Joel Hefley: “it has become an annual ritual, like the swallows returning to Capistrano, that we in the bill increase the amount of…”

“it has become an annual ritual, like the swallows returning to Capistrano, that we in the bill increase the amount of money to be designated for the Economic Development Administration, and every year I come down here with some of my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, and try to do away with the Economic Development Administration. I am not trying to do that this year, but I am trying to bring the amount of money back to some kind of a reasonable figure, if we think we even need it. This is a wasteful agency and an agency that we will get rid of eventually; whether it is this year or next year, we will eventually, but at this point I am just trying to cut back to some kind of reason. This is an amendment that is sometimes hard on friendships. The agency has been on the chopping block for years, but it has survived not on the merits of the program, because the program has few merits, but it survives because it makes Representatives and Senators look good. Mr. Chairman, the Heritage Foundation calls the EDA the No. 1 Federal boondoggle which could be eliminated tomorrow without hurting anyone at all, and they are right. The EDA duplicates the activities of 62 other community development programs and 340 Federal economic development-related programs administered by 13 separate agencies. We simply do not need it, first of all; and second, it does not work.”