Victor Fazio: “Mr. Speaker, my friend, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Ehlers], who, by the way, is serving our committee and this…”

“Mr. Speaker, my friend, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Ehlers], who, by the way, is serving our committee and this House extremely well in a number of areas, has accurately described the history and purpose of the bill, and I have nothing further to add except that I hope the Senate will pass this bill as a matter of comity. However, I would note that the Chief Administrative Officer has just submitted an overall increase in his budget requests for next year of 32 percent. Unfortunately, that does not address the cost shift to Members' representational allowances of some $12,000 to $15,000 per year resulting from the elimination and privatization of services previously provided by the CAO. This bill does make permanent the in-house reforms of the Republican Contract With America. As a purely technical matter, that is appropriate. But all should be aware that these administrative reforms may ultimately bring additional costs to the taxpayer. Many Members have expressed dissatisfaction about the deterioration of some services and about the incorrect or inconclusive information being provided by some of the CAO's operations. Others have questioned whether privatizing various functions and eliminating others will result in savings to the taxpayer or simply additional cost-shifting to Members' representational allowances. We should all be open to an examination of these questions.”