Now what is the problem with Congress appropriating and authorizing sufficient moneys to do the job right and then banning the amount of private contributions? What would be the-what would be the downside of that? Mr. BOWSHER. That's a major public policy issue for the Congress to decide. The Congress could come down on that side, but I think we're not really raising the amount of money available to spend a lot more than we have on previous transitions. We're only raising really for the inflation factor here, and then not the full inflation adjustment really, and so what you're saying is that you've looked at the past transitions starting back in 1968, and you think it's better to have some public financing, because we didn't have any prior to 1968, and we think we should give the incoming administrations some Federal funds to come into office with, and for the outgoing administration to have some funds to leave town in an orderly manner, you might say. And so the adjustment really is for the inflation. It's not an adjustment to which doubles the size of the transition or anything like that. Mr. WALKER. But it is sufficient. Mr. BOWSHER. And the other thing it's really doing is trying to put some disclosure on whatever funds are raised and expended on the private side. Mr. WALKER. That's good. I think that's good. But, you know, rather than disclosure, we could, in fact, just have a ban on the use of that kind of money if this is sufficient. And as I understood, your testimony was that the amount of money that is being requested, the $3.5 million, based upon historic experience, probably is sufficient to do the job. Is that correct? Mr. BOWSHER. That is correct. Mr. WALKER. OK. And so I ask again, what would be the problem in having said that that is a sufficient amount to do the job, what is the problem, then, with prohibiting private contributions from being used for these official activities? I mean, all the- Mr. BROOKS. The President might not agree. And I don't want to foreclose him from every option. I think this will be enough money. If it's not, he may have some special problem, and the situation can be changed. I don't want to preclude him from doing it, but if he does, we're going to get a disclosure and an accounting of it. If he spends an inordinate amount, then he'll be getting into trouble, and it will be difficult, but he'll disclose it and describe what he's done. It's not a bad deal. Mr. WALKER. Well, it's not a bad deal. It's not as much as we could possibly do perhaps. And I think maybe at least—at least we probably ought to have an amendment to see whether or not the Congress might agree that having provided sufficient public moneys, we ought to put a ban on private contributions. Mr. BROOKS. I'm not particularly against a ban, you understand. I just think it's kind of unseemly for us to assume that the next President is going to be some kind of a crook who's going to raise a lot of money and do this and that that we don't want him to do. And that's just not the way I think we ought to operate in this country. Mr. WALKER. There's no assumption Mr. BROOKS. And I'm not going to be for it. Mr. WALKER. Mr. Chairman, I would say to you, there's no assumption of that kind at all, any more than I believe that the people who have, for instance, indicated that we ought to publicly finance congressional campaigns rather than have total private financing, are suggesting that everybody who runs a congressional campaign is a crook. I don't think they believe that, and I certainly don't believe that in suggesting this possible reform. Mr. BROOKS. As long as I'm an incumbent, I'm not for public financing. Mr. WALKER. Well, I'm just saying that there are many people, including some of our colleagues in the Senate who recently had a rather lengthy public debate on that subject. And all I'm suggesting here is that the proper cleansing of the system might indeed be a total ban on private funding. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. HORTON. I think we started off on a faulty premise, because when Mr. Walker asked the question, the representatives from the General Accounting Office replied yes. His question was, are we cleaning up the process? I mean, this legislation is not intended to clean up the process. There's no indication that anything wrong has been done. This process provides funds for the incoming administration for transition purposes, and what we're trying to do is provide sufficient funds for that purpose, for the outgoing and for the incoming administrations, for the technical, logical expenses of one administration going out and another one coming in. The purpose of this legislation is not to correct any misdeeds or problems that have been created. In the past, there have been some private contributions, and all we've done in this legislation is just to say that if there are to be private contributions or if there are, then those should be listed. We should know what they are and have some sort of a record on it. So basically that's all we're doing. We're not trying to clean up the process. I've heard no allegations any place with regard to any incoming or outgoing President abusing the private contribution process. So I don't know that there's anything to really be cleaned up at this point other than to just go ahead and authorize funds for the incoming and for the outgoing administrations for the transitional costs. Mr. BROOKS. Any further comments? Mr. BOWSHER. NO. Mr. SOCOLAR. No. Mr. BROOKS. We want to thank you very much, and, Mr. Dodaro, I thought you did an outstanding job. [Laughter.] Mr. DODARO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. BROOKS. We were delighted to have you here. The final witness for this morning's hearing on H.R. 3932 is the Honorable Joseph R. Wright, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, a long-time public administrator. Mr. Wright, we are delighted to have you back here. It's always a pleasure to do business with you. STATEMENT OF JOSEPH R. WRIGHT, JR., DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET Mr. WRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I may, I would just like to take my prepared testimony and submit it for the record. Mr. BROOKS. Without objection, so ordered. Mr. WRIGHT. Thank you. A couple of comments to begin with, Mr. Chairman, I may as well take on Mr. Walker's comments directly. I believe on the increased funding, if we were to assume that when the funding levels were established in 1976, as Mr. Horton mentioned, the number that you have in there right now, up to $3.5 million for the incoming, is actually below, in terms of inflation adjustment, the 1976 number. If you also believe that indexing is the proper way to go, which we agree with you on, you're establishing as a Congress, a lower level than you felt was necessary in 1976. So I would say it's a reasonably conservative approach and it's one that is needed. As you know, we also believe that, for the incoming President, the $3.5 million is warranted, but would like to go above the $1 million for the outgoing for exactly the same reason. That $1 million, that was established in 1976, would buy about half a million now. And so we're saying that that's not enough, and we would leave it up to your judgment. We suggested $1.5 million for the outgoing. Another area of concern we have is on the disclosures of the financing and the personnel. First of all, we have noted with interest the GAO finding that they did not see anything that caused any concern with the last transitions, and I think we support the need and the underlying premise of protecting the Government from individuals who are trying to get information or are trying to influence appointments through the transition process that is improper. Now the question is, how do you do that without getting into a burdensome reporting problem? Now why Mr. Bowsher stated that he did not see that there is a reporting problem, I do. I was on the transition in 1980-81, and at that time, Mr. Chairman, what you are doing is running a race against the clock of trying to get ready for an inauguration in which everybody goes into positions and then have another clock sitting on them, they have to be confirmed within a very short period of time, otherwise they can't serve. You have a group of people who are paid by the Government, that are combined with a large group of volunteers. Some are paid at different salaries, consultants, the freebies, which I was all the way through the gamut. We were barely able to get phones put in place and start interviewing people for positions much less report on exactly who was there and what they were doing at that time. I think it is a good idea to have auditable records. I think that is laudable and I think it is a good idea to make sure we do put in the controls to where individuals on a transition cannot get sensitive information or influence appointments for the personal gain or the corporate gain or whatever it is. What I suggest doing is having the Department of Justice come out with some fairly stiff, tough guidelines. If we are going to be doing any kind of reporting, I think it should be done after that extremely tight period of time. I do not believe that anybody on the transition who is not a Federal employee should have access to anything that is not available under the Freedom of Information Act, in other words, information which any citizen, including yourself, myself, if we are out in the open world, private sector, could get. I believe that those who are employed are covered by the Federal ethics, rules and penalties. I think if we are going to do that, let's make sure that we have some good administrative controls which I think can be put in place. Let's make sure that nobody is given any information, that they are not already able to get through the Freedom of Information Act, unless they are a Federal employee, covered by the Federal ethics rules, and then if we feel the need for reporting beyond auditing, put it in but get it away from that tight time period of the transition. I would feel exactly the same way on the disclosure of the financing for the same reason. You don't want to use up a very valuable part of your transition effort and your time on simply reporting and accounting. I don't think that is in the interest of the incoming administration, whether it be a Democrat or Republican. I would say that if you are going to want to put in some type of accounting for the financing, particularly from the private sector, there should be a floor on it and it should be reported after the fact rather than as you are going through the transition. Again, you simply don't have time for that type of accounting. I certainly would not have it applied to every $1 or $2 that comes in. Also I might say that many of the private sector contributions, Mr. Chairman, can be people who are volunteering their time. I'll be darn if I know how in the world you do that, or they come into town and they pay for their own air fare or they come in and stay at a hotel and pay for their own meals. How in the world are you going to have a transition that is working and has a 2-month period of time, 22-month period of time, trying to account for that? I think to hobble an incoming administration with accounting burdens that would go way beyond the intent is probably not in the interest of this country. I would say that we have a technical concern with the idea on the outgoing President. Making funds available 30 days before the expiration of his term is a good one, but the way it is drafted right now, you can have a problem cutting it off in June rather than July. I have a concern about that. The only other thing I would say is on the travel and moving expenses. We would think it is inappropriate if we are paying wholesale moving expenses for the entire transition team coming into Washington. Many of these people are volunteers. They are doing it on their own because they want to go ahead and support the incoming administration and I think that would be inappropriate. However, if we are trying to get around the loophole of when you come in on a transition and then you cannot come into the Government and then you get your moving paid for, we would support that. That actually is a career move. We are not so sure the way the legislation is drafted that is clear. That is my general comments, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer whatever questions you may have. [Mr. Wright's prepared statement follows:] |