot of overlap that Dodd-Frank asks them to do, but they've got offices that do those functions already, so they can use what they have and perhaps fix it by moving employees around within that office.
At the end of the day, they still have to prove that they can do the job. They have not. They already receive too much money as far as I'm concerned; and if they can better manage personnel and do that job, then I'm more than happy to look at funding them at the levels that my colleague suggests, but not until they can prove they can manage what they have got already.
Will the gentleman yield?
I just want to add or perhaps comment to my good friend from Colorado that the IG said to our subcommittee that it wasn't for lack of resources--since we have increased that budget 163 percent over the last 10 years--it wasn't for lack of resources but, rather, the staff working within the SEC did not perform their duties properly.
I move to strike the last word.
Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
The continuing resolution already cuts the IRS by over $600 million compared to FY10 and over $1 billion compared to the FY11 request; and I believe that the further cuts to the IRS enforcement division will ensure that the tax cheats win because there are going to be fewer audits, fewer investigations, fewer prosecutions, fewer convictions.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created by Dodd-Frank to promote fairness and transparence, but the bureau itself seems to be anything but transparent. The general powers, organization, and goals of the bureau are laid out very well in the law, but the specifics of how the bureau will use its powers and achieve its goals are not known. Moreover, the Dodd-Frank law provides $500 million a year from the Federal Reserve to the bureau without any input from the Congress at all.
And without a doubt, I am not disagreeing that there is a strong need for consumer protection. I'm a mom. I believe in that very strongly. But just as commerce shouldn't run wild, neither should consumer protection. So the limitation in the bill, I believe, represents an adequate level. It represents the level of resources that are currently expended by regulatory agencies on consumer protection activities, for example the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which we all know parts of it will move into the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
I believe that we should look at this a little later because, as the bureau-specific activities become known and the cost of those activities become known, then we're going to have an opportunity to revisit the limitation. Providing $500 million a year without any congressional oversight to the bureau is, I believe, a very irresponsible abdication of a constitutional check and balance and I would ask colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment and oppose unchecked and unbalanced bureaucracy.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Will the gentleman yield?
I just want to point out one thing. The text of the bill scores our limitation at $30 million for FY 2011.
Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) for a colloquy.
I thank the gentleman from Virginia, and please know that not only am I very happy to work with the gentleman on trying to conduct better oversight of the GSA and ensure that it does cost- benefit analyses, but I have also had quite a similar experience in my hometown in Missouri of cost overruns and no type of real cost-benefit analysis or explanation for those cost overruns other than perhaps inattention to detail.
So I am thrilled to be able to work with you and look forward to doing that.
Mr. Chairman, I have another colloquy with the gentleman.
I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
I thank the gentleman from Virginia for bringing this to our attention and commend you for
doing so. And we'll be happy to work with you to try to address this issue, particularly in report language in the FY 2012 bill.
I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chair.
Amendment No. 214 Offered by Mr. Kline