Jeff Flake

In closing, I just want to urge my colleagues to support the resolution. It's a great cause. And certainly I think we all owe it to our constituents and to the country to recognize the stewardship that we have to ensure that we pass on the…

A week ago I introduced a privileged resolution asking the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to report back to the House as to the extent of their investigation into the PMA scandal. A motion to refer that resolution to the…

I think we are overspent, we are overtaxed. We shouldn't put this additional burden. But if we are going to do it, certainly we ought to ensure that it goes to its intended purpose.

Just to conclude, I appreciate the majority's willingness to accept the amendment. Again, I appreciate the fact that there are no earmarks in this authorization. What we're seeking to do here is that when money is appropriated for these…

Last year we established a grant program called the Emergency Operation Centers. It was established by Congress in FY 2008, in the Homeland Security bill. Last year in the spending bill, it showed that 60 percent of the funds in this grant…

How can we ensure, or can we do anything to ensure, that China intervenes in Afghanistan in a responsible way?

I think this is the most important hearing so far, given the timing, with the President announcing his new strategy just last week.

This is our fourth hearing on Afghanistan in this subcommittee.

This gives voice to Saint Augustine's lament: Give me sobriety, but not yet.

I think it's incumbent on us in Congress to take better care here. I have been simply amazed at how jealous we guard our spending prerogatives here in the House, rightly so, but then when it came to TARP, we simply let them run with…

Again, the President's directive doesn't relate to report language in general, it's simply the earmark. Now I just have to say, 500 earmarks in this bill. There will be more than 2,000 when the appropriation bill comes to the floor, if…

Well, then there's no need to earmark it this way if it's authorized. There's no reason to put it in committee or conference report language and not have it in the bill. I think what the President has rightly recognized is that when it's…

I would like to see it. My information was that it was not in the House bill; and, that if it was in the Senate, it was considerably different than what came over here. But I think one thing we know is it was not appropriately vetted…

That is not the information that I had. And the point that I made with regard to the scoring by CBO stands. If you use an earlier baseline, it affects it tremendously. If you use the baseline that we should be using under the budget rules…

In my very short time remaining, let me simply say that we have a huge problem with entitlements in this country, one of which is the entitlement, direct payment system for farmers. This is not serious reform, when you are still paying…

With this legislation, a farm couple earning $2.5 million in combined on-farm and off-farm income is still eligible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm payments. Yet an urban couple earning a little more than $17,800 or owning…

The gentleman mentioned the National Marine Fishery Service earmark. It was added at the last minute. It may have been in a 2006 bill, but it wasn't in this bill until it was air dropped into the conference report. Now $170 million, that…

I should note, as I did before, this is not below the baseline. There is only room because we're going well above the baseline. We're actually charging fees or doing some other things to free up offset money to actually pay for the…

Reclaiming my time, we heard some of these same arguments in 2002, that we had tightened things up, and that we wouldn't have the ability to game the system. Yet I mentioned the shuttle disaster as one of the more egregious examples. There…

Well, I'd just like to ask the gentleman. In 2002 didn't we hear exactly what we're hearing today, that if we include a permanent disaster title, that there will be no more need for disaster relief beyond this year?

Again, this amendment is simply to preserve the bill as it is, to make sure that Members don't meddle in it. It is there to protect the waters and the beaches, not protect incumbents for reelection. That is what this is about.

But, Mr. Speaker, these were earmarks that were added in addition to what was there before. They were air-dropped. They are earmarks that we haven't seen before that we do not have an opportunity here to strike or even debate. I mean…

Let me just make one point with regard to special interests, that they have been removed from this process. Because we were trying to get copies of this legislation and couldn't yesterday, we couldn't get it from the majority, so many of…

In January when we passed transparency rules on earmarks, I was the first one to compliment the majority on what they had done. We put some decent rules into play. But rules are only as good as your willingness to enforce them. And we have…

This is not a parliamentary ruse here. This is a response to a parliamentary ruse. The parliamentary ruse is air-dropping earmarks into a bill and then waiving all points of order against or waiving all points of order against that bill so…