The Hill Report

This week in Washington, the House of Representatives continued its work on appropriations bills that will provide funding for government operations for fiscal year (FY) 2008.

Once again, the Democrat Majority in the House engaged in a cynical political ploy during consideration of the FY 2008 Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Act, forcing me and several of my Republican colleagues to vote against the bill.

The underlying legislation spends a total of $34.243 billion, increasing levels for State and Foreign Operations by 9.5% – or $2.966 billion – over last year. At the same time, Democrats have proposed and voted for massive tax increases, including the largest tax increase in American history. But most troubling is the bill’s attempt to alter a long-standing U.S. policy on funding foreign abortions known as the “Mexico City Policy.”

In 1984, President Reagan established the “Mexico City Policy” requiring any foreign nongovernmental organization (NGO) receiving federal funding from the U.S. for family planning activities to agree not to perform or actively promote abortions. President George H.W. Bush adopted the “Mexico City Policy” as well, as did President Clinton after public opinion caused him to reverse his original decision to rescind it.

The Majority this week shattered the two-decade old détente, and did so in a political move expressly designed to force the President to veto the Foreign Operations bill. Unfortunately, their ploy also forced several of my colleagues and me to vote against the legislation.

This was an exceptionally difficult decision for me in light of the pro-Israel provisions in the bill. The Foreign Operations bill provides funding for Israel’s defense, funding that supports Israel both militarily and economically. It is my goal to help Israel maintain its military advantage as the only fully democratic country in the Middle East. Consequently, I joined over two dozen of my colleagues in signing a letter [insert link to website] re-emphasizing that our vote against the Foreign Operations bill was in no way a reflection of any change in our support of Israel, which remains steadfast.


Energy and Water Appropriations
Earlier this week, the House considered the FY2008 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which funds our nation’s water infrastructure, domestic energy sources, and nuclear weapons and nonproliferation programs.

Following their tradition of tax and spend, House Democrats have called for $31.6 billion for the Energy and Water bill – which is $1.13 billion more than what the President requested, and $1.3 billion more than FY2007. Since the President has promised to veto any appropriations bill that exceeds his spending request, this bill is nothing more than veto bait that the Majority Party knows has little chance of becoming law.

While the Majority Party proposed huge spending increases in many energy and water programs, they chose to cut $632 million from the President’s request for nuclear defense programs funded annually under this legislation, jeopardizing our ability to ensure the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons programs. More specifically, these cuts will affect critical national security programs at the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories in New Mexico, which ensure the safety of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and develop technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction.

In addition to curtailing our nation’s nuclear weapons programs, this flawed bill prevents funds from being used to conduct public-private competitions for any Army Corps of Engineer program, project or activity. This prohibition includes private sector contracts for everything from janitorial and food services to the engineering and design of locks and dams – services and projects that private sector contractors have done competitively for years at the federal, state and local levels.

In response, I offered an amendment to eliminate this ill-designed prohibition on private sector contracts. By introducing competition and leveraging the government’s size to reduce equipment maintenance and replacement, the government could save almost a billion dollars – but without my amendment, similar future efforts will be impossible. Unfortunately, my amendment was defeated by a vote of 164 – 259.

If enacted, this prohibition on contracting represents an enormous setback for competition in government sourcing and risks costing the federal government millions of dollars annually by preventing private sector contracting in the Army Corps of Engineers.

Competitions completed since 2003 are expected to produce almost $7 billion in savings for taxpayers over the next 5-10 years. This means that taxpayers will receive a return of about $31 for every dollar spent on competition – with annualized expected savings of more than $1 billion. Unfortunately, this legislation proposes eliminating such savings.

While eliminating government contracting may be good for increasing dues payments to public sector union bosses, it is unquestionably bad for taxpayers and for federal agencies – because these agencies will have less money to spend on their core missions if the opportunity to use competition and private sector efficiencies is taken away from them.

In this time of stretched budgets and bloated federal spending, Congress should be looking to use all of the tools it can to find taxpayer savings and reduce the cost of services that can be easily found in a phone book.

As Congress completes its work on the remaining seven appropriations bills in the coming weeks, I will continue to work for fiscal responsibility and government transparency because I believe that the America people deserves to know how their hard-earned tax dollars are spent.