	id AA20038; Sun, 19 Feb 95 04:46:36 CST
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4 Num. 04


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4  Num. 04
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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75 SPECIFIC DISCRETIONARY CUTS
==============================
 
[From the *Congressional Record*, Feb. 7, 1995, H1285-H1286]
 
THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE:
Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 1995, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] is recognized during morning 
business for 5 minutes.
 
 
MR. GOSS:
Mr. Speaker, today I present my annual list of specific spending 
cut suggestions. I introduced these yesterday in the *Record* [CN 
-- see below]. Today I want to talk a little bit about them and 
elaborate on them.
 
These are 75 discretionary cuts which would save an estimated 
$275 billion, those are taxpayer dollars, over the next 5 years. 
That is just about double the amount of spending cuts the 
President has offered us in his most recent budget package.
 
These savings could be produced without touching a single non- 
discretionary item. Let me put that into English for the rest of 
America. Non-discretionary item would mean entitlement, and that 
translates into Social Security, Medicare and so forth, Medicaid. 
This list of budget cuts I am submitting does not touch Social 
Security, Medicare, Medicaid or any of those items that we call 
entitlements. It is only the discretionary items, the things that 
we control the purse strings on here in the House of 
Representatives, the power of the purse as it were.
 
It is imperative that before we ask Americans to sacrifice any of 
their earned benefits we demonstrate an ability to root out the 
hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful spending in this 
Government. And that is not just rhetoric. That is something that 
the Grace Commission, the GAO, anybody who has looked at our 
spending here will tell you, that every year we have waste by the 
billions, by the tens of billions, by the hundreds of billions.
 
How in the world are we going to balance the budget and do all of 
these things we have promised if we have that kind of waste at 
that level? The answer is we are not until we get at it, and the 
hard work of pinning down the specifics has got to start 
somewhere. That is why we submit our list of what could be cut.
 
Mr. Speaker, an administration official was quoted in Sunday's 
Washington Post as saying that, "While the deficit is not 
optimal, it is not out of control." Let me tell my colleagues, 
the national debt is $4.5 trillion. The debt service on that is 
about $250 billion every year, every year, $250 billion, so that 
is a trillion every 4 years just in interest payments. Put 
simply, this empty rhetoric does not put, in my view, the 
administration in a very good light. I wonder what an optimal 
debt situation would be.
 
The White House has consistently ignored the tremendous waste and 
duplicative spending in the Federal budget and our Federal 
Government. We have seen that in the budget that they sent up. 
Instead of opting to try to reduce the deficit through tax hikes 
and on the backs of senior citizens, they should be looking at 
cuts, not raising taxes.
 
Mr. Speaker, the American people sent a powerful message to this 
Congress that was loud and clear, and it was cut spending and do 
it now, get rid of the waste, the redundancy, the out-of-date, 
the off-target, the things we do not need anymore. The American 
people did not say trim a little here or trim a little there. The 
American people did not say move with caution and go slow. The 
American people told this Congress to look for any and all 
wasteful spending and get rid of it, take it out.
 
The Vice President complained yesterday that "Republicans haven't 
put any cuts on the table." Well, they cannot say that anymore, 
because the cuts are out there for all to see, a list of 75 
totalling $275 billion over the next 5 years. I stand before this 
Congress with most of the same cuts I introduced in the past two 
terms, and some of them which we have made some progress on, but 
most of them have gone untouched. So we are still able to come 
forward with a list of waste of 75 items.
 
I invite the administration to debate us on the specifics. Tell 
us why we need to be spending $140 million on grants to prepare 
youths and adults to be homemakers. Explain to the American 
people why when 99 percent of America's farmers have electricity 
and 98 percent have phones we need to be spending billions of 
dollars in assistance to rural electric and telephone utilities.
 
The American people deserve better. They need answers. They 
deserve full debate on these and other programs that serve narrow 
special interests rather than the collective good of our country 
and all taxpayers.
 
Mr. Speaker, we must strive to move beyond the rhetoric, to 
achieve the fundamental change that we talk about here with real 
action and with specifics. It is time to debate real spending 
cuts and real fiscal reform, and I am confident if we do we 
actually will have taken a very important step toward restoring 
fiscal responsibility and, perhaps even more than that, 
retaining, restoring some of the credit that this institution 
needs to build with the American people.
 
We have done the balanced budget program in the House. We have 
passed it. We have done that unfunded mandates program in the 
House. We have passed it. We did the line item veto. {1}. We did 
it yesterday, we passed it. We are going to be talking about and 
going to introduce a supermajority to raise taxes. Those are all 
critically important tools to get a handle on spending, to make 
sure we do the right thing.
 
But the proof will come. Do we have the courage, do we have the 
wisdom to pick out the things that are true waste and start 
chopping them? That is actually the easiest part of the job. If 
it is not doing much for very many Americans, then why are we 
spending a lot of money on it? Usually the answer is political. 
"Well, it's in my district," or "I hate to do something to that 
program to cut it." That is something we cannot be doing anymore. 
We cannot afford it, and it is not good expenditure of money.
 
Accountability time has come, and we welcome accountability time, 
and I welcome the American people to take a look at our list of 
75 cuts.
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
[From the *Congressional Record*, Feb. 6, 1995, H1265-H1266]
 
Thrifty Fifty Plus: Seventy-Five Suggestions
--------------------------------------------
 
       (In millions of dollars/5 years)          Savings
Cancel the National Aerospace Plane
  (NASP)....................................        300
Continue partial civilian hiring freeze at
  Department of Defense.....................      6,850
Eliminate below-cost timber sales from
  National Forests..........................        235
Lower target prices for subsidized crops
  3 percent annually........................     11,000
Eliminate the Market Promotion Program......        500
End the Federal Crop Insurance Program and
  replace with standing authority for
  disaster assistance.......................      1,660
Limit Federal highway spending to the amount
  brought in by motor vehicle fuel taxes....      8,850
Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act..................      3,080
Reduce Commodity Credit Corporation
  subsidies for those with off-farm incomes
  over $100,000.............................        660
Reduce the Attending Physician Office by
  33 percent................................        2.5
Fully implement H.R. 2452 (102nd) to
  provide additional energy conservation
  measures for Federal agencies.............      1,900
Enact H.R. 1620 (103rd) to prohibit direct
  Federal benefits and unemployment
  benefits to illegal aliens................     27,000
Eliminate the Tobacco Price-Support Program         100
Consolidate the Bureau of Indian Affairs....         53
Close 20 under-utilized black lung offices..        0.3
Allow private sector investment in the
  Space Shuttle.............................      1,522
Eliminate Rural Economic and Community-
  Development (RECD) duplication with the
  Small Business Administration (SBA).......        913
Eliminate the Rural Electric Administration.      3,000
Terminate all highway "demonstration
  projects".................................      2,500
Lower the travel budgets of all non-postal,
  civilian agencies by 15 percent...........        858
Lower by 10 percent per annum the projected
  growth rate of non-postal, civilian
  agency's overhead (excluding travel)......     64,000
Abolish Cotton Price Support and Loan
  Programs..................................     12,700
Cut the Foreign Aid budget (150 Account)
  by 15 percent and make all earmarks in
  that account subject to a two-thirds
  vote for passage..........................     13,125
Phase out the Foreign Agricultural
  Service Cooperation funding...............        150
Eliminate the Appalachian Regional
  Commission................................        690
Roll back Congressional pay raise to
  $89,500...................................        118
Sell the National Helium Reserves to a
  joint venture comprised of current
  employees and other private investors.....        692
Reduce the "Franking" allocation to Members
  of Congress by 50 percent.................        167
Cut National Endowment for the Arts by
  50 percent................................      2,600
Cut funding for the Corporation for Public
  Broadcasting by 50 percent................        883
Phase out subsidies for AMTRAK..............      2,660
Phase out ACTION (umbrella organization for
  domestic volunteer activities) as a
  tax-supported program.....................        660
Facilitate contracting out and privatization
  of military commissaries..................      4,170
Terminate the Interstate Commerce
  Commission................................        188
Phase out U.S. Fire Administration..........         10
End funding for all non-energy Tennessee
  Valley Authority (TVA) activities.........        580
Eliminate Essential Air Services subsidies..        195
Eliminate Consumer Homemaking grants........        140
Privatize the House and Senate Gymnasiums...        1.1
Reduce the Legislative Branch Appropriations
  by 20 percent.............................      2,844
Reduce the Executive Office of the President
  appropriation by 20 percent...............        284
Close the Bureau of Mines and merge its data
  gathering activities with other Interior
  Department research agencies..............        140
Raise the level and schedule of the Power
  Marketing Administration's debt repayment.        970
Eliminate the Clean Coal Program............        300
Reduce the fill rate for the Strategic
  Petroleum Reserve.........................      1,000
End all new Bureau of Water Reclamation
  water projects............................      7,400
Eliminate the Dairy Subsidy Program.........      5,000
Merge the Agricultural Research Service, the
  Cooperative State Research Service, and
  the Agricultural Extension Service; cut
  funding by 50 percent.....................      3,950
Privatize the Government National Mortgage
  Association (Ginnie Mae)..................      2,000
Eliminate the Economic Development
  Administration............................      1,140
Eliminate non-targeted vocational State
  funding...................................      3,400
Consolidate the administrative costs of the
  AFDC, Food Stamps, and Medicaid programs..      6,300
Replace new public housing construction with
  vouchers..................................        610
Increase Medicare safeguard funding by $540
  million over 5 years (net savings)........      5,400
Eliminate the Legal Services Corporation....      1,900
End postal subsidies to not-for-profit
  organizations (excluding blind and
  handicapped individuals)..................      2,000
Eliminate HUD special-purpose grants........        990
Reform vacation and overtime for the Senior
  Executive Service.........................        540
Eliminate DOD [Dept. of Defense] payments
  for indirect research and development;
  substitute direct R&D.....................     14,740
Reduce DOE [Dept. of Energy] energy tech-
  nology spending...........................      2,550
Scale back Rural Rental Housing Assistance
  Program...................................      1,400
Reduce mass transit grants; eliminate
  operating subsidies.......................      6,250
Eliminate Rural Development Association
  loans and guarantees......................      1,380
Eliminate "Impact Aid" to school districts
  with military bases.......................      3,850
Consolidate Social Services programs........      1,000
Reduce NIH [Nat. Inst. Health] funding by
  10 percent, concentrating on overhead.....      4,900
Freeze the number of rental assistance
  commitments...............................      5,700
Scale back Low Income Home Energy Assistance
  Grants....................................      5,150
Service Contract Act reform.................        900
Reduce overhead in federally-sponsored
  university research.......................      1,000
Strengthen and restructure NASA
  (NPR proposal)............................      1,500
Eliminate redundant polar satellite
  programs..................................        250
Streamline HUD..............................        144
Reform prison construction..................        580
Eliminate Travel, Tourism and Export
  Promotion Administration..................      1,002
 
-------------------------<< Notes >>-----------------------------
{1} Regarding the line item veto: Bill Moyers, on or about Feb. 
15, 1995, in a commentary on the NBC Nightly News, stated that 
there are loopholes in the line item veto. He specifically 
mentioned that large pharmaceutical companies, big contributors 
to congressional campaign funds, can wriggle out of it.
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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