Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman.

Madam Chair, I want to speak about an amendment Mr. Moran is about to offer. This is about the use of Styrofoam in our cafeterias. You may remember that in 2007, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi established the Greening the Capitol program, and the goal was to make the U.S. House of Representatives a national leader in resource stewardship and sustainable business practices, and we made significant progress.

One of the places where we made progress was we replaced the Styrofoam in the cafeteria and used recyclable dishware. We are now back to Styrofoam. McDonalds doesn't use Styrofoam. Years ago, McDonalds and other fast food restaurants replaced Styrofoam with recyclable paperboard containers. There is no reason we can't do that. There is no reason we shouldn't do it.

Polystyrene is practically unrecyclable. Most polystyrene containers end up in landfills and incinerators. There are cancer-causing chemicals that are used during its manufacture. In 1986, the EPA report on solid waste named polystyrene manufacturing the fifth largest creator of hazardous waste.

We should adopt the Moran amendment and do it the right way.

I thank the gentlelady.

If there is a problem with the Dodd-Frank bill, it is that it was passed 2 years after, rather than 2 years before, the Wall Street meltdown. That was a catastrophe. It was so bad that one of the most conservative Presidents in the history of this country came to Congress with the Goldman Sachs Secretary of the Treasury asking Congress to authorize $750 billion to bail out Wall Street's collapse.

That was an avoidable situation. The reason it collapsed is because of the fact that the only problem worse than no regulation or little regulation is no regulation at all. And that's what Wall Street had enjoyed. The heart of the crisis were these subprime mortgages that were loans to people who had no documentation, no ability to pay them back. They were sold and peddled not because there was even an expectation that they would be paid back, but they were sold to the mortgagees so that they could then be sold off to investors. This was the architecture of catastrophe. And the American economy is still reeling from it.

The tradition of regulation in this country goes back to Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican ``trust buster,'' who understood that the public had to be protected, who understood that with proper regulation you set fair rules for business to operate that level the playing field for those good banks to do what's right, to do it in the light of day, to provide protection to consumers who are busy with their own lives and don't have time to go over all of the forms.

This consumer protection agency is absolutely essential to providing fairness to consumers and security in their transactions, to protect them from unscrupulous activity that does and can occur, and it's important to our banks and our financial industry that want to play by the rules and do it the right way. This is very important legislation. We must defeat the, in effect, repeal and retraction of Dodd-Frank.

We are in a very serious situation now. We're what, 11 days away from perhaps, the first time in the history of this country, not paying our bills. And it's extraordinarily damaging what that will do to our economy. I mean, interest rates will go up. If we have a 1 percent increase in our debt service, that's going to mean $140 billion more in taxpayer expense to service the debt. And I don't care whether you have a Nancy Pelosi point of view that we could use that money better on infrastructure or an Eric Cantor point of view that you could use that for tax cuts, that's money out the door. That is squandered money. And the damage to the economy and to this asset, the AAA rating, is enormous, and that ripples through the economy and starts hurting people, individuals.

If you have a mortgage, your mortgage rates can go up on an adjusted rate loan. If you want to buy a car, you have to borrow some money, your rates are going to go up. If you have put aside money for your kids to go to college, which is, as we all know, incredibly expensive, the markets are going to create an immense amount of turmoil, and the likelihood is you'll take a real hit on that.

If your retirement savings, if you're about to retire and you've been saving all your life, that can get whacked. This is reckless and irresponsible. We have to pay our bills.

Now it is true that we've got a long-term fiscal challenge that requires a long-term fiscal plan, but this first time in the history of our country literally holding hostage our obligation to pay our bills to getting your way on your design of how we should have a long-term fiscal plan, that's never been done before.

You know, in all candor, both sides in the past have tended to grandstand when it comes to the debt ceiling. The custom has been around here that the party that's out of power and doesn't have the responsibility to get the debt ceiling passed so that we pay our bills grandstands about it, but neither side has ever actually held that debt ceiling and that obligation to pay our bills hostage.

Ronald Reagan, who was not at all shy about engaging in tax fights and budget fights, raised the debt ceiling. He never would use the full faith and credit of this country to win his battles because he knew that would cause too much harm to the economy; it's putting a loaded gun at the head of the American economy. We have got to get back to the basics here. We've got to pay our bills.

My hope is that then we would work together because we don't have to cut Medicare to get to fiscal solvency. We do have to reform the way we deliver health care to bring down the cost of health care, but if we have a balanced approach where we include revenues, we include the Pentagon, and we, as Democrats, look very hard at various spending programs and are willing to share in the effort to get ourselves onto fiscal solvency, we can do that. So we can make progress if we work together and just recognize the obvious: we've got to pay our bills, and we also have to work together to get a long-term fiscal plan.

Well, let's talk about the balanced budget amendment. We in Vermont don't have a balanced budget amendment. We're the only State that doesn't have it. We have always managed to balance our budget. And we have done that when we have had Republican administrations and Democratic administrations.

The balanced budget amendment in Congress I think has some hazards because the Federal Government at certain times is the one tool that the American people have to be countercyclical. If the economy is really going down and it requires the Federal Government to step up to try to maintain purchasing power, that is debatable; but it is the only tool that we have as citizens is the Federal Government to do that.

I think what the balanced budget amendment suggests is that you can legislate away your future problems. You can come up with a fix that is going to guarantee you're not going to have to suffer through trying to figure out how to solve very difficult problems, either because it is a national security threat, it's a collapse in the economy like we had with the collapse of Wall Street.

And by and large it's not any way for us to avoid making direct and difficult decisions where we balance our revenue needs and we balance our spending needs based on the circumstances, and that's the constant work of Congress. It requires the application of judgment, it requires cooperation, and it requires the ability to be flexible and responsive to the circumstances that exist.

A balanced budget amendment is one size fits all that puts us in handcuffs in an effort to try to avoid getting out of balance.

Three points:

One, let's pay our bills. We always have; we always will;

Two, let's have a long-term budget plan to stabilize our budget with a balanced approach--revenues as well as cuts, the Pentagon as well as reforming how we deliver health care;

Three, let's make it in America.

I thank the gentleman from Maryland.

We face two immediate challenges. The first is, will we pay our bills? That's the whole issue of raising the debt limit. America pays its bills, it's as simple as that. If we owe veterans who served this country their benefits, they're going to get paid. If we went to a war and didn't pay for it and fund it when we went, we have to pay that bill when it becomes due. That is the question. And by the way, Republican iconic figure, Ronald Reagan, who was familiar with tax and budget fights, was the one who said he would never make the debt ceiling, America's full faith and credit, a hostage to a point of view, and did the right thing to pay those bills.

The second issue that we face--and I acknowledge my Republican colleagues for their focus on this--is a long-term fiscal plan. The bill that we have brought before the floor, a balanced budget amendment, raises the question: Is it an effective tool, or is the better approach a balanced approach to revenues and to spending?

The State of Vermont does not have a balanced budget amendment, yet in Vermont we pay our bills and we balance our budget. We do it, number one, by working together. And one of the points that the rating agencies have made is the apprehension here is not so much our ability to pay our bills, it's our ability to work together. Working together requires that we have a balance of cuts, look at that budget, where can we save money? But it also requires that we have a balance of revenues because part of the goal here--again, of a confident country--is to grow our economy. That requires investment in infrastructure, in education, in new industries. And if we are going to be successful, this cannot be just cuts. It has to be balanced with investments that will grow this economy, grow jobs, bring that unemployment rate down. We can do it together.

I see the gentleman from South Carolina included in his approach cutting the Pentagon. That has to be on the table.

Madam Speaker, President Reagan is an iconic figure in the Republican Party and revered by many Democrats. He did fight to shrink government and he lowered taxes, but he also raised taxes eight times and he also fought against the absurd notion that America had an option when it came to paying our bills. When the debt ceiling had to be raised, he did it because he knew that was essential, that was our responsibility.

We have got an argument on the other side today that paying our bills is optional. That is dangerous; that is absurd.

There are two arguments the other side is making: One, that it's Obama's problem, despite the fact that they insisted on the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, going into nation building, tax cuts that we can't afford, Medicare prescription part D. But, second--this is what's really not on the level--every single person who voted for the Ryan budget voted for a budget that will raise the debt from $14.3 trillion to $23 trillion. And after voting for that budget, now we will vote against raising the debt ceiling that is required to implement the budget that you voted for.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, I have been sitting here listening to what, in fact, I think is a very interesting debate: what's the role that the taxpayer, through this body, should play in trying to steer an energy policy towards efficiency. There were a lot of contentious debates that we've had about energy policy, about climate change.

One of the areas where I have found that we have frequently had some common ground is the notion that less is more. Whatever the source of energy that you use or favor, if a consumer is able to use less oil-- that's what we rely on in Vermont to heat our homes--or less electricity that's generated by nuclear, you can save money. And the efficiency title is one that gives us an opportunity to try to promote efficiency, where doing so has significant benefits.

Last year, Mr. Chair, we passed in this House--it failed in the Senate--an energy efficiency bill that would have given homeowners an incentive to put some of their money into home retrofits, and the government would have matched that. So you would have had an all-in situation.

And when you're retrofitting your home, you are using local contractors who have been hammered by the collapse in housing. They need work. It's work that is done locally in your district and mine. Ninety-five percent of the materials that are used in any kind of efficiency work in a commercial building or in home building are manufactured in America. So even without a debate about Make It in America, we would be getting the benefit of manufacturing in America. And obviously, it would then have an impact of saving the homeowner money. That particular bill would have saved about $10 million in energy bills over 10 years. So that's real savings for homeowners.

The bill that is brought before the floor makes a decision to dramatically cut the efficiency title by about 27 percent, or $491 million. What my amendment would do is propose to restore that money and take that from the Nuclear Security Weapons Activities account which has $7.1 billion. So diverting the amount of money this amendment proposes would not wipe out that account in any way.

I think all of us would like to find some places we can work together despite the very significant differences between us; and efficiency, I found in the last Congress, was one of those areas where we had some potential to do it. Then-Ranking Member Barton was supportive of some of these efforts.

And the money in this title actually does end up promoting projects back in your district and mine. I will just give some examples. And these are small things. They are small things but important. In Burlington, Vermont, we had a program through this title that helped a community market install 136 solar panels on the roof of the city market that generated 31 kilowatts of power. I mean, that's not going to save the world, but it created jobs. It reduced their costs. And it was local, local people doing it.

In Waterbury, a home for seniors was retrofitted and improved with insulation, better boiler controls and efficient lighting. Again, it's not rocket science, but it's real. It was real Vermonters doing the installation work. It was insulation that was manufactured in America. And it made those seniors warmer. It made their bill lower. That kind of thing can happen all around.

In Lunenburg, Vermont, way up by the Canadian border, the 430-cow Auburn Star Farm got some loans and grants through a State energy program that was funded from this title. It allowed them to build a biodigester, and that digester will dispose of the waste from the dairy cows, produce biogas to generate electricity, and help the bottom line of that farm that is struggling with low milk prices and high costs.

So the real question that is before us is: Do we want to promote energy efficiency at the local level in all the various ways people can come up with to save money when we know that in your district or mine, Republican, Democrat, or independent, we've got out-of-work contractors, we've got homeowners who want to save money, and we've got manufacturers who want to sell their goods? So I urge the body to consider favorably the amendment that is before you.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word.

Just in clarification, Member from New Jersey, Vermont has about one-third nuclear power. That was misreported I am not sure by whom, but it's one-third nuclear, one-third hydro, and one-third other.

Thank you.

And it is incorrect.

All right. I will just say it's news to most of us in Vermont. And, in fact, there is a big dispute about the relicensing of the current nuclear reactor we have.

But I appreciate the gentleman. Thank you.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Welch

Amendment No. 32: Page 23, line 4, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(increased by $491,000,000)''.

Page 33, line 20, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $491,000,000)''.

Mr. Speaker, Congress has a responsibility to level with the American people. We face a looming decision about extending the debt limit, not because we want to but because we have to reaffirm the obligation we have to pay our bills. The majority of us on the Democratic side voted to do that. That was not to incur new spending or new obligations; it was to meet obligations already incurred: $2.3 trillion for the Bush tax cuts; an Iraq war, $1 trillion on the credit card; Afghanistan on the credit card. If we're going to level with the American people, we have to acknowledge that we have to pay for things, whatever their intentions. The time is long overdue for us to accomplish this.

If we're going to be successful on the two things we must do--pay our bills, maintain our full faith and credit, and have a long-term fiscal plan--then everything must be on the table, and that has to include taxes as well as spending, and it must include the Pentagon.

Mr. Speaker, this is not an ideological battle to win. It's a practical problem to be solved.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One of the major decisions that this Congress has to make and for which we need a recommendation from the Appropriations Committee for the Defense Subcommittee is whether nation-building is a wise strategy, a sustainable strategy, an affordable strategy, and an effective strategy in Afghanistan. We had a debate on that policy. There was a bipartisan vote, with 204 Members suggesting it was time to call into question the wisdom, sustainability and effectiveness of nation- building.

One of the things that we have provided to our commanders in order for them to be able to do hearts-and-minds civic projects, roads, bridges, schools is a $400 million fund that they can use completely at their discretion. Now, this sounds like a good idea. If you're going to ask the military to win the hearts and minds, not just use military power to fight battles, then a discretionary fund can seemingly make some sense. The question, though, is, upon review, it turns out that these roads, these bridges, these canals, almost the moment they're turned over to the Afghan authorities, fall into disrepair, disuse and neglect. It's not surprising.

Number one, there is very little local government infrastructure in Afghanistan, and the fact that we build a road or a school doesn't necessarily mean there's a government or an authority there to be able to maintain it. So we build something, and the moment we turn the keys over, it falls into disuse and disrepair.

Second, the expenses of doing this are enormous. It may make sense to do these civic projects, to create some goodwill, but do you do them, Mr. Chairman, in the middle of a shooting war? Or is it better to do that before or after the war, when you have a chance for this implementation to occur?

Then, third, there's an immense amount of ripping off of this money from the American taxpayer. It gets lost. It gets picked up in graft that we all know about is too rampant in Afghanistan. According to a report in The Washington Post, half of this money, a minimum of $400 million, is gone missing, it's wasted, and it is coming out of our taxpayer pockets.

My amendment would cut in half the $400 million, reduce it to $200 million, basically taking away that $200 million that is being utterly wasted. This is a commonsense, practical way to save money by stopping a policy that may be good in theory but in practice is a failure.

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 4, 2011]

U.S.-Funded Infrastructure Deteriorates Once Under Afghan Control,

Report Says

(By Josh Boak)

Roads, canals and schools built in Afghanistan as part of a

special U.S. military program are crumbling under Afghan

stewardship, despite steps imposed over the past year to

ensure that reconstruction money is not being wasted,

according to government reports and interviews with military

and civilian personnel.

U.S. troops in Afghanistan have spent $2 billion over six

years on 16,000 humanitarian projects through the Commander's

Emergency Response Program, which gives a battalion-level

commander the power to treat aid dollars as ammunition.

A report slated for release this month reveals that CERP

projects can quickly slide into neglect after being

transferred to Afghan control. The Afghans had problems

maintaining about half of the 69 projects reviewed in eastern

Laghman province, according to an audit by the Special

Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The spending in Afghanistan is part of the $5 billion

provided to U.S. military commanders for projects in Iraq and

Afghanistan since 2004. The new report is the latest to

identify shortcomings and missteps in the program, whose

ventures have included the Jadriyah Lake park in Iraq,

planned as a water park but now barren two years after a U.S.

military inauguration ceremony.

The dilapidated projects in Afghanistan could present a

challenge to the U.S. strategy of shifting more

responsibility to Afghans. Investing in infrastructure, notes

President Obama's December review of the war, ``will give the

Afghan government and people the tools to build and sustain a

future of stability.''

``Sustainment is one of the biggest issues with our whole

strategy,'' said a civilian official who shared details from

a draft of the

report. ``The Afghans don't have the money or capacity to

sustain much.'' The official spoke on the condition of

anonymity because the Defense Department is preparing a

response to the audit.

Photos in the report show washed-out roads, with cracks and

potholes where improvised explosive devices can be hidden.

Among the projects profiled is a re-dredged canal that filled

with silt a month after opening.

Multiple reports by the Government Accountability Office

have noted a lack of monitoring by the Pentagon. And because

formal U.S. oversight stops after a project is turned over to

Afghans, it is difficult to gauge how projects are maintained

countrywide.

When asked whether the Afghans have trouble sustaining

projects, the U.S. military issued a statement saying it does

not have the information to provide an immediate answer.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in

Afghanistan, said in Senate testimony last year that CERP is

``the most responsive and effective means to address a local

community's needs.'' He previously relied on the

discretionary fund as the commanding general in Iraq, where

$3.5 billion has been spent through the program. Over the

past two years, Petraeus has pushed for stricter controls to

stop any fraud and waste.

In response to ``insufficient management,'' CERP guidance

for Afghanistan was revised in December 2009, according to a

statement by the military. The new guidance emphasizes the

need to meet with Afghan leaders when choosing what to fund.

It does not, however, require U.S. troops to continue

inspecting projects after they are placed under Afghan

control.

Under the guidance, an Afghan governor, mayor or bureaucrat

must sign a letter promising to fund maintenance and

operations. But an October SIGAR audit of projects in

Nangahar province found that only two of the 15 files

examined contained a signed letter. Nor is there formal

reporting to the national or provincial Afghan governments of

what was spent and built, the audit said. That makes it

difficult for Afghans to know what they are supposed to

maintain.

The provincial and district governments that take over the

projects do not have the money to sustain them because they

cannot collect taxes and they depend on the national

government for funding, said Army Maj. David Kaczmarek, the

civil affairs officer for Task Force Bastogne in eastern

Afghanistan.

To teach the local governments how to request additional

funds from Kabul, Kaczmarek helped launch a program in the

summer that uses CERP dollars for the operation and

maintenance of some projects.

The U.S. military tracks CERP projects with poorly

maintained computer databases. Before October 2009, the

database did not consistently record the villages or

districts where projects were undertaken, according to

military and civilian personnel who spoke on the condition of

anonymity because the master database is classified.

A civilian official who examined the contents of the

database for a government assessment said the military cannot

account for the spending without knowing the villages and

districts that were project recipients.

``Let's say the project is not working,'' the official

said. ``Why would we want to fund that project again the next

year? Very little evaluation was done to decide what we fund

next.''

The organizational problems have also frustrated attempts

to study the effectiveness of the $2 billion spent on CERP. A

paper co-written by Princeton University professor Jacob

Shapiro found that CERP funding helped reduce violence in

Iraq. Shapiro and his colleagues have struggled over the past

nine months to conduct a similar study for Afghanistan

because of the database.

``There's not a sense of how the program may or may not be

working in Afghanistan,'' Shapiro said.

Army Lt. Col. Brian Stoll tried to clean up the database

while serving in Kandahar last year. He champions CERP as a

way to build confidence in the Afghan government, despite the

mess he found.

Projects dating to 2006 had never been closed out, said

Stoll, who updated the files while working 12-hour days to

audit ongoing projects in southern Afghanistan.

We never got it all cleaned up,'' Stoll said. ``It was like

a Hydra. You get part of it cleaned up and you find some more

along the way.''

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, the American taxpayer is spending $2 billion a week in Afghanistan. Among the expenditures are payment for projects that are rebuilding infrastructure in Afghanistan--roads, bridges, schools, in some cases hospitals.

The Washington Post recently reported that the Afghan Government is taxing American aid. We send the money there to build a road. We have to hire contractors in order to do that, and the Afghan Government is trying to tax that money for their own coffers.

So it's not enough that our taxpayers are spending billions of dollars on projects to rebuild their infrastructure. The Afghan Government is literally trying to reach into the pocket and

double dip and tax our taxpayers for our taxpayers' generosity in giving them money. Now, how does that make any sense at all?

Among the things that the Afghan officials are doing, after this was reported, is stepping up their efforts to grab that cash. They are doing things like threatening to detain contractors. If they don't pay up, take money that's assigned to build that road and put that money in the Afghan coffers, they, the Afghan officials, are threatening, Mr. Chairman, to detain our contractors. They are denying licenses to our contractors, again, in an effort to do what I could only call a shakedown.

Third, they are revoking visas for unpaid tax bills. We are spending a substantial amount of our money rebuilding their infrastructure. We should not be taxed, nor should we allow our taxpayers, essentially, to be stuck up by the Afghan officials.

This amendment, offered by my colleague from Washington, Ms. Herrera Beutler, would end that practice.

So we believe this is overdue. There should be no tolerance for this double-dipping by the Afghan Government, and our amendment is an effort to crack down on that process.

I thank my colleague from Washington for joining me in the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Offered By: Mr. Welch

Amendment No. 116: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), add the following:

Offered By: Mr. Welch

Amendment No. 117: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, to govern is to choose. To write a budget is where governing makes choices.

My amendment raises the question as to whether or not spending $297 million for research in the next generation of fighter is the right choice to make at this time.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Bomber, yes.

I misspoke. The gentleman is correct--$297 million for the next generation of bomber. Is that the right choice?

Here's the question: Number one, it may be desirable, but is it affordable? The Office of Management and Budget did not include this as a recommendation in the budget, nor did the President, who is charged more than anyone else in this country with our national defense. We have the right, as a Congress, and the constitutional responsibility to make our own judgments.

Mr. Dicks does a great job at that, as does Mr. Young.

But we have to ask the question as to whether or not, when our Office of Management and Budget, our House Armed Services Committee both say that the current fleet of bombers--bombers, Mr. Dicks--is functioning very well, can we afford at this time $297 million for additional research?

Now, the question is, it may be desirable but is it affordable when we have this horrendous budget squeeze that we know is dividing this Congress because we have to make some very tough choices in the future.

The second question that comes up is whether something that may be desirable comes at a cost that is unacceptable. Now, the Defense budget is large,

unnecessarily so; but it is the one item of spending that has been exempt from cuts.

The Environmental Protection Agency is going to be down 15 percent, NASA down 10 percent. Yet the spending increase in the Pentagon is going to be substantial despite the enormous budget pressures in this ongoing, very serious debate we are having about revenues and taxes that embraces both sides of the aisle.

The third question is if it's necessary, is there some burden on those who have the responsibility of overseeing taxpayer dollars in the Defense budget to poke around and find that $300 million somewhere else in a nearly $700 billion budget?

So those are the questions. It's not a direct assertion that we must suspend forever research on the next generation of bombers, but it is asking those questions in this time: Just because something is desirable, does that make it affordable?

If it's desirable, at what cost does it come and, if it's necessary, are there other places in a $700 billion budget that we can find this $300 million to do research that will allow us to proceed, and that's what this amendment asks. It says tough choices for America have to begin here, and they have to include tough choices within the Pentagon budget.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, one of the central questions that Congress must address is whether to continue the policy and nation-building in Afghanistan. As previous speakers have indicated, it's expensive. It's also very questionable as to whether it's anything but a failure.

The cornerstone of the nation building program is the Commander's Emergency Response Program. That gives the commanders flexibility, at their own discretion, to authorize significant infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, the goal being to win hearts and minds of the Afghan citizens. When you lay it out by its intentions, it's a very reasonable tool to provide to our commanders. The problem is the evidence is in, and it has been a failure.

The $400 million Commander's Emergency Response Program, CERP, is a central component of what I believe is a failed nation building strategy. And the fundamental question here is this: Does the Defense appropriations bill double down on the nation building approach which has been drawn into such question?

Now, of the CERP development dollars, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, SIGAR, about half of the CERP projects reviewed were unsustainable and fell into disrepair immediately following their transfer into Afghan hands. That failure of sustainment is real, and it is not subject to something that we can control here.

So the question that we have to ask on behalf of our military strategy is, is the money being used in a way that's effective? From the perspective of the Afghans, is it being used on projects that are sustainable? And the evidence, on the basis of our SIGAR report, is the answer is ``no.'' And it's not surprising. You know, we've got to get a bit real about this, whatever your position is on Afghanistan. If you have a government that has no infrastructure of civil service, that doesn't even have the capacity to do the sustainment, they don't have a civil service that can go out and maintain and repair the roads and other projects, is it realistic to expect that they will?

When you have a government that is corrupt, for whatever reason, but where the money that gets injected by the U.S. taxpayer into these projects, with the best of intentions, gets siphoned off into paying off people who have positions of authority, is that a wise use of our taxpayer dollar? Is it going to help our military ultimately be successful? So the question that we have a responsibility to answer is whether this tool of nation building makes sense.

One of the other questions that I think is fair to ask: Many of us have been to Afghanistan, and we've met with some of our USAID people, our State Department people who are out there, our military people of course, trying to implement these projects, Mr. Speaker. The amount of security that is required in order to allow people to do the simplest of projects in the middle of a shooting war is an enormous expense. And the question that comes to mind for me, and I think many Americans, is this: Does it make sense to do these infrastructure projects, these hearts and minds projects in the middle of a shooting war, or are those things that have to be done before or after? That's really the question.

So the intention of this program makes sense. The flexibility for our commanders they see as desirable. It is a tool that they can use. But we have had 10 years now of history. We have had a fully blown report by SIGAR that has said it just doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

So is it time for this Congress to call the question about the wisdom and the efficacy of this nation building tool, the CERP programs that fall into disrepair immediately upon their completion?

Our amendment calls the question, Mr. Speaker. And it would cut in half, which is about the amount that's documented to be wasted, the amount that is spent by U.S. taxpayers on these nation building activities in Afghanistan.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Offered By: Mr. Welch

Amendment No. 85: Page 31, line 6, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(reduced by $297,023,000)''.

Page 161, line 12, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $297,023,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Welch

Amendment No. 90: Page 127, line 18, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $200,000,000)''.

Page 149, line 16, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $200,000,000)''.

Page 161, line 12, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $200,000,000)''.