May 11, 1976
Page 13430
FEDERAL PROGRAMS, REGULATIONS, AND AGENCIES MUST BE REFORMED TO PRESERVE FREEDOM
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. KEMP) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. KEMP. Mr. Speaker, I introduced legislation this afternoon to help reform and restore control over the Federal Government. This legislation is of great importance, especially when its purpose and procedures are coupled with the other reforms I have proposed.
The legislation which I introduced this afternoon would do a number of things at this Bicentennial year.
First, it provides for the elimination of inactive and overlapping Federal programs.
Second, it requires authorizations of new budget authority for programs and activities at least every 4 years, and no authorization could be for longer than 4 years.
Third, it mandates a procedure for zero base review and evaluation of programs and activities, again on a 4-year cycle, assuring that each program and activity either rejustify itself to the satisfaction of the Congress or be eliminated.
Fourth, it requires a consolidated financial statement for each fiscal year based on an accrual system of accounting, so we know exactly to what we are obligating ourselves in dollar terms each year.
Last, it requires disclosure of the projected costs and savings of actions proposed through bills and joint resolutions of the Congress at the time of their introduction.
In short, this legislation is a Federal "sunset law".
Sunset laws have already been enacted by some of the States, and several measures have been introduced in Congress with respect to the Federal Government. The bill which I introduced today, for example, is patterned after but builds upon a measure introduced on February 3, by Senator EDMUND MUSKIE of Maine, the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget, S. 2925.
These measures are called sunset laws because of the procedure they set forth. A program, an activity, an agency put in place to administer a program or activity, and a bureaucracy to sustain it — the sun sets, so to speak, upon each of these unless they are rejustified and reauthorized in a specific time frame. Instead of a program or activity being continued and funded year after year — for no apparent reason other than the fact that it existed during the prior year — these sunset laws establish a mechanism to force a reexamination of the value of the program of activity.
A sunset law gives us an opportunity, therefore, to eliminate or reform programs and activities, to reduce costs to the taxpayers, to reduce the number of Government workers, to enhance efficiency and reduce red tape by combining otherwise duplicating functions, and even to more carefully examine programs before they become law in the first place.
Sunset laws alone will not do all that is necessary to bring Government under more effective control of the legislative branch, and the Constitution is very clear on this point that it is the legislative branch which has this responsibility. Government will not be brought back into its rightful — that of servant to the people instead of their master — until a change in attitude about the role of Government in relation to society as a whole takes effect and is felt in the legislative chambers. But the sunset laws are, beyond question, very important steps in the right direction.
THE WAY GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS TODAY
The significance of putting these procedures into place cannot be overstated. These procedures stand in marked contrast with the way government functions today, and there can be little doubt but that the Federal Government is virtually out of control.
It continues to accumulate power over our lives — and to exercise it.
It spends more money in every year that goes by, and it persists in mortgaging our future by deficit financing much of that spending.
It continues to grow out of proportion to the rest of society.
It willingly — forcefully, if need be — assumes responsibilities which previously rested with the people.
Its rules and regulations have grown so cumbersome as to tie down almost any decision making into a bundle of red tape.
And, if all of these things are not bad enough, consider the reality that neither the Congress nor the administration, today's or yesterday's with respect to both, have dealt effectively with the problem.
In far too many instances, the Congress has become captive of the Government workers who advocate a continuation or expansion of their own programs, budgets and agencies, and of the special interests which threaten retaliation at the voting booths in the next election unless their projects are kept going or new ones started, no matter what the effects on the common good, the general welfare, the general interest.
In far too many instances, the elected heads of the Government — the President and Vice President — and the appointed and confirmed heads of the departments and agencies have become little more than spokesmen for the bureaucracy below them, responding more to what the bureaucrats think should be the administration's program than to what the people think should be such a program, a process known colloquially here in Washington as "marrying the natives."
GOVERNMENT TODAY IS INCREASINGLY ACTING IN ITS OWN INTEREST AND NOT IN THE PEOPLES'
The effects have become obvious. Inefficiency in government has become the norm instead of the exception. So has delay. Confused as to both purpose and means, government alternates erratically between doing too much and doing too little. In sum — and I believe this is the question to which the reforms now being proposed ultimately turn — government in America today increasingly acts in its own interest and not in the interest of the people whose purpose it ought to be to serve.
Let me speak for a moment to this point.
The most common ways in which any government advances its own interests were spelled out quite clearly in the Declaration of Independence: Burdensome taxes, excessive regulation, creation of a multitude of offices and appointments of agents, altering the Government, frustration of the people's aspirations, regarding rights as alienable, depriving people of much of their earnings, and in undermining that "pursuit of happiness" to which the Declaration refers.
There is a very familiar ring in 1976 to those points. Instead of being the principal means of protecting individual freedom, government has become the means by which it is most often infringed. Instead of facilitating the pursuit of happiness, it has become a burden to be borne by the people. And this has come as a product of the growth of Government and the pursuit of Government's own self-interests.
We see more clearly every day that the vision of the Government in Washington as a benevolent, grandfather image Uncle Sam — acting always in the best interests of the people — is out of touch with the reality of a government there increasingly serving its own ends. And those ends are reinforced through a triangular power structure — the majority party leadership of the congressional committees, the bureaucracy, and the special interests. And, there is little input by either the people, or by the President, or even by a majority of Members of Congress irrespective of party.
When government reaches the point that it is more to be tolerated than to be supported, something is wrong with the relationship between the people and government — regarding their relative positions as to which is the master and which is the servant. This is 1976.
There has been an erosion of freedom within the United States. It has been gradual, but it seems to be gathering momentum.
A gradual erosion is freedom's most effective enemy. Freedom is not generally lost by the forces of violent attack. Those specific incidents when revolution and upheaval did quickly destroy freedom were preceded by an intellectual evolution which made those acts both possible and allowable.
The danger to freedom is not as obvious as it was in 1776. Today the enemy is not resplendent in bright Redcoat uniforms. The outcome is not as definitive as to be measured in terms of "liberty or death."
These less immediately obvious threats must, therefore, be a cause of great concern among all who cherish freedom. The nature of the remainder of our natural lives and those of future generations will be governed in great degree by our present ability to perceive these threats and to undertake successfully those efforts required to restrain them. These are the efforts which ought to form the basis for a renewed American spirit.
We must remember that when Government intervention is sought, freedom runs that risk of further decline to which I have already made reference. And, inasmuch as those within Government — elected or appointed — too often regard their roles as, and measure their successes through, the promulgation of Government initiatives, the results should be obvious. More and more Government. Less and less freedom.
Through the enactment of a multitude of program activities, Government has taken unto itself the exercise of functions once regarded as the province of private conduct. And, whether one regards a specific Government intervention or influence as good or bad, one still ought to weigh the impact of the totality of extensive and still growing Government regulation over the exercise of personal freedom.
It is almost impossible to itemize the areas of conduct now subject to Federal regulation because there are so many, but a cursory examination of any Government organizational chart shows us the areas of our lives now subject to that regulation: health, education, welfare, labor, commerce, housing, transportation, finance, agriculture, environment, communications, wages and prices, energy, labor-management relations, trade, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, savings, community relations, civil affairs, land use, natural resource use, recreation, commodities, securities, insurance, marketing, consumer affairs, productivity, nutrition, travel, economic development, shipping, vocational and career opportunities, employment standards, occupational safety, child development, retirement, rehabilitation, interest rates, credit availability, land sales, aviation, railroads, highway safety, institutionalized voluntarism, arts and humanities, equal employment opportunity, export-import terms, trucking, small business, veterans, postal service, ad infinitum.
The point is this: As Government assumed each of the many components within each of these subject areas, it removed decision making from the people, a process inherently antithetical to the exercise of free choice. Some of these are, indeed, necessary and are clearly in the interest of the people, the general welfare. But, taken all together, government as a cure-all is diminishing freedom.
Unfortunately, this process of rapid and substantial growth of Government is not diminishing. It is not even slowing.
Federal budget outlays have doubled in the 6 years in which I have been in the Congress — as has also the public debt. The Federal budget for fiscal year 1977 will be at least $395 billion — some $111 billion over the budget only 2 years ago. It took this country 185 years to get to an annual Federal spending level of $100 billion, but it took only 9 more years to double that to the $200 billion level, only 4 more years to reach the $300 billion annual level, and only 2 more years to reach the almost $400 billion mark — from $100 billion to $400 billion in only 15 years.
The mushrooming national public debt has reached $627 billion — nearly two-thirds of a trillion dollars. It took us over 150 years after 1789 to reach the $200 billion debt mark, then less than 20 years to double it to $400 billion, and then only 10 more years to add another $100 billion. But the rise in the debt quickened in the past year. We have added another $127 billion in the past 16 months.
The average amount of taxes the Federal Government will have to collect from every man, woman, and child in the Nation to meet expenses this year is $1,750 — or $7,000 for the average family of four. Of course, because deficit financing is a principal source of financing Federal programs today, the Federal Government will actually collect in taxes an average of about $1,415 for every man, woman, and child in the Nation — or $5,660 for that family of four. The remainder will be taken from them, of course, in decreased purchasing power — inflation arising from monetizing the deficit.
Look at the bureaucracy which this spending sustains. Between 1789 and 1974, the population of our country multiplied by 60 times. The bureaucracy multiplied by 8,170 times. Between 1930 and 1976, while the population grew 71 percent, the bureaucracy grew by 462 percent. In 1930, 1 of every 204 people was employed by the Federal Government. Today, it is 1 of every 77. And, in our work force of about 85 million, 1 out of every 6½ employees is on a Government payroll of one form or another.
Look at the controls over our lives — and our economy — which this funding and this bureaucracy sustain. The United States Code Annotated, the basic compilation of congressionally enacted statutes, now totals more than 55,000 pages. The Code of Federal Regulations — consisting of the rules and regulations which carry those statutes into effect and which have the same full force of law — totals hundreds of thousands of pages. The Internal Revenue Code — the tax laws under which we all live — is now nearly 1,900 pages long, and the regulations which carry those tax laws into effect constitute another 4,500 pages. In addition, one is governed by the rulings and regulations of a myriad of Federal agencies, bureaus, departments, commissions, administrations, offices, and boards, as well as the rulings of our vast court networks.
We have come a long way since Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from the Mount — only 10 rules to govern our lives.
WHY THE BUREAUCRACY GROWS AND GROWS
Why has there been such an inordinate growth in government in recent years?
There are many reasons for this growth. For example, the general interest has been repeatedly forced to yield to an ever increasing number of special interests. Members of Congress, wishing to enact new and larger programs which would be subject to their control through the committee process and this triangle of power to which I have referred, have contributed to this growth.
There are many other reasons too.
But there is a reason for the growth of government which relates specifically to our discussion today. It is the inherent characteristic of government to grow. And the best way to look at this reason is to contrast motivations in the private and public sectors.
The free enterprise economy — the economy of the private sector — dictates that waste and duplication be guarded against. In such an economy it is in a person's self-interest to serve the interests of others. In order to gain access to material goods and thus satisfy his own wants and needs, a person must first earn income by supplying in a market something which is valued by other people. This individual must of necessity consider the wants and needs of others. This is the way to assure the greatest growth in the common good too, for the best way to promote the welfare of all the people is to allow people the maximum amount of personal liberty, individual action, and freedom of enterprise.
These self-interests do not stop in a person when he assumes a position in government. The market restraints which channeled that self-interest to the benefit of society do stop. Without these market restraints, the pursuit of self-interest can become identified too readily with those of government, or one of its departments or agencies, or one's own position within it. For example, a problem resolved is one less from which to justify increases in statutory or regulatory power and agency authority, and one less from which to justify more funds and staff slots in the budget and management process. In a government of fiercely vying interests among departments and agencies for percentages of overall employee slots and funds, the greater the likelihood of getting them if you have more and more to do — year after year. The best way to assure this, of course, is to constantly add to the workload. And the best way to do that is to finish less and less. Delay is the best way to do it. This observation is not to cast a blanket aspersion on government employees' conduct, for this is often an unconscious process. But the consequences are the same.
GROWING AWARENESS OF PROBLEM WILL MAKE ITS RESOLUTION MORE POSSIBLE
I am encouraged by a rapidly growing awareness of the problem of government grown too big. A better understanding of the problem will lead, inevitably, to attempts to deal with it.
What is most encouraging of all, however, is the way in which efforts to deal with the problem cut across — as they should and must — the traditional separations of political party and philosophy.
Both Republicans and Democrats are at the forefront of this issue, as are liberals, moderates, and conservatives.
It cannot be overlooked either that the principal Senate bill, S. 2925, was introduced by Senator MUSKIE, the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President in 1968 and an acknowledged spokesman for liberal forces in our country, and was cosponsored by Senator BARRY GOLDWATER of Arizona, the Republican Party's candidate for President in 1964 and an acknowledged spokesman for conservative causes in our country.
Because I am offering an amended text of Senator MUSKIE's bill, I would like to take a moment to quote from the Senator's remarks at the time he introduced his measure:
A variety of factors have brought me to this point today.
First and foremost, I suppose, are the regular public opinion polls telling us that the American people have lost faith in their Government. People do not think they are getting their money's worth out of Government; people believe that the Government does not care what they think any more; the only Government worker getting high marks from the public is the local trash collector, because at least people know whether he is doing his job.
A second factor has been my experience this year on the Budget Committee. If there is one point that has been brought home to me during my brief tenure as chairman of that committee, it is that during any given year, we have only a limited amount of resources to commit to solving serious national problems. There may have been a time when we could afford nearly a thousand different legislative solutions to a few dozen national problems — when we did not have to worry which programs were working and which ones were not, because we knew there was enough in the till for everyone.
Today, we no longer have those options.
The third factor which has led me to introduce this legislation is also related to my experience with the Budget Committee — more specifically, to the tremendous successes we have had in our first year of operation.
Through the new budget process, Congress is finally beginning to regain control over the Federal budget — the most important statement of national priorities that we have.
Yet it becomes clearer to me every day that even if the process works better than any of us had dreamed, that statement of priorities will not be complete unless we have control over the services which the budget is intended to buy.
Budget reform by itself is an essential element in regaining this control. Nevertheless, I have come to see the budget process not as an end in itself, but as a first step in a broader effort we need. Budget reform gave us a badly needed method for looking at the picture as a whole. The legislation I am introducing today will make us take a closer look at all the component parts of that picture, to insure that we are getting the most for the money we spend. It is a logical second step.
Why is such a second step necessary?
One way to answer that question would be to have a dramatic reading from the catalog of Federal domestic assistance. I think most of us would be astonished at what we heard: That we have 228 health programs, 156 income security and social service programs, 83 housing programs, et cetera, et cetera; that all in all, we have nearly 1,000 Federal programs, touching on virtually every aspect of life in these United States.
Or we could turn to the Federal Government manual, where we would discover that in addition to the 11 Cabinet departments, we require 4 independent agencies and 1,240 advisory boards, committees, commissions, and councils to run the Federal Government. In 1974 alone, 85 separate government bodies were created, of which only 3 were subsequently abolished.
Or we could look outside Washington, where we would find over 4,000 geographic program areas recognized under 24 different Federal programs — quasi-governmental units such as law enforcement planning regions — 481 — comprehensive areawide health planning agencies — 195 — air quality regions — 247 — and many more.
Or we could turn to the dozens of GAO reports and audits done every year, detailing the administrative chaos in Federal aid to vocational education or to the handicapped for example — or explaining how this Federal agency had no information on what it was spending on administrative costs as opposed to actual services.
What any of these exercises would tell us is that Government has become out of touch and out of control. And clearly this is a finding with which an increasing number of Americans would agree.
What happens to a Federal program after it leaves the Congress?
Where is Congress going with the grant-in-aid programs? Will there be more proliferation of separate programs?
How well are Federal departments coordinating their programs and services both within their agencies and with other departments?
Today, hundreds of well-intentioned new programs and billions of dollars later, we still do not have satisfactory answers to those questions.
Even worse, we still have not solved the basic problems which prompted us to enact all these programs in the first place.
We have spent billions on health care, and enacted hundreds of health-oriented programs, yet we still have not cracked the fundamental problem — providing high quality care at a price people can afford.
We have spent billions on education, only to find that our high school graduates are not learning even the basic reading and writing skills.
And we have spent billions on the problems of our cities, yet the root cause of those problems, defined so eloquently by the Kerner commission several years ago still remains.
Solutions to these problems elude us not because we have not tried. But in too many cases we in Congress have satisfied ourselves with the rhetoric of legislation, leaving the hard work of implementation — from rule making to evaluation — to the executive branch. To put it another way, we in Congress have not paid enough attention to how well the programs we adopted were working — at least not beyond a cursory review every few years.
And now these years of inattention to performance are taking their toll, as we reap a bumper crop of public disenchantment with Government so unresponsive that it cannot even perform the simple day-to-day tasks that need to be done.
I offer this not as a suggestion that we abandon our commitment to solving the Nation's problems.
On the contrary, I offer this legislation in recognition of the fact that until we bring what programs we now have under control, we simply may not have the reserves we need — either in the budget or the public's trust — to pursue new legislative solutions to pressing national problems.
Senator MUSKIE's observations are widely shared, and perhaps in the coming months they will become the majority opinion in both Houses sufficient to assure the passage of a Federal sunset law.
I believe other measures should be passed too, and I have introduced legislation addressed to them, including a moratorium on new Federal programs, the testing of proposed Federal programs before they become fully operational, balanced budgets and limitations on Federal revenue in relation to aggregate national income, a uniform requirement that no departmental and agency rules and regulations go into effect without prior review or approval by the Congress, and the reprivatization of functions assumed by Government.
I hope that the consideration of — and hopefully the adoption of — these sunset law proposals will facilitate a movement within the Congress to restore a more rational balance between the role of Government and the role of the private sector. Whether one's viewpoint is that we should undertake these reforms to cut back drastically on the size of Government or whether one's viewpoint is that it is the only way to assure more effective Government exercise of its responsibilities, a Federal sunset law should be adopted and as soon as possible.