Joe Cunningham: “In the Department of Defense, we have 480,000 bureaucrats that buy and sell. They charge 22 percent to the military.…”

“In the Department of Defense, we have 480,000 bureaucrats that buy and sell. They charge 22 percent to the military. Should Congress eliminate a lot of that bureaucracy, and instead of having taxpayers cough up money for more defense, should we just put more money into it without more reform? In education, we get as little as 48 cents to the dollar because of the bureaucracy in education. This morning the Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, testified. The gentleman from Wisconsin pointed out that the President's budget only puts in 6 percent increase. Six percent. Traditionally we have been increasing it by over 12 percent. The Secretary pointed out that there has been a flatlining; that we put more money in education, but there has not been any change. Can Congress work harder, can we do our job to eliminate Federal bureaucracy and spending or can we afford to give the money back to the American people? I pick on not just education, I pick on defense and all government agencies. Mr. Speaker, environmental cleanup was mentioned. Seventy percent of Superfund went to trial lawyers. Do we look as a Congress and work with the States on how to clean up the environment, or do we keep dumping in money? Many of my colleagues fought against welfare reform. Sixteen years was the average. They want to dump more money. We have to raise taxes to pay for that. Welfare reform put people back to work, and it helped stimulate the economy.”