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01-24-2008, 07:25 PM
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Bill Archer
The following is an article writted by friend and colleague, Chris Johnson. JRG
Christopher M. Johnson Summary and comments on a presentation given Tuesday, January 8, 2008, 2:30pm The Congress – A Member’s Perspective Mr. Archer presented a biography of his life before he was elected to Congress, a summary of his work in Congress, and his observations on Washington and the federal government. Before being elected to Congress in 1971 from District 7 in Texas (which includes parts of Houston), Archer had successfully run a law practice and had managed people and budgets as president of Uncle Johnny Mills, Inc. for 10 years. Archer opened his lecture with a joke about a new element discovered that had been named “governmentium” (clearly a joke at Washington’s expense) and moved right into his main lecture that he “had never found a federal government program that was efficient with taxpayers’ money, and [he] had scrutinized countless programs.” Archer recalled his background in business, where he attributed much of his success to counting pennies and watching the budget like a hawk. When he brought his eye for waste to Congress, he was astounded at the vast waste of all federal government programs – “back then, if it wasn’t tens of millions, then it wasn’t even worth thinking about; now, if it isn’t nearly a trillion dollars, then it is simply overlooked by Congress and is allocated and wasted.” Archer offered insight into the evolution of the earmark process as bills are created in Congress. Early in his Congressional career, Archer said bills would go from the House committee into a conference with the parallel Senate committee to finalize a bill, and that was where (only a few) earmarks were added, if at all. Now, earmarks are added at every level as a bill passes into subcommittees, main committees, then passed in the House, then added before, during, and even after the finalizing conference committee with the Senate committee. Further, earmark amounts are first determined and then split 50/50 between the Senate and House (that is, between the districts of members of each Senate or House committee). Then, they are split again 60/40 between the majority and minority party members’ districts within each House or Senate committee to spend however those members want, without any regard to effectiveness or need! Archer commissioned the Congressional Budget Office (or another research department) to research cost drivers for numerous programs and attempted to convince others to pay attention to better ways to implement programs, with little success, because of the absolute disregard for efficiency that every other Congress member had. Archer related, however, that he had successfully stemmed the tide of numerous attempts to inject tax loopholes into tax bills that passed out of committee when he was Chair of the House Ways and Means committee (the tax committee) from 1995 to 2001. In fact, he said, he only had had to compromise once in his entire tenure as Chair – with Newt Gingrich on an ethanol subsidy tax loophole, that Gingrich said would be included even if the Republican party had to remove Archer as Chairman of the Ways and Means committee. Archer said he successfully removed any tax code loophole introduced to any bill passing through his committee that specifically favored any named group of individuals or corporate interests. However, in a private conversation with me after his speech, Archer admitted he was glad to be out of the House in 2001 because he saw many more compromises similar to his one with Gingrich – under political duress – coming down the pipeline under the Bush administration and Republican control of Congress. He also commented that the Republican Congress since 2001 has been the most fiscally irresponsible one in history and has doomed itself in future elections. Archer lamented to the class that the growth of wasteful government was beyond the efforts of himself and the few fiscal watch dogs remaining in Congress. He said that our futures and our lives were largely dependent on Congress – meaning the increasing levels of taxation and interference in every sphere of life and business – and that it was up to adults today, including our generation, to attempt to fix a broken system. However, when asked, he was not sure what could be done to eliminate or even slow the growth of government at the expense of society. He did mention that, although he was a supporter of a strong military, we must consider scaling down the enormous and wasteful growth in our military spending. After his speech and in response to a question about how we can improve our school systems from another student (who implied how can we find more money to spend on education), Archer mentioned that there seemed to be a real decline in the interest that parents pay to their children. Archer focused on the diminished role that is expected of parents in our society (because programs are expected to pick up the slack) and the lack of standards we hold for both parents and our education system as being indicators of societal decline. Archer noted that some immigrant groups had excelled even now, within our decrepit public school system – because of their adherence to principles of hard work, self-reliance, and emphasis on strict educational outcomes; and that their children had attended the same failing schools as others. I was fortunate enough to have an extended chat with Archer following his speech to our group. In it, I related that I was from his district and shared many of his viewpoints on traditional values such as personal and family responsibility above the growing emphasis on government (taxpayer) responsibility for everyone except the poor taxpayers on the bottom. Archer continued to point out that our society had let itself go willingly into the hands of government programs with the attendant loss of control over their own lives, children, education, and money. Archer pointed out that Washington had become a very sick and almost hopeless place since he had first arrived there on his mission to protect his constituents from the deprivations of government. He related that when he looked around for support for cutting obviously wasteful spending programs (pork projects), he found almost no one else in Congress who had similar ideas or who had the support of their constituents to reduce the burdens of government and taxation on themselves. He characterized it as a mad free-for-all – each district attempting to get more of a pie that they didn’t realize was simply redistributing their own (ever-increasing) taxes – a money round-trip to Washington with a hefty slice taken out to run the multiplying federal bureaucracies and military. Everyone loses, except the special interests, the lobbyists, and the lawyers and regulators. We talked about the need for a new education – to revert to the original concepts of self-reliance, thrift, hard work, contribution to society, and especially – distrust of government and its enlargement – that had been lost on an entire generation of Republicans and others calling themselves “conservatives” in Congress. I was sad that someone who had given much of his life for his people and his country was rapidly advancing in age and would end life having seen, despite his best efforts, his people enslaved by a system he could not hold back. The Washington Campus will enhance my career objectives in two ways: the immediate impact will be to help shed light on the political process and how my future employment can be affected or even can benefit from working within the system. The second enhancement is longer term and not so much a “career” enhancement. When I am ready to give back to society (after a period of learning and a period of saving and creating my own financial independence), it is possible that I would attempt to participate in the political process and bring it in a direction of human freedom and dignity (and that means less government control, coercion, and taxation). 
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