Statement of U.S. Rep. Joe Barton WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, issued the following statement today: "Before Tuesday's election, I said that if a leadership position opened in the House, I would be interested. I am now actively considering the option of seeking the post of Republican Leader. "I worked as hard as I knew how to ensure that no Republican would become the next minority leader. I also said that the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was the best job in Washington, and that I was in no hurry to leave it or have it leave me. Finally, I had hoped and believed that my friend, Denny Hastert, would continue to serve as speaker through the next Congress. The voters of America have decided otherwise, and I honor their votes and their decision. "House Republicans now have some difficult decisions to make. Within the living memory of all of us, Republicans were on track to become a permanent majority. Now some say the train has outrun the tracks, that Republicans seemed to care more about the smoke and fire in the engine than who was in the cars and where we were taking them. Every Republican from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan has known that when the GOP is on track, so is America. Here's how we get back on track. "Let's begin with our base, the people who work and pay taxes and who expect us to deliver on our fundamental promise of less government and more freedom. Government runs on the money taken from their pockets, and issue No. 1 on the Republican program for America should be sticking with the tax cuts so that working families get to decide how to spend their money instead of ceding that right to politicians and bureaucrats. "No. 2 is the utterly critical green-eyeshade business of balancing the federal budget. 'Balance the budget' has been the oath and curse of every politician in the last half century, and any promise to do it begins with a yawning credibility gap. It is true that we've cut the deficit by $165 billion, but hardly anybody believes that balancing the budget by spending less is a consistent priority. That needs to change. "One giant step toward a balanced budget is real entitlement reform. Entitlement spending amounts to $1.4 trillion and more importantly, it is now 53 percent of the budget and growing. Entitlements cost each American taxpayer $7,698.08 a year. They need help, too, and we can deliver it by changing the budget process so that most programs that were created in a spirit of kindness and generosity are permitted to fulfill their goals, but are not granted eternal life. If you believe in the sunrise, you must also believe in the sunset, and it seems clear that it is time for the sun to set on some government programs, certainly including some entitlements that go unauthorized for years because they cannot pass the laugh test, much less the reauthorization process. "In that vein, common sense strongly suggests that we operate a two-year budget and appropriations cycle. When we lose control of appropriations, spenders run the government. Somehow they never want to spend less, only more. "Two more priorities must be health care and privacy. The answer to bad ideas is no, but we have to be willing to say yes to good ones. I think it's wrong when Medicaid, which is supposed to be about health care for low income and uninsured Americans, is spending its dollars on nursing home care for people who hide their wealth in order to seem poor. Yet America needs a long-term health care program, and I'm willing to have the federal government involved in it. "It also seems clear that Americans are fed up with our tip-toe-through-the-corporate-tulips approach to personal privacy. It is time to put the privacy of the people ahead of the needs of business. On the wall of my office is a sign that every visitor notices. It says, 'Fear God, Tell the Truth, Make a Profit.' Protecting privacy is about truth, not profit. I believe strongly in both, but truth-telling comes ahead of profit-making for a reason. "Finally, the House also has a unique responsibility that it fails even to recognize, much less exercise: Holding the Senate accountable when it can't or won't do its work. We let individual senators and the body as a whole get away with legislative murder. Year in and year out, good bills from the House arrive on the Senate doorstep and are greeted like bums trying to check into the Ritz. The AIDS reauthorization bill that Sen. Hillary Clinton is blocking because it includes rural programs instead of only urban ones is a fine current example, but it's hardly the only one. "In George Washington's ancient cup-and-saucer description of House and Senate functions, the Senate was to be the saucer where the hot ideas from the House were poured so they might cool. That was then. Now it is the place where even broadly supported, thoroughly bipartisan legislation goes to die, and it is an elephants' graveyard for the president's agenda, in particular. "It is a peculiarly Republican failing that we have never made institutional reform of Congress our priority. Democratic Speaker Sam Rayburn famously said that his enemy was not the Republicans, it was the Senate. He's still right. "Now, what went wrong? Well, we blurred the essence of what makes Republicans distinct from Democrats. We spent money without requiring accountability, so much so that sometimes we have looked to voters like Democrats-lite. And except for welfare reform, we somehow managed to avoid credit for the good things that we did well despite rugged opposition and biting criticism from Democrats. "The Medicare prescription drug benefit was cursed and belittled by both the Democrats and the news media until, suddenly, it was a success. It turned out that companies could offer many plans, not just one. And seniors were much smarter than Democrats said they were about choosing which plan best fit their needs. Seniors who chose a plan collected real savings. Every awful prediction made by the Democrats and the media failed to materialize. Because of the market-oriented, voluntary prescription drug plan passed by Republicans, even mighty Wal-Mart is now offering prescriptions for $4. "When success arrived, it must have been embarrassment by Democrats and reporters that propelled the issue immediately out of sight. In any case, all those who had been so desperately interested in failure were not at all interested in success, and the issue sank like the Titanic. Our failing was that we won the policy, and then let Democrats pretend that they'd been for it all along. "It is also true for us, as it was when Democrats held the majority, that winning occasionally became the only thing worth achieving, meaning that we, too, contributed when decency became the first casualty in a policy debate. The loyal opposition deserves a presumption of loyalty and a fair shot at making an honest case, and they didn't always get it. "Congress need not be in a perpetual state of angry confrontation each and every day, in each and every speech and news release. I've tried to make the Energy and Commerce Committee a place where ideas and principles confront each other, and decisions are made on the basis of the best policy instead of the best politics, and it seems to work. "The Energy Policy Act of 2005 began life as a Republican proposal which drew the usual partisan attacks. Then something special happened. Republicans sat down with Democrats and produced the first comprehensive energy bill since 1978. That should be the norm rather than the exception. Lawmaking need not be steeped in poisonous mistrust. In allowing that, both parties have been wrong. "One final thing we need to get right as a party and as an institution is ethics. Nearly every member of the House, on both sides of the aisle, is totally honest and hardworking. Yet the average voter thinks we are a bunch of crooks. Our ethics rules have become too complex and bureaucratic. We need to start with a clean sheet of paper and come up with simple, understandable rules that are transparent to the public. When the occasional bad apple falls, let's deal with it openly, quickly and cleanly. "When the Republican agenda matches America's agenda, we prosper as a party. Unlike the Democrats, we have shown vision and ideas that reflected the values of most Americans. Our party does not suffer the affliction of being a boiling mad collection of fringe interests with notions so cockeyed that they ultimately rub each other raw and make average Americans cringe. Republicans will never be that. We can distinguish what is best for the nation from what is best for whichever group in a political coalition yells loudest. "Whoever does these good things for America -- cuts people's taxes, balances their budget, protects their privacy, keeps them healthy, treats opponents like human beings -- they will be on track to becoming the most successful political party in history. That should be us." ####