Mike Pompeo: “Woman, today, I rise to ask my fellow Members of Congress to take one small step towards fiscal sanity. Chairman Wolf…”

“Woman, today, I rise to ask my fellow Members of Congress to take one small step towards fiscal sanity. Chairman Wolf has done very nice work on this bill, but we are all familiar with agencies that have outlived their usefulness and no longer can withstand budget scrutiny. In these times, if we don't set priorities, nothing is a priority. Here is one opportunity for all of us to make one tiny step towards getting rid of what is now over $17 trillion in debt. We often talk on our side of the aisle about having a spending problem. Here is a chance for all of us on both sides of the aisle to begin to attack that. We have an opportunity. Part of the Department of Commerce, the Economic Development Administration, was established in 1965 as an element of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The current administration and, to be frank, many administrations, have used this for their own pork barrel projects and their own cookie jar. The EDA has spent over $3.2 billion in grants and does nothing more than pick amongst winners and losers by region, industry, and community. At its very core, the EDA is nothing more than the purest of wealth distribution programs. My amendment would eliminate funding for the EDA, totaling $247 million in fiscal year 2015, and send this money to the deficit reduction account. Based on current levels, eliminating EDA will save over $2.5 billion over the next decade.…”