Wall Street Journal: Oversight for the Spenders
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
DECEMBER 8, 2010
Oversight for the Spenders
Boehner caves on Appropriations.
House Speaker-designate John Boehner is hoping his decision to give Arizona spending rebel Jeff Flake a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee will blunt the news yesterday that the panel's GOP chairman will be an Old Bull spender. If Mr. Boehner really wants to make amends, he should ensure that Mr. Flake has real power at the committee, in the form of a new spending oversight panel.
Conservative groups were unhappy at yesterday's news that Mr. Boehner's Steering Committee voted to give the committee that dispenses federal dollars to Kentucky's Hal Rogers, whose spending record rivals that of any free-wheeling Democrat. Mr. Rogers was high on the seniority list, and Mr. Boehner wasn't willing to irk old-timers by reaching down to anoint a reformer.
The GOP leader announced his support for Mr. Flake on Monday. This is no small thing. A budget hawk, Mr. Flake has spent 10 years needling his party over earmarks, a high crime that lost him a prior Appropriations bid. As encouraging was Mr. Boehner's call for "other reform-minded Members" to join Mr. Flake in seeking seats on the panel.
Before those reformers raise their hands, they'll need reassurance they won't be shunned and left with nothing to do. That's one reason Mr. Flake is pushing for Mr. Boehner to let him run a new investigations subcommittee with the power to hold hearings and dig in to wasteful and inefficient federal spending.
Mr. Flake is getting pushback from (who else?) the committee's spending dons, who insist their own 12 subcommittees already do oversight. But this is the old fox-henhouse joke. Appropriations currently has an investigative unit, but it is made up of staff with limited authority.
The Members who join the Appropriations subcommittee on, say, agriculture do so precisely because they are advocates of farm spending. They have no interest in subjecting their own programs to greater public scrutiny. We have no doubt the GOP will investigate the Obama Administration. A Flake watchdog panel would scrutinize spending in which Congress is complicit.
Mr. Flake makes the sensible point that to succeed in cutting government programs, the GOP needs to persuade the public that money has been wasted. A Flake subcommittee could hold hearings and compile evidence even on such simple questions as how much the feds subsidize the AFL-CIO or General Electric. Mr. Flake is circulating a starter list, from stimulus grants to Homeland Security to Head Start.
Mr. Boehner's selection of Mr. Rogers is a major disappointment and makes his promises to control spending suspect. If he really wants to change the spending culture, he should unleash Mr. Flake.
Start over on “New START”
By Rep. Tom Price and Rep. Trent Franks
3:50 PM 12/08/2010
If health care and the stimulus bill were any indication, the urgency with which Democrats and President Obama are pressing for ratification of the New START treaty during the lame duck session should be ample warning that something is awry.
And if the new strategic arms reduction treaty were so critical to our national security, surely President Obama would have provided for an extension of the previous START treaty while this new one was being negotiated, rather than letting the old one expire over a year ago on December 5, 2009.
Rather, when President Obama cancelled the European Missile Defense Site in September of 2009, a few months before the old START treaty expired, he made it clear that he is more concerned with placating Russia than he is with keeping our word to our European allies in Poland and the Czech Republic, or with defending against nuclear missiles — particularly the Iranian nuclear threat.
Once again the Obama administration seems to be willing to disregard serious and urgent national security concerns in the interest of political posturing. This time, President Obama is suddenly insisting that New START must be passed during the lame duck session of Congress, despite a letter sent this week by 22 senators urging Democrats to allow more time for debate in the 112th Congress that will convene after the new year.
And to drive its point home, the administration is now holding hostage the modernization of our dilapidated nuclear arsenal. Only if enough Republicans cross the line to support New START’s ratification in the Senate will the president promise to take a first step toward overhauling the U.S. nuclear infrastructure — a critical issue arguably far more urgent than the New START agreement. The United States is now the only nuclear-capable country not modernizing its nuclear forces.
There is also much discussion on the substantive problems with the treaty itself. According to the administration’s own State Department, for many years Russia failed to comply with its treaty obligations under the previous START treaty. But apparently in the world of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, “reset” with the Russians means that the United States makes unilateral concessions on our ballistic missile capabilities while providing glaring loopholes in the treaty that will allow Russia to skirt the limits on strategic nuclear warheads.
Tactical or battlefield nukes — of which Russia is known to have ten times more than the United States — are grievously left out of the treaty altogether. For years Russia has offered assurances to Washington that it was moving these weapons back from such forward-deployed positions. Yet, just last week U.S. officials revealed that Russia has recently redeployed large numbers of tactical nuclear weapons to the borders of our Eastern European allies, a provocative act in direct contravention to Russia’s previous assurances.
And while we should not be surprised at dishonesty coming from a country President Obama’s own secretary of defense has called an “oligarchy” where “democracy has disappeared,” Americans should at least take note of the revelation last week that the administration itself has seemingly failed to be entirely forthright with Congress in regard to its treaty negotiations with Russia on missile defense.
The administration has claimed for months that no back door, secret “side agreement” to New START has been under way, which would restrict the U.S.’s ability to develop a robust missile defense. Yet last week the administration finally admitted that it had, in fact, been negotiating with Russia on a secret ballistic missile cooperation agreement. One has to wonder what other talks may have occurred with respect to missile defense limitations in the context of New START. Our concerns were compounded last week when it was reported that an internal State Department report on European missile defense omitted any mention of the fourth (and final) phase of the Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA) for missile defense, which is intended to provide additional defense against long-range missiles, such as those currently being manufactured in Iran.
This dishonesty over an issue so crucial to American safety makes it critical that the Senate obtain the full and complete negotiating record of the New START treaty from the administration before moving forward with ratification.
Last week, we sent a letter to Senate leadership reminding the senators that, while it is the Senate that has the power to give advice and consent to the ratification of foreign treaties, the House of Representatives will be largely responsible for the oversight of the treaty’s implementation, as well as the appropriation of funds to modernize the nuclear weapons complex, stockpile and arsenal.
The best thing to happen for American national security would be for the Senate and administration to start over on New START, to address these and many other problems. There may or may not be a treaty that Republicans could debate and ultimately support; but if there is, it deserves to be given a thorough hearing in the new 112th session of Congress — not steamrolled through the lame duck.
Tom Price (R-GA) is Chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) and Trent Franks (R-AZ) is Chairman of the RSC’s National Security Working Group and Chair of the House Missile Defense Caucus.
Schweikert will focus on debt, jobs, House rules By Ruth Ann Monti
Congressman-elect David Schweikert (R) sat down with KJZZ's Steve Goldstein last week to talk about his recent freshman orientation in Washington and his plans for the next two years.
His priorities for this term are to reduce the deficit, create jobs, and reform the way the House of Representatives operates. So far, he says, he is optimistic that the incoming freshman class has sent a strong message backing these priorities.
Schweikert understands that to change an institution, you have to first change the people within it. This 85-member freshman class, he believes, could be that catalyst. "They universally seem to care about doing what's right for the country, not being re-elected," he said, adding that this gives him "great hope and optimism."
In addition, Schwekert says, the Republican leadership knows that it can't ignore these freshmen, who make up one-third of the Republican caucus.
How bad is the deficit situation? "Devastatingly bad," Schweikert says. "We can't be bought off with little symbolisms" such as cutting a bit here and there. What's needed is a "systematic change" in our attitudes about borrowing and spending. Schweikert says that the budget meetings he attended at the recent freshman orientation held in DC revealed that the nation now borrows 41 cents for every dollar it spends.
He is extremely pleased--and proud--that the leadership has agreed to adopt the freshmen's pledge to end earmarks.
When asked if bringing projects to a home district is part of a Representative's job, Schweikert offered a creative answer: only if it makes sense. Bringing a federal project to the district should only be done if it's appropriate. Perhaps this means Schweikert will push for federal support of Arizona's solar industry, certainly an appropriate use of federal dollars in the state that has the most sushine.
Schweiket stated that he is not a full-scale opponent of a stimulus package, just the way this one was done. The is a role for government to stimulate job creation but it isn't by "writing out checks" and it doesn't end with reducing the budget. He named two ideas to help expand the economy: establish a broader, and lowered, tax system, and institute job training programs that will encourage industries to re-locate to Arizona.
While not a strict believer in term limits, Schweikert embraces the notion of stepping down from his seat in Congress when the job is done. In his case, this when a package of reforms on spending and House operations is in place.
For those who might be surprised to hear the Tea Party-endorsed Schweikert on NPR, understand this: he says he isn't interested in party labels or affiliation. "I would like to wipe out all references to Republicans and Democrats," he told Goldstein, "and talk about appropriators and budget hawks." (He's a budget hawk.) Indeed, Schweikert says, he's "stunned" by how people see everything through party affiliation.
But Schweikert also blasted the "Democrats" for being "pretty vicious" for "locking out the minority."
It will be interesting to see how he will create the "more fair process" he wants to see in the House of Representatives with this charge lurking in his head.
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