William Martini: “If I may, if the gentleman would yield on that point of common sense, I think that was probably first and foremost the…”

“If I may, if the gentleman would yield on that point of common sense, I think that was probably first and foremost the message that we heard on Saturday. Of all of the messages, I think if you boiled it down into one overwhelming message, it was the need to bring some common sense into the Federal Government process. I think listening to the individual stories that we had the benefit of listening to and then listening to the testimony, we realize that the impression that I received, and the impression that I have had since being a new Member of this great body, has been that really the Federal Government has grown in large part over many years without a plan, without a design, and without a system. It is more or less a haphazard growth of programs. If there is a need for something, someone will propose a bill, they will implement that bill. No one looks back, and will determine whether or not there was another program that maybe could have just been modified but instead we have had another new program to try to implement that particular need. I think one of the reasons we are where we are today is because there was not as much thought being given to the growth of the Federal Government over many years. I think what we are doing now as a body is looking back and saying, what works, what does not work; what works, we should keep, improve, strengthen, fund.…”