September 18, 1979
Page 25043
Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. President, during House and Senate consideration of the first concurrent resolution for fiscal year 1980, $900 million in management savings were included in function 920 of the budget. These management savings were to occur in such areas as spending for travel by agency personnel, reduced spending for film making, and less use of paid consultants. There is a fourth area where Government agencies can achieve significant cost savings, and that is by cutting back on activities that do nothing but generate unnecessary and excessive paperwork and reporting requirements on the American public.
I would like to urge that the authorizing and Appropriations Committees that are charged with implementing this $900 million in management savings accomplish a large part of the savings by cutting Federal paperwork.
This administration has worked diligently to cut unnecessary Government paperwork and its burden on the private sector, but the battle has not gone as well as it should. According to a recent GAO report to the Joint Economic Committee, American businesses each year spend more than 69 million hours at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion in responding to more than 2,100 U.S. reporting requirements that have been approved by either OMB or GAO under the requirements of the Federal Reports Act. When you add on forms that affect individuals, farms, nonprofit organizations, and State and local governments, as well as forms that are not cleared by OMB or GAO, such as tax forms, the total burden of Federal paperwork comes to a staggering 786 million hours annually. This is equivalent to 393,000 full-time workers doing nothing but responding to Federal paperwork requirements — a work force exceeded by only five American corporations. This is a terrible waste of America's most valuable resource.
In 1977, the Commission on Federal Paperwork issued 36 reports with more than 500 specific recommendations for reducing the paperwork burden on American citizens. Two years later, according to OMB, only half those recommendations had been implemented. In fact, according to OMB's Associate Director for Management and Regulatory Policy, Wayne Granquist, OMB each year is bombarded by 2,200 to 2,700 requests from agencies to collect even more data and issue even more forms.
The Federal agencies continue to generate new paperwork largely because we have never pulled the one lever that will actually force a cutback — a cut in the funds available for creating new forms and paperwork requirements. It is time we do so.
By including paperwork activities as a source of management savings in function 920, Congress will be giving notice to the Federal agencies that we are serious about cutting the paperwork burden on the American public. When we consider specific appropriations bills, I intend to introduce amendments to cut the budgets of agencies that are particularly insensitive to the need for reducing unnecessary and excessive paperwork.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I applaud the initiative which this amendment demonstrates. Last year, in the consideration of management savings, we were rather hesitant to step forward into that area, because we did not have the facts. As we have acquired the facts since, we are convinced that more savings can be achieved in this area than were programed in the 1979 budget and the 1980 budget. So I welcome this additional territory which the Senator from Texas has suggested for exploration. It seems to me that it is well to specify that an effortbe made in this area, and that we bird dog it until we get results.
Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. President, I would like to say to my distinguished friend the manager of this bill that they are not going to do it unless we, as you say, birddog it and keep after it. I can recall the FHA and the VA fighting for 11 years over trying to use a common appraisal, instead of two appraisals, to use common forms for mortgages and deeds of trust. Do you know how we did it? I sponsored a piece of legislation which the Senate adopted, and finally the House adopted, and we had to bump their heads together.
During the last Congress, I introduced two amendments that contributed to the easing of the paperwork burden. As I say, one amendment to the HUD authorization bill required FHA and VA to use the same forms for their single family housing loan programs. These two agencies have been dancing around on that issue for over 15 years with no progress, but now they are finally cooperating to cut the housing paperwork maze. Another measure reduced the red tape on State and local governments in the CETA program. There are almost 200 recommendations of the Federal Paperwork Commission that have not yet been implemented but which could yield similar paperwork savings.
We can effect it if we pursue it, and I am glad to hear the manager of the billlend his support.
Mr. MUSKIE. With the assistance of the Senator from Texas, we shall do our best to implement that.
Mr. BENTSEN. I thank the Senator.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be withdrawn, Mr. President.
The amendment was withdrawn.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, are there others who wish to offer any comments or amendments to the budget resolution?
If not, I suggest the absence of a quorum and I ask unanimous consent that the time not be charged to the budget resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.