Connie Mack: “I am proposing an amendment on an important matter to the Senate. I am speaking of the quality and the cost of its…”

“I am proposing an amendment on an important matter to the Senate. I am speaking of the quality and the cost of its legislative information systems. Two years ago, this committee requested from the Library of Congress an analysis of the duplication among the legislative systems supported by the Congress. That study documented that there is extensive overlap in these systems and that there are opportunities for reducing that duplication. We then directed the Library to prepare a plan for creating a single integrated information system that would serve the entire Congress. The committee received that report in February of this year. The plan gives us a useful framework for building a new, coordinated legislative information system that will better assist the Members of Congress to carry out their legislative duties. The plan recognizes that there are various independent responsibilities for legislative information within the Congress and proposes a technical scheme that takes advantage of this fact. The new system will therefore require the active support of all of the offices and agencies within the legislative branch that assist the Senate and the House in this critical area. In our commitment to the American people to reduce the size of the Government, this committee has been reluctant to recommend significant additional resources for any of the Congress' offices and agencies.”