Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.J. Res. 50 in order to emphasize my support of term limits under H.J. Res. 6.

Madam Speaker, I thank Chairman Huizenga for the work on this with Patrick McHenry and the folks on the other side of the aisle. It is nice to come here and see something that is truly collaborative and underway that helps businesses.

Prior to coming to Congress last year, I spent the past 16 years growing manufacturing companies in Ohio, so I know firsthand how difficult it is to acquire capital to start and operate and grow small businesses. Businesses that overcome the challenges are faced with numerous regulatory roadblocks that further hinder their growth. Many of those have come at the hands of regulatory frame works like Dodd- Frank.

But this bipartisan measure that we are talking about today has the opportunity to help the challenges with capital acquisition that government has created and continues to create. Currently, the Investment Company Act of 1940 requires any qualified venture fund over 100 to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The real burden of these regulations hits small companies in middle America like Ohio's Eighth District where, unlike major cities, particularly on the coast, we do not have as many options for raising capital.

Not every company seeks to become the next billion-dollar blockbuster, but some of them do. All these companies offer great jobs and give many people the dignity of work, but they can also provide great returns. So we are crowding out investment opportunities, and we are crowding out job opportunities.

This is why I am pleased to support H.R. 1219, the Supporting America's Innovators Act of 2017, which simply increases the cap to allow up to 250 investors to be exempt from registration for qualified venture capital funds, allowing America's small businesses the flexibility to operate and grow their companies, hire employees, and innovate.

Last year, this Congress passed legislation similar to H.R. 1219 on a bipartisan vote of 388-9. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 1219 and, perhaps, increase its margin of victory.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to address this body, and I rise today to talk about H.R. 1469, the Welfare BRAC Act.

Before going into the specifics of the bill, I would like to talk for a little bit about how we have arrived at a point of needing such a fundamental restructuring of our Nation's antipoverty programs.

In 2015, the Federal Government spent $843 billion on welfare programs, means-tested welfare programs. By some estimates, we have spent more than $22 trillion on antipoverty programs over the past 50 years. Today, we have some 92 antipoverty programs run

by the Federal Government, all supposedly with the same goal: to alleviate poverty.

This chart to my left highlights those programs. If you look: 5, cash aid; 25, education and training; 2, for energy; 17, for food aid, and on goes the list.

So how did we come here? Well, as Ronald Reagan said: ``Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this Earth.''

Why is that true? Well, it is true because touching some of these programs is very polarizing. So when you touch them, they all have a constituency. And the reality is, if the 15th food aid program worked well, then the 16th wouldn't be launched. So if you want to address a new problem, well, then you launch the 17th food aid program.

What doesn't happen over the time is finding a way to get those programs to work together to be a coherent whole. So the solution, really in a lot of ways, is bipartisan. The Brookings Institution is rarely an ally to conservatives, and the Heritage Foundation is rarely an ally to the left. Yet they would both agree that employment, healthy marriages, and education alleviate poverty.

In fact, many of our programs, when we look at these listed, seek to address those needs. There are 92 programs. Maslow, in the hierarchy of needs, just addressed 5, and we have 92.

I think about the young social worker who wants to help someone who comes into the office and perhaps each of these programs has a 4-inch binder--a 4-inch thick binder, 92 of them. That is a pretty big bookshelf. What if she only had to know 20 programs? What if there were only 20 binders? What if there were only 5? What if there were 10?

I don't know whether the right number is a dozen or 20, but I don't think it is 92. So what is the solution? Well, I have a bipartisan solution that looks back to the history.

So in the Cold War, we had a very large Army, and, as we scaled down, it was very politically sensitive to try to deal with the problems of scaling down. Each base, each installation, had its own constituency, and so we created BRAC, the Base Closure and Realignment Commission. And the goal there was to have a quantitative set of objectives and to have a commission that was bipartisan that gave Congress a straight up- or-down vote. That worked, by and large, and we were able to scale down the military in a way that let the military focus on its mission.

So what I propose with H.R. 1469, the Welfare Benefit Realignment Commission, is a four-Republican, four-Democrat commission, totally neutral. It also does not seek to take away a dime of spending in it. It seeks to reduce the number of programs so that the result is more focused.

When Lyndon Johnson launched his war on poverty, he said that the goal was to not just treat the symptoms but to find a cure and, if possible, to prevent poverty all together.

So perhaps if we had a more focused effort, perhaps if we all focused on the cause, instead of the programs, we could see results. Some of these programs are clearly more effective than others at helping people get out of poverty, yet the reality is, Americans have seen roughly the same percentage of their fellow Americans in poverty for the entire war on poverty.

So if we look at these programs under the same three goals-- employment, marriage, and education--perhaps we can find things that are effective that lift people out, really, at the end of the day, giving as many people as possible the dignity of work and a path to escape poverty into a better future.

In fact, this path is very compatible with the Better Way agenda that we have laid out for poverty for the years. It is not focused on dollars. It is focused on efficiency. Later in the year, we are seeking to provide off ramps so that you don't find a trap in the ``Better Way.'' You don't find a trap--if you get a raise, you lose your housing, or if you take that next job, or you get married, you lose your education benefits, things that would provide an on-ramp and an off-ramp for this system.

So that is part of the agenda for the year for the House. I think this is very compatible with it. I am seeking cosponsors. I am seeking support for this bill, and it truly is with a spirit of embracing the common American value of providing a safety net for their fellow Americans, but they want it to be effective.

So this is not about the cause. The cause is good, and fewer programs lets it be more focused and, hopefully, get a good result.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about Welfare BRAC, an opportunity to reorganize our 92 social safety net programs.

Mr. Speaker, I call attention to the 92 programs that, over time, since the Great Society, our country has launched. I call attention to Ronald Reagan's prescient quote about the near eternity of government programs. It is very hard to take a program away once it is launched, and this plan acts on The Brookings Institution's data, which has rarely been accused of being on the right side of the political ideology.

It says that if we do three things, we will eliminate 80 percent of poverty: graduate high school, work full-time at any wage, and have no kids outside of marriage.

This program that I am proposing in this bill, H.R. 1469, the Welfare Benefit Reform and Alignment Commission, would nominate four Republicans and four Democrats. They would have 1 year to work together until September 30, 2018, to prioritize not taking any money away, but taking the 92 programs and making them fewer.

So if you think about the social worker out in the country trying to help somebody who is in a social safety net, each of these programs may have a 4-inch binder. I don't think we need 92. Maybe it is 6; maybe it is 12. It is not 92.

I encourage my colleagues to support this and work together to make this a more efficient program so we can help meet their needs.

``. . . to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

``To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

``To establish post offices and post roads; . . .''