On the recordJune 9, 2011
I have listened to this debate all morning, as an original cosponsor with Senator Snowe on her bill. I wish to talk about the EDA first, and then I will talk about what most of us do not realize because most of us have not taken the time to look. There are 80 economic development programs in the Federal Government through 4 agencies that spend $6.6 billion a year. Not one of them has a metric on it to see if it is successful. We have heard all morning about $3,000 per job. That is all self- reported stuff. No oversight on it. No committee oversight on it. No hard work to see--there is not a metric on one of these programs to see if it is working. Now we have a bill on the floor to spend another $500 million a year on something we have no idea what--we have anecdotal evidence, but what does the OIG say? The OIG says, first of all, this program has been used as a congressional slush fund to direct money to friends of Members of Congress. That is what they say. Fully one-third of the projects never come to completion. So the money that was spent on it ends up being totally wasted. We are reauthorizing a bill that nobody can show the statistics that it is, in fact, effective. It is not just that we are reauthorizing this bill, we have 79 other programs. Ask yourself a question. We are $14 trillion in debt. We are nearly bankrupt. We are running a $1.5 trillion deficit. And we have a bill on the floor to spend $500 million, and we do not know whether it works.…
