[Pages H6367-H6368]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         JUST SAY NO TO GRANTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, most of the stories we read every day 
about outrageous government waste stems from a category of government 
funding called grants.
  From the $3 million grant to study how hamsters fight each other to 
the $3.7 million in grants given to the Wuhan virology lab that likely 
unleashed COVID upon the world, these are the very essence of 
government waste.
  Government grants fall into two major varieties: gifts of public 
money for every cause under the Sun and grants for local projects of 
every variety.
  They are all for good causes. They go to universities, companies, 
NGOs, civic groups, charities, local governments, State governments, 
and do-gooders of every kind, all promising some public benefit.
  Unfortunately, by their very nature, they are plagued with lax 
oversight, political favoritism, little followup, and questionable 
benefits. Indeed, much of the grant money doled out each year 
disappears into the salaries of various groups and agencies that will 
then write glowing reports of their work and apply for more grants next 
year in an ever-expanding litany of waste.
  There is never a shortage of highly paid grant application writers 
eager to make that case.
  ``Personally, I liked the university,'' says Dan Akroyd's character 
in ``Ghostbusters.'' ``They gave us money and facilities. We didn't 
have to produce anything. You have never been out of college. You don't 
know what it is like out there. I have worked in the private sector. 
They expect results.''
  If the Federal Government needs a particular good or service that it 
can't produce itself, it should send out a request for a proposal 
specifying what it needs and then award a contract to the lowest 
responsible bidder to provide it. Then, the contractor should be held 
accountable for delivering that good or service.
  Another major class of grant recipients are local and State 
governments. Who can begrudge grants for law enforcement, wastewater 
treatment, transportation, homeless shelters, or schools? Yet, all of 
these grant programs beg a fundamental question: If a project 
exclusively benefits a local community, shouldn't it be paid for 
exclusively by that local community?
  Why should the taxpayers in Pocatello be forced to pay for sidewalks 
in Poughkeepsie? Robbing St. Petersburg to pay Saint Paul turns our 
Federal Treasury into a grab bag for local pork projects that destroys 
the entire concept of New Federalism.

  Local decisions and local money should be made and spent locally.
  By definition, local grants are lower priority projects that simply 
can't make the cut when local governments are measuring their own local 
needs against their own local resources. They only make economic sense 
if somebody else can be stuck with the tab, and that is what grants do.
  Money flows from politically powerless communities to politically 
powerful ones, often for frivolous projects that don't merit a place in 
local budgets. Because these Federal grants come with lots of strings 
attached, they are also inefficiently applied. But who cares since it 
is all free money?
  A very simple test should be applied to this class of grants. If the 
project exclusively benefits a local community, that local community 
should pay for it. With that burden also comes the freedom to spend 
those dollars exactly as they are most needed. Federal resources should 
be reserved for projects that benefit the entire country. That is the 
difference between the Federal interstate highway system and a local 
street.
  This is not a small matter. Between 2016 and 2020, Federal grant 
spending ballooned from $675 billion to $972 billion, and that is 
exclusive of Medicaid grants to States. That is nearly half of the 
annual Federal deficit right there.
  Weeding them out or reforming them is no easy task because a thriving 
political ecosystem of wealth and favor supports them. In last year's 
spending spree, both parties indulged themselves with 8,222 
congressional earmarks, a particular subset of grant spending where 
individual Congressmen handpick their recipients.
  Here is a modest proposal for the DOGE boys: Stop the cash bonanza to 
every self-described deserving cause and influential community with a 
good grant writer. Budget writers and appropriators should look with 
extreme skepticism on every grant that awards

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money without results or that robs taxpayers in one community to pay 
for projects in another.
  It is time that we protected and reserved the Federal Treasury for 
the general welfare of the United States, as our Constitution 
envisioned.

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