John Cornyn: “this is a very important amendment, which addresses the three critical issues that face our country today: too many…”

“this is a very important amendment, which addresses the three critical issues that face our country today: too many people out of work, the Federal Government engaged in runaway spending, and our unsustainable national debt. This actually comes from a portion of President Barack Obama's fiscal commission report, which pointed out a Texas program that had been in place since 1977 and its impact on providing oversight and review of wasteful or no longer needed programs for spending. That is what this amendment does. It establishes a bipartisan U.S. Authorization and Sunset Commission. Actually, it would be composed of eight Members of Congress, who would go through programs that have spending associated with them but have not been authorized by the Congress, and who review redundancies and duplicative programs such as those pointed out most significantly by the General Accounting Office within the last week to 10 days. As I said, this is modeled after the sunset process that my State instituted in 1977, which has been enormously successful. It has eliminated more than 50 different State agencies and saved taxpayers in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I ask unanimous consent that Senators Vitter, Enzi, DeMint, Rubio, Paul, Ensign, Ayotte, and Risch be added as cosponsors to my amendment. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.”