TO:        House Appropriations Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.);

              House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor/HHS Chairman Ralph Regula (R-Ohio)

FROM:   Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz

RE:        Labor/HHS Appropriation.                                                                      

Dear Chairmen Young and Regula:

As part of your showdown with the White House over appropriations, I understand you recently asked Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels what he meant when he said the Labor/Health and Human Services/Education (Labor/HHS) spending bill is “rife with underperforming growth.”  Please allow me to be of service in identifying such waste. 

The president’s Labor/HHS budget request was a 5.4 percent increase over the previous year, in a time of declining revenues and no discernible inflation.  The idea that he is being unreasonably frugal is ridiculous.

As Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has recently noted, according to the Department of Education—which is funded by this appropriation—federal education spending increased by 132 percent from 1996-2003.  Yet, since 1996, 12^th grade science scores have declined and reading and math results remain virtually unchanged.  Worse, after $321 billion in federal education outlays since 1965, 4^th grade reading scores have remained flat, at 32 percent proficiency, for three decades.  That strikes us as underperforming growth. 

Another area of underperformance is the historic rise in unauthorized, unrequested earmarks, i.e. pork, to Labor/HHS spending.  In fiscal 2002, the Labor/HHS appropriation was crammed with 1,290 such projects which cost taxpayers $1.2 billion, year over year increases of 28 percent and 18 percent, respectively.  Among the pork was:

• $312 million for the construction of "health care and other facilities."  There were no specific allocations, but of the 357 facilities cited, 229 were in states that have an appropriator on either the House or Senate Labor/HHS Appropriations subcommittee. That means just 6 percent of Congress (the 32 House and Senate Labor/HHS Appropriations subcommittee members) represented 64 percent of the listed facilities.
• $49.1 million for 119 projects in the state of Pennsylvania, including: $700,000 for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia; $300,000 for the Delaware Valley Historical Aircraft Association; $250,000 for the Philadelphia Zoo; $200,000 for the Everhart Museum in Scranton; $175,000 for the Philadelphia Orchestra; $75,000 for the Accent on Dance after school program at the Pennsylvania Ballet; and $25,000 for an educational outreach program at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia.
• $31.7 million for projects to your state, Chairman Regula, including: $1.5 million for science equipment at Heidelburg University; $1.2 million for the Ohio Arts Council to expand international programs; $200,000 for the Rockin' the Schools music education program at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland; $100,000 for the Clark County Historical Museum; and $40,000 each for educational programming in 15 school districts and at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.
• $1 million to your district, Chairman Young, to train students in museum services at St. Petersburg College.

I respectfully suggest that at a time of war and recession, these earmarks may fairly be considered “underperforming.”  If your colleagues won’t pass the Labor/HHS appropriation without a bonanza of special interest riders, that tells us something about the bill itself.

Aside from pork, CAGW also catalogues scores of wasteful, outdated, duplicative, and mismanaged programs at the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services in our annual Prime Cuts.  For example, by repealing the Davis-Bacon Act, a Depression-era sop to labor unions, taxpayers would save $250 million this year and $3.9 billion over the next five years.  By eliminating four duplicative bilingual education programs, taxpayers would save $815 million over five years.  By trimming unnecessary administrative costs from the Medicaid program, we could save $15 billion by 2007.  In sum, reducing subsidies, ending duplication, and scrapping non-performing programs at Labor, HHS, and Education, would save the taxpayer $39 billion in 2003 and $327 billion over five years.  

You are both in a position to exert leadership in the battle to restrain the level of spending increases in the Labor/HHS bill.  I urge you to make the case to your colleagues, the media, and taxpayers that essential needs can be met while lower priority programs are consolidated or eliminated. 

Hard times call for tough decisions.  We hope that rather than caving in to the self-serving demands for pork and waste from fellow lawmakers and lobbyists, you will be prudent stewards of the nation’s resources.

CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government.