President Obama's tenure in office has ushered in an era of unprecedented spending through which our national debt has ballooned astronomically. The federal government now owes $15.23 trillion to its creditors, combined with IOUs to government retirement and other programs. That's roughly equal to the latest estimate as to what the U.S. economy produced this past year — $15.17 trillion.
To break these numbers down further, according to the Department of Treasury, the total national debt grew by $1.22 trillion between January 1 and December 31 of 2011. During the past year, the national debt grew by $3.3 billion per day, or about $30 daily for each household in the U.S.
This is why one of my highest priorities as Congressman has been to rein in federal spending. Unfortunately, despite undeniable empirical evidence to the contrary, there are still those who resist commonsense efforts to cut our nation's costs. One such entity is what we commonly refer to as "Big Labor."
"Big Labor" overwhelmingly supports the agenda of the Democratic Party, so it follows that this administration has amassed an extensive list of "gimmes" designed to benefit their political cronies. One such example was the Democrats' efforts to push "card check" legislation, which would have made it easier to for union bosses to force a group of employees to unionize. When that attempt failed, the next tactic employed was to change the rules at the National Mediation Board to once again make union formation easier in the airline and railroad industries.
So beholden to "Big Labor" is President Obama that he's resorted to breaking years of precedent by abusing the recess appointment process to stack the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — a "nonpartisan" board that historically favors unions over employers — with his "Big Labor" partisans. One of his former appointees, Craig Becker, had served as the associate general counsel to the Service Employees International Union and is an attorney for the AFL-CIO. He recently appointed Richard Griffin, general counsel to the International Union of Operating Engineers, to the NLRB's board. These appointments mark the first time in history members of the NLRB have come directly from positions at labor unions. Griffin is also a board member of the AFL-CIO.
Unfortunately, the NLRB has proven to be anything but an objective arbiter of settling labor disputes. Consider the case of Boeing in South Carolina last year, in which the NLRB attempted to force a private company to halt the opening of a non-union plant in response to complaints from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace workers.
On top of these giveaways to "Big Labor," one of the most outrageous wastes of taxpayer dollars comes in the form of "official time"—allowing federal employees to engage in union activity during regular business hours in lieu of the work they were hired to perform for the government. According to the Office of Personnel Management, in 2010 alone, this practice accounted for 3,062,842 federal employee hours to the tune of $137,392,031 taxpayer dollars.
Some of the most egregious violators include the Department of Veterans Affairs at $34 million attributable to union activity on "official time"; the Department of Defense (DoD) at $13 million; the Social Security Administration at $9 million; the Justice Department at $6 million; and the Department of Homeland Security at $5 million.
In recent years, the cost of "official time" logged by federal employees has only mounted. By any standard, this leads to an inefficient and ineffective workforce. And, it goes without saying that during these tough economic times, we must account for every tax dollar and stop subsidizing wasteful practices — such as allowing union activity to occur on "official time" at taxpayer expense.
To help fight this waste and abuse, in 2009 I introduced the Federal Employee Accountability Act. This bill, which I reintroduced in January of 2011 as H.R. 122, would repeal the portion of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 which permits government-wide use of "official time," therefore saving taxpayers $1.3 billion over 10 years. This legislation does not prohibit unions from collective bargaining or participating in arbitration — it simply removes the burden from American taxpayers to finance it.
It is vital that we continue identifying and eliminating waste within federal agencies. Consider the case of the Department of Defense. The Department is already facing cuts of $450 billion over the next 10 years and could face another $600 billion in cuts due to the sequestration process set in motion by the failure of the "Supercommittee."
I believe that such deep cuts at DoD could undermine our nation's security. President Obama's own Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, has warned that the U.S. could become a "paper tiger" if the DoD is forced to endure such massive cuts. But, just think, if we eliminated "official time" union activity, therefore saving in excess of $1 billion over 10 years, and made other commonsense reforms, we would be able to cut spending while reprogramming our limited resources to be utilized where they are needed most.
My hope for the New Year is that those who are standing in the way of rational solutions to our spending crisis will give way to reason. Either way, during the coming year, I will continue to work towards enacting more transparent and cost-saving labor legislation, rein in wasteful spending, and protect job creators and taxpayers alike.
