Political Quotes

“As chairman of the oversight committee that has responsibility for the National Endowment for the Arts, we have done oversight work, and the reason I am supporting my colleague's amendment today is because I believe it addresses the worst abuses that we have uncovered in the National Endowment for the Arts. It does not address them all, but it addresses the worst ones. What are they? As this amendment does, it takes away the $20 million in administrative overhead that the National Endowment spends each and every year, $20 million to distribute an additional $80 million. That is an unreasonable cost. Where does the money go? The National Endowment for the Arts, as an example, has spent $21,000 per employee on a computer system. Not bad. The disappointing thing is that computer system still is not up and running and does not even do e-mail. The second abuse that this program deals with is the distribution of funds. I do not think this House would ever develop a program from scratch that would ensure that 143 congressional districts get no money directly from the program. We would never develop a program that sends 25 percent of the funds to one State. This amendment assures that we will equitably distribute funds throughout the country.”