William Tauzin: “Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, the issue of public and private sector competition under Government mandates has gotten…”

“Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, the issue of public and private sector competition under Government mandates has gotten awfully confused here. Let us look at the facts as they exist today. Today government at the local level and the Federal level does compete against private industry and vice versa in many areas. When the Federal Government issues a mandate to local government to do something, the local government today is in competition in many cases with private sector companies who are under the same mandate to do the same thing. The local government funds that operation today. It funds it out of tax dollars raised locally. The only change this unfunded mandate bill makes in that equation is it changes as to who raised the money to pay for the public sector operation. That is the only change. It does not change the equation of private sector or public sector competition at all. It simply says that in that equation when it comes time to raise the money to carry out the mandate, instead of raising the money locally with taxes raised at the local level, the money has to be raised on the Federal level, or else a point of order is raised against the mandate to being with.”