THE DEATH OF OVERSIGHT

Previously published at: http://www.newsmax.com/ScotFaulkner/politicians-constitutional-congress-appropriation/2016/06/03/id/732179/

Congress is losing its Constitutional tug of war with the Executive Branch. 

Politicians and pundits can point fingers, but the death of Congressional power is a suicide not a homicide.  They are doing it to themselves.  Congress is allowing the current Administration to get away with increasingly bold power grabs.  The result is an unaccountable government.  

Congress can control the Executive Branch through its Constitutional power of the purse.  What is funded exists and grows, what isn’t funded shrinks or vanishes.  The current Congress is not doing this.  Worse, it is neglecting its fundamental role in government oversight. Congress has lost its willingness to tie funding to adherence to the law and Congressional intent

The most appalling situation is in the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. For the second year in a row, Congress is way behind performing its basic responsibility of passing Appropriation bills.  Only two have made it onto the House Floor.  None have been considered by the full Senate.

In the past, Appropriations Committees met to build the case for spending public funds.  Administration witnesses made their case for spending.  Appropriation Committee Members made their alternative case, and either tore down or supported what the Administration witnesses proposed.  What should occur is a dialogue designed to align Congressional intent, and Executive Branch actions, to public spending.  What should emerge is legislation filled with spending numbers.  Supporting these numbers should be a narrative, in the hearing record and committee reports, building a compelling case for how and why public finds are being spent, or not spent.

None of this is happening in the current Congress.  The result is Congress ceding spending control to the Administration and destabilizing the Constitutional balance between coequal Branches.

In 2015, there were 128 House Appropriation hearings prior to marking-up legislation. In 2016 there were only 88.  The House only listened to 253 Administration witnesses. Their oversight was conducted by hearing from only seven of the 73 Inspector Generals.  No one from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was involved.   No one from oversight groups documenting government waste and abuse were heard.

It gets worse.  In the 1980s and 1990s, Appropriation hearings lasted three or more hours.  Hearings in 2016 averaged 77 minutes.  When you factor in the opening remarks from the Chair and Ranking Member and the opening statement of the main witness, less than 25 minutes were devoted to Q&A per witness. 

These 88 Hearings devoted minimal time to major national concerns.  Only two hours were spent on EPA funding, the Secret Service less than one hour, and less than one hour was spent on the crucible of Republican populism – the Bureau of Land Management. 

No wonder only three to five Members attended each hearing; even though all Subcommittees have at least eleven Members (Defense has sixteen).

House Committees broadcast their hearings online and archive them as podcasts.  None of the 47 Senate Appropriation hearings were broadcast or archived.  The public only knows that three Inspector Generals appeared, and there was no one from the GAO or government watchdog groups. The public remains uninformed as to what 121 witnesses had to say beyond the text of their prepared remarks. 

Republicans are missing their annual opportunity to build their case, on the official record, for the spending battles to come and to sway the electorate on who is best at stewarding public funds.  Swapping sound bites on friendly media outlets is a poor substitute for proper oversight.

Republicans are being negligent to the point of malfeasance by ignoring government accountability. 

Budget Bacchanal

This column was published in Politico
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/the-summer-budget-bacchanal-95811.html?hp=r13

While most people are enjoying vacations, government agencies and their contractors are spending your tax dollars faster than ever.

That’s right — it’s peak shopping season for the U.S. federal government. Despite automatic budget cuts known as “sequestration,” the fourth quarter of the fiscal year remains the time for Uncle Sam’s annual spending spree. Why is that? Because over the course of July, August and September, agencies must spend the balance of their fiscal year budgets or suffer having their requests for budget increases being second-guessed by the Office of Management and Budget and the appropriating committees in Congress.

And spend they do. Each year around this time, potential savings evaporate in an orgy of expedited procurements and other spending during the mad dash to spend every penny before midnight on Oct. 1. No celebrations of frugality here; agencies would rather guard their budgetary turf than save money for taxpayers.

Each year, on average, executive branch departments and agencies spend only two-thirds of their discretionary money by June 30, the end of the third fiscal quarter. By the fourth quarter, there’s pent-up demand and a rush to spend. One-third of government spending typically happens in the fourth quarter. (In fiscal 2011, the peak was less dramatic. At the start of the fourth quarter, the federal procurement system had spent approximately 70 percent of its contracting dollars.)

The OMB provides program-specific fund tracking to federal executives around mid-July on what is left to spend. Agency officials view this OMB tracking report on “use or lose” spending as the “starting gun” for wanton expenditures of dubious value.

The government’s contractor accounting system, Deltek, also sends out fourth-quarter program and agency-specific opportunities to the vendor community. Government contractors, with long-term service arrangements, known as Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity, make beelines to their agency contracting officers to discuss immediate ramping up of expenditures. It is one of the dirty little secrets of how Washington really operates.

This year, some private firms started the fourth-quarter spending promotion in June, conducting business outreach sessions. One of their fliers heralds, “Once again federal spending has been delayed until the 4th quarter” and asks, “Do the agency people know you and your company?”

The flier [http://govconectx.com/June_13_Outreach.html] provides a list of participating agencies, “with more being added every day!” In this season of accelerated spending, there is something for everybody, except American taxpayers.

Imagine if Washington’s incentives mirrored the real world, where saving money still means something. Imagine if Congress passed a fourth-quarter spending restriction that mandated agencies spend only 25 percent of their budget in the fourth quarter.

To calculate the potential savings, let’s use the 33 percent average in fourth-quarter spending occurring across the executive branch. The 8 percent difference would save $104.8 billion in the next three months.

That amount in savings is larger than the $71.4 billion sequestration cuts for FY 2013. The key difference is that, instead of draconian across-the-board cuts, this amount is fully focused on last-minute arbitrary spending. These last-minute buys are for things agencies have lived without for the entire fiscal year. This is not spending to keep our military planes flying or national parks open; it’s money spent on optional conferences and nonessential services. The GSA and IRS conferences that attracted so much recent concern were part of previous year-end spending bonanzas.

Such waste provides another reason to curtail this long-standing budget bacchanal. Agency officials will scream, while American taxpayers will breathe a sigh of relief.

Scot Faulkner is former chief administrative officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.

CONGRESSIONAL COINSTAR

The annual spending fight is looming once again on Congress’ autumn horizon. This ritualized partisan combat over the debt and the deficit will once again dominate the news. Politicians and pundits will once again use dueling calculations to fuel their heated rhetoric without any hope of common ground or real results. This year may even feature dueling scholarly analyses on how rampant government spending may be a good thing. http://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2013/fiscal/pdf/barro.pdf

There is a way for Congress to break out of this dismal cycle.

Every year the federal government has money left over. Lots of money.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) documented this in his “Money for Nothing” report:

"In total, the federal government is projected to end fiscal 2012 with more than $2 trillion in unexpended funds that will be carried over to next year, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. While more than two-thirds of this amount is obligated for specific purposes, $687 billion remains unobligated, meaning it is essentially money for nothing."

http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=612f09e3-e950-480e-84f8-1e54d2e6bc30  [pages 1-2]

Detailed charts on this phenomenon can be found at: “Balances of Budget Authority; Budget of the U.S. Government Fiscal Year 2012,” White House Office of Management and Budget, page 8; http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2012BALANCES/pdf/BUDGET-2012-BALANCES.pdf .

I first encountered this in 2007, when a project team was promoting development of a museum for the National Park Service. NPS leaders contended that they would need new funding to cover Phase I design costs. A few minutes reviewing OMB’s public documents uncovered NPS holding onto $73 million in “Unobligated balances carried forward”. This was more than enough to cover the $12.5 million in Phase I costs.

Welcome to Washington’s most secret budget game. Every Department and Agency, and program units within every Department and Agency, have unobligated funds squirreled away. This adds up to the $687 billion identified by Senator Coburn.

It would be an easy act of Congress to include a mandate for returning every agencies’ “Unobligated balances carried forward” as part of a budget resolution, continuing resolution, or within each appropriation bill.

Such a return of “Unobligated balances carried forward” to general use would immediately cut the annual federal deficit in half. It would also delay any increase in the federal debt limit by at least ten months. Most importantly, it would be an easy bi-partisan vote for sound fiscal management.

Think of these “Unobligated balances carried forward” as the coins every family has stashed in drawers, under couches, in the glove compartments of cars, and maybe in a piggy bank or pickle jar. Many years ago Coinstar https://www.coinstar.com/  found a way to make money by installing machines to sort coins and turn these extraneous “found funds” into usable dollars.

Bringing $685 billion of our unused tax dollars back into use, and avoiding the need for $685 billion in new spending, is as simple as a family taking their pickle jar of coins to a sorting machine.

Why can’t Members of Congress, or their staff, figure this stuff out?

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights

By Scot Faulkner & Jonathan Riehl

How did you spend the last 806 days?

If you were a Congressional Republican prior to your Williamsburg retreat, you were doing nothing. Nothing productive, at any rate. You spent this time ceding the political landscape to President Obama and the Democrats in Congress. Your are waiting for an Inaugural Address to respond to, while allowing tone-deaf and clueless pollsters and lobbyists to speak for the Party.

Since decisively winning the November 2, 2010 elections, Republicans in Congress, and their acolytes in the conservative media, have made sure to miss 806 days of opportunity to define themselves and communicate a compelling alternative platform. This is not a choice; it is a reflection of political reality: They have no platform. Because they have no coherent idea of who they are. The American people sense this. Increasingly, moderates and centrists are abandoning them because of it.

The recent Pew Survey shows Americans disapprove of Republican Congressional leadership by 66% while only 19% approved. That is a staggering 47 point negative. Gallup’s survey is equally bad with 25% approving and 67% disapproving for a 42 point negative gap.

These dreadful scores are only part of the problem. During the last 806 days President Obama and Congressional Democrats have framed the Fiscal Cliff/Debt Ceiling/Budget battle in ways highly favorable to their cause while painting Republicans into a microscopic corner. This is smart rhetorical strategy, to be sure.

Politics often comes down to defining the terms of the battle, something both parties have excelled at during different moments in history. The Democrats are the current masters of rhetoric. Democrats, even radicals, are now called “Progressives”. Government spending is now called “investment,” thanks to a spin factory gem from Bill Clinton. Spending cuts of any magnitude are dismissed as damaging to America’s economic recovery. There is also the unchallenged assertion that there have already been more than enough budget cuts, but no where near enough tax increases.

Our current Republicans tilt at windmills and straw men, assailing the “Main Stream Media” (which excludes, of course, the most popular cable network, Fox News) for their rout in the budget battle. They continue to embrace the parallel universe of Fox and conservative Talk Radio asserting that these “news” outlets are being drowned out by the “mainstream.” Never has Orwellian double-talk been more obvious -- or harmful to political discourse.

During the last 806 days, Republicans have been annoyingly vague about government waste and the need to cut spending. They trumpet their ideology, but ideology is not governance -- and Americans continue to see the President as more competent in that task. The problem is that the GOP never issued a meaningful indictment or offered a prosecution brief. Just saying there is waste does not make it so. Endlessly repeated talking points about “limited government” do not inspire, do not confer confidence, and do not offer hope to a still struggling nation.

While Republicans remain unfocused, the Democrats have created a multimedia echo chamber that has established memes relating to fairness and collective action. Republicans, on the other hand, offer nothing but confrontational bluster. Their weak, ineffective, and mostly nonexistent defense has left them marginalized and demonized. The entire body politic suffers as a result; Democracy only functions when robust factions confront each other in rational discourse. The authors here have differing political views on important matters, but are of one mind on this central point.

Republicans could have made a difference. Starting on November 3, 2010, they could have been building their case.   Every time a Republican was in front of a camera or microphone they could have issued compelling examples about non-performing government contractors getting billions in bonuses, about hundreds of billions more sitting unused in countless agency accounts, or cited any one of the thousands of reports documenting waste published by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the 73 Inspector General offices.  This would have put forward a viable vision of governance that differs from the status quo. This is complicated, of course, because the status quo is not just the last four years, but also the eight under Republicans who grew government and spent America into oblivion.

Perhaps this is what the psychologists call cognitive dissonance -- Republicans are now mostly unwilling to hold hearings on government spending or mismanagement, because many of them blindly supported Bush-era spending boondoggles both foreign and domestic. Bereft of principle, and caught in hypocrisy of their own making, Republicans have little to stand on. The GOP did not even hold hearings on Senator Tom Coburn’s annual Waste Report, a longtime staple of reasonable oversight. Only CSPAN’s BookTV gave Coburn a proper forum to discuss his exhaustive and highly credible research on government waste.

Reestablishing Republican relevance must include atoning for embracing wasteful spending during the Bush era. In one amazing example of “Bush party line”, Republicans on the House Oversight panel minimized $6 billion in hundred dollar bills vanishing from the Bagdad Airport while Democrats raised concerns about the money being stolen and possibly funding terrorism. Republicans lose credibility when they are more concerned about who is doing damaging things instead of the damaging thing itself. Waste is waste; corruption is corruption; no matter who is doing it. To say anything different is abandoning your moral core.

Republicans met in Williamsburg to develop a strategy for the coming budget battles, and unfortunately it looks like more showmanship instead of statesmanship. They should have spent this time finding their minds and souls.

FISCAL FOLLIES

Washington policy officials and pundits take note – you have all flunked Governing 101, Management 101, Civil Discourse 101, Budgeting 101, Accountability 101, and Reality 101. Republicans also failed Communications 101 & Politics 101. Democrats passed these courses with honors in creative fiction writing.

No one is telling the truth about anything relating to the Fiscal Cliff. Americans will begin suffering from Washington’s mass delusion and hysteria by mid January 2012. Wage earners will see a reduction in take home pay with their first pay checks. Some government contractors will get termination notices around the same time because of the consciously severe cuts under the Sequester.

The damage from going over the Fiscal Cliff will remain limited because of the possibility of retroactive fixes being dated back to January 1, 2013. However, this expectation unravels at the end of February if there is no budget deal. Even a superficial, “kick the can down the road again” deal would avoid this expectation cliff. This gives everyone two months to do something before the bottom really falls out.

How did America get in this mess?

Blame the Republicans – starting in 1995, the Republicans in Congress could have held wall-to-wall hearings exposing trillions of dollars in ongoing waste, fraud, and abuse. Mountains of Inspector General Reports, Government Accountability Office Reports, and watch dog organization reports would have been easy pickings for years. By exposing the mind-boggling array of how Americans’ money is squandered would have built a mandate for real change. Republicans never pursued this course. In fact, they remained tongue-tied on how to cut spending through the 2012 elections. When they did offer ideas, they went for ideological cuts, like Public Broadcasting.

Republicans also made every effort to box themselves into a stereotype of defending the rich and abandoning the poor. They never explained that every penny wasted hurts everyone. These pennies include nearly $1 trillion a year in outrageous tax loopholes for corporations, the wealthy, and even foreign gamblers.

Blame the Democrats – the Democrats have refused to focus on spending because the moment they acknowledge that spending can be cut they lose their argument that the federal government needs more of our money. They made budget cutting a partisan issue. This is truly sad for America. Way back in the 1970s, Senator Proxmire (D-WI) issued “Gold Fleece Awards” exposing government waste. Liberal journalists like Jack Anderson railed against waste where ever it was found. Even the National Enquirer had fun with “goofy grants”. Waste was waste and the public embraced aggressive oversight across the political spectrum. This all ended during the Administration of George HW Bush when Democrats realized extorting more taxes required silence on how the money was really being spent.

Blame the media – reporters and commentators love a crisis. They embrace false deadlines and refuse to discuss that these deadlines are based upon fiction, because their countdown clocks and their breathlessly chasing after every rumor attracts viewers and readers. There is no incentive for telling the truth - that everything could be avoided within seconds if everyone sobered up and grew-up.

America is confronted with a parade of “naked emperors” who trumpet that what they are doing is real, and that we are fools if we do not comprehend how hard it is to get off the treadmill of more debt, more taxes, and more spending. Who will be the first voice in the crowd to begin laughing at them and demanding honesty?

FUBAR

[Overly complex ways to do simple things - by Rube Goldberg]

In the summer of 2011, Republicans and Democrats finally realized that the structural flaws in America’s fiscal management had to be addressed sooner rather than later. They created a fictional “fiscal cliff” that would deliver horrendously real consequences if all sides of the issue did not rise to the challenge. Instead of ushering in serious bi-partisan analysis and action, it accelerated and amplified the partisanship, exposing the fundamental dysfunctions of both political parties and of the Legislative and Executive Branches.

Just hours before the debacle of “Plan B” in the House, ABC-Australia reported on the realities and fantasies of the fiscal cliff. What follows is the transcript of their report.  The audio file can be heard at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-21/republicans-try-to-pass-plan-b-on-fiscal-cliff/4440368

EMILY BOURKE: To the United States now, where there's been furious last minute political wrangling over the so-called fiscal cliff and the mix of tax hikes and spending cuts.

As the clock ticks down towards the year-end deadline, Republicans have crafted a back-up plan in case a broader agreement can't be reached with the White House.

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives has passed a bill to cut domestic spending but after an abrupt recess, the Republicans decided to postpone a vote on tax breaks, having failed to get the numbers.

But it appears the Republican effort will be futile with Democrats in the Senate and the president vowing to block a Republican plan either way.

From Washington, Kim Landers reports.

KIM LANDERS: A few days ago a deal seemed possible.

President Barack Obama and House Republican speaker John Boehner continued to talk about how to avoid steep tax increases and spending cuts - the so-called fiscal cliff which is designed to reduce the federal deficit.

But now the two sides are further apart than ever before, openly trading political blows in the media all day.

JOHN BOEHNER: President Obama and Senate Democrats haven't done much of anything. Their plan B is just slow-walk us over the fiscal cliff and for weeks the White House said that if I moved on rates, that they would make substantial concessions on spending cuts and entitlement reforms. I did my part, they've done nothing.

KIM LANDERS: Jay Carney is the White House spokesman.

JAY CARNEY: But what we know about this exercise and we have seen this movie before is that when there was the opportunity for a compromise on something big and significant, the Republican leadership walked away and pursued something that was irrelevant to the rest of America.

KIM LANDERS: Late today, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill to cut domestic spending.

But even before the votes were taken, the Democrat-dominated Senate was signalling that the measures would fail in the Upper House.

Dick Durbin is a Democratic senator from Illinois.

DICK DURBIN: Remember the closing scene in Thelma and Louise? Rather than face the reality of what lies ahead, they hit the gas. That's what we're hearing from speaker Boehner now, hit the gas and go over the cliff.

KIM LANDERS: Scot Faulkner is the former chief administrator of the US House of Representatives. He's highly doubtful that a deal can be struck before the end of the year.

SCOT FAULKNER: Both sides have dug themselves so deep into their trenches that you are not going to see a deal until after the first of the year and a new Congress comes in and the problem is that both sides really don't think the fiscal cliff is going to happen no matter how much they posture to the public and they both think the other side is going to give more ground and nobody is going to give more ground.

KIM LANDERS: Many government agencies are already preparing their employees for the impact of the looming budget cuts.

The US defence secretary Leon Panetta says uniformed military personnel will be exempt. But he's told civilian Pentagon employees that while no workers will face immediate unpaid leave after January the 1st, furloughs might ultimately be necessary.

Scot Faulkner explains why neither Republicans nor Democrats want to give ground.

SCOT FAULKNER: They're still thinking in terms of campaign mode, no-one is thinking in terms of governing.

KIM LANDERS: And can you suggest a reason why?

SCOT FAULKNER: They've not thought in terms of governing for over 12 years. You have, everybody is playing to their partisan audiences and in America you have very strong partisan newspapers, very strong partisan radio stations and cable television news stations and as long as their particular audience is cheering them on, no one is going to give ground and no one is going to shift from campaign mode into a governing mode.

KIM LANDERS: The impact of going over the so-called fiscal cliff has already been outlined.

According to the projections from the Congressional Budget Office, gross domestic product will drop by 0.5 per cent next year.

That contraction in the economy will cause unemployment to rise to 9.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2013.

But the agency estimates that after next year, economic growth will pick up and the labour market will strengthen with unemployment shrinking to 5.5 per cent by 2018.

SCOT FAULKNER: What will happen is that the first time that thing hits, one of those indicators hit recession, the recession zone, you will then have a scramble for everyone to first blame everyone else and then say okay, what can we do about this and so I think it's going to take an economic shock to finally get the political system working, even if it is only superficially.

KIM LANDERS: Scot Faulkner believes there is still time to strike a deal before the end of the year but even if that happens, he thinks it'll be a bandaid solution.

SCOT FAULKNER: At this point if they try to do anything, it's going to be either kick the can down the road hoping something else will happen or it will be very superficial. I mean they'll announce it as the coming of the new age but it'll be very superficial and not solve any of the fundamental issues facing America.

KIM LANDERS: The president is due to head to Hawaii for his Christmas holiday soon. It's unclear if the stalemate over the fiscal cliff is going to play havoc with those plans.

This is Kim Landers in Washington for The World Today.