pendous, and no 12 men, no matter how wonderful they are, can get on top of a $60 billion budget. The CHAIRMAN. I meant the total number of employees of the committee, rather than the professional staff. The total employees I think of the Senate Appropriations Committee consist of only 14. It is impossible for that number to undertake to do this joɔ. At this point I am inserting two statements which describe the staffs of the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, and of the House Appropriations Committee, respectively. (The statements referred to are as follows:) POWERS AND STAFF OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON INTERNAL REVENUE TAXATION Oldest of the current joint committees is that on Internal Revenue Taxation created by the Revenue Act of 1926 to assist the two taxation committees. Ten. members, five from the House Ways and Means Committee and five from the Senate Finance Committee, comprise this body. The original act empowered the committee to appoint as many "experts" and clerical staff as it deemed necessary to effectuate its responsibilities for investigation into the operation, effects, administration, and need for simplification of internal revenue taxes. It is not limited by the Reorganization Act as to staffing. Despite opposition from the Treasury Department, Congress enlarged the powers of this committee in the Revenue Act of 1942 making the furnishing of information, suggestions, data, estimates, and statistics to the joint committee or its staff compulsory on the part of the executive departments upon committee request. A special postwar study of taxation was undertaken in collaboration with the staff of the Treasury Department and the Bureau of Internal Revenue under authority of a 1944 resolution of the joint committee. The joint committee staff does no tariff studies and little social-security tax work. Colin Stam, a tax lawyer, who originally joined the committee staff in 1927, has served as chief of staff since that time. He has authority to recruit and select both professional and clerical staff subject to pro forma approval by the committee. His usual method of recruitment is to write to universities, law schools, bar associations, economists, and professional acquaintances when he has a junior vacancy. Occasionally he acquires a staff member from the Treasury Department. His selection is made on a nonpartisan basis. Promotion from within is the policy followed insofar as practicable. In 1948 the professional staff numbered 17, including the chief, 2 economists, 4 statisticians, 4 lawyers, 1 accountant, 1 administrative assistant in the office on the "Hill," 3 lawyers and 1 accountant, also an attorney located at the Bureau of Internal Revenue to review tax refunds over $75,000. Eight clerks were also employed. The staff was divided into the following units: administrative, budget and revenue, code, economic, estimating and statistical, legal review and refund, and technical advisory. Positions have been classified and salary scales have been worked out on a basis similar to that in use in the executive branch. Thus both because the staff is larger and the range of pay worked out more rationally, staff members have had more opportunity for promotion and salary advancement than on the regular standing committees. The joint committee staff tries to work with both parties in each House. The chief of staff described their relationship to committee members as that of lawyer and client in developing a "case" for both sides. But because of time pressures. and manpower limitations their work is of necessity primarily with the majority rather than with the minority. The staff performs tasks requested by the minority if it has time. Source: Gladys M. Kammerer, The Staffing of the Committees of Congress, the Bureau of Government Research, University of Kentucky, 1949, pp. 28-29. STAFFING OF HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE Mr. REED of New York * * * for 6 months before an appropriation bill is coming out, before they are to be heard, they start in doing nothing except building up a case against the Committee on Appropriations. Now, that is not the fault of the Committee on Appropriations, but it is the system of bureauc racy at work within to constantly expand and get all the money it can get. I always felt that if you spent a billion dollars, if that would cover it, to get the right kind of people in these bureaus investigating from one end of the year to the other, you would save many billions of dollars for this Government. * * * Mr. CANNON. It is not necessary to spend extraordinary amounts for this purpose. Our system is not only the most efficient and the most effective, our experts are not only the best trained that can be secured, but we secure them at a minimum of expense, which in itself is not a matter to be neglected. Most of our experts are trained by the FBI. I think it would be generally conceded that there are no better trained men in the world. They are available to us at any time, and we use them the year around. Every summer when vacation comes, if there is a vacation, in anticipation of the time when we will be absent we order investigations into every department which any member of the committee or anyone outside the committee thinks ought to be investigated, and during the summer while we are away these experts are at work. When we come back the reports are ready for us. It is done efficiently and at a minimum of expense. There is a sort of vogue going around that we do not spend enough money on our staff; that we ought to have permanent investigators and ought to pay them higher salaries. There are always people who do not want to use a spade unless it is gold-plated. What happens when you put men permanently on the staff? They get lazy. They develop friendships with the departments. If you get misfits it is hard to fire them. They develop a camaraderie with the members of the committee and get their salaries raised. Everybody downtown knows them. When they enter the door the word is passed through the building, "Here comes that fellow from the committee." When there is no investigation they sit around cooling their heels and their time and their salary is wasted. When we do not have any further investigating to do we send all of our men back to the Bureau and we do not waste a cent on them. Then when you have 10 or 20 investigations, if you have a permanent staff, the staff is not big enough to handle all investigations at one time. We can get any number from FBI and we get them at the salaries FBI pays them. We do not pay them any longer than we have to use them, and when the investigation is finished they go back and are through. Professional investigators have an interest in prolonging and extending an investigation so as to hold their jobs and retain their salaries. The men that are sent up here from the department come here and make the investigation and when their job is completed go back and there is no further expense. We have new men on every investigation. No one in the department knows they represent the committee until we so advise them. We have a fresh group on every inquiry. And new brooms sweep clean. So clean, in fact, that we seldom have to assign a second group to the same investigation. Mr. Chairman, we have obtained every pertinent fact we have asked for in the last 2 years. No one can say that we have requested information which was not secured, and that the information supplied was not accurate and comprehensive. * * * Mr. CANNON. That is the very point I want to answer and the very point, that occasions this misunderstanding in my response yesterday. The men in charge of our investigation system are FBI men-everyone of them and when we order an investigation, either at the suggestion of the minority or the majority-and most of them this year have been at the suggestion of the minority rather than the majority-when the requisition is made it goes to an FBI man invariably. FBI men are in charge, as the gentleman is aware. Here is the point I did not know at the time. I did not know that these FBI men in the discharge of their duties sometimes call upon men from other departments to assist them, and who act under their direction. * * In conclusion, I append a letter on the subject just received from Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, the honored and distinguished Director of the Bureau under discussion: Hon. CLARENCE CANNON, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. CONGRESSMAN: I have just finished reading the remarks which you made on the floor of the House of Representatives on March 21, 1951, in your discussion with Representative Coudert of New York. I want you to know that I deeply appreciate your very commendatory statement concerning the operations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, of its staff, and of my administration of it. It is indeed regrettable that any Member of Congress should have seen fit to cast asperations upon this organization when we have so diligently, and, I believe effectively throughout the years that I have been the Director of it under both Democratic and Republican administrations, striven to maintain its fairness, objectivity, and nonpartisan complexion. As you well know, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has furnished to the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and this is the first time that I have noted criticism of making members of the FBI's staff available to the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives on the grounds that the investigators so assigned were prejudiced in their viewpoint or were not qualified in auditing, accounting, and efficiency surveys. We have on our staff at the present time 647 accountants and over the years this Bureau has been called upon by United States attorneys throughout the 96 judicial districts to make some of the most intricate accounting and auditing examinations and efficiency surveys of various Governmental agencies. I believe an examination of the reports made by this Bureau in the performance of its duties would convince any fair-minded man that there was not an iota of bias or prejudice in the reports. I am indeed grateful to you for your action in endeavoring to present a correct picture of what the Federal Bureau of Investigation has tried to do through its years of operation. Sincerely, J. EDGAR HOOVER. Mr. ROONEY. Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great interest to the remarks just previously made by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Halleck) and should like to call his attention to certain facts with regard to House Appropriations Committee investigations. May I first say as chairman of one of the important subcommittees on appropriations that I have never known of an instance in my years on the Committee on Appropriations where any member of the minority asked for an investigation of an agency or activity that the request was not immediately concurred in by the chairman and all the other members of the committee. * * * I conclude with this statement: I have never as yet met any of the investigators who have conducted investigations for my subcommittee. The practice is to outline a request in writing, the purpose of the investigation. It is then signed by the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking minority member, by the distinguished gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cannon), chairman of the full committee, and the distinguished ranking minority member, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Taber). From that moment of signing until the report in typewritten form is presented to me as chairman, with two additional copies thereof, I have never spoken to any one of the investigators. Immediately upon receipt of the copies of the report one is handed to the ranking minority member, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Stefan), and the other is held by the clerk of the subcommittee for the use of subcommittee members. Source: Portions of debate in House of Representatives, March 21 and 22, 1951. Congressional Record, portions of pp. 2886-2887, 2980-2981. Senator MUNDT. I would like to ask the Senator from Oklahoma a question, because he has spent a lot of time and study on the Reorganization Act. I had felt when I first read over S. 913 there might by an analogy between the proposal of Senator McClellan and what seems to be operating rather satisfactorily in the field of taxation in the joint committee. Senator MONRONEY. That is what we had in mind, was the same type of highly expert staff that the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation has to serve both Houses and come up with a pretty good thing. Senator MUNDT. The Reorganization Act now provides authority to set that up? 84329-51- -3 Senator MONRONEY. It certainly does. We gave them not only the authority, but the Appropriations Committee unlimited authority to employ such experts as they deemed necessary. The CHAIRMAN. The act gave them that authority. Senator MUNDT. What you want to do is to make it mandatory. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. It may be unnecessary for them to retain the same number of professional experts on their staff as they now have, if this commitee is set up but, certainly, we can agree that the Appropriations Committees have not worked together to carry out the permission to enlarge their staffs which Congress gave them, since the act did not make it mandatory. Senator MONRONEY. They do not work in the formation of the budget. I mean as it takes shape. Fifty percent of the work of Congress is in the fiscal field, in the control of the purse strings. Senator MUNDT. As I understand it I believe that on tax legislation the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation is consulted in the formation of the suggestion, is it not? Senator MONRONEY. It certainly is. Senator MUNDT. You have in mind to do the same thing with the expenditures? The CHAIRMAN. To do the same thing with expenditures that we are now doing with reference to revenues. You may proceed. Mr. ANDREWS. I was summarizing the alternatives to S. 913, the reason for it and the recommendations. I will proceed. (b) That full advantage should be taken of the potentialities of the Comptroller General and the General Accounting Office as the independent auditor and investigator for Congress; (c) That, specifically, the Comptroller General and the General Accounting Office be used to provide the Congress with the services called for by S. 913; and (d) That the conducting of all investigations of fiscal matters be entrusted to the Comptroller General and the General Accounting Office. Last year, as you well know, Senator, I testified before this committee in opposition to a bill that became the Budget and Accounting Procedure Act of 1950. I objected to this bill on several groundsprimarily on the grounds that it failed to provide an accounting department for the Government under a qualified director and that it unduly and improperly made the Comptroller General a party to administrative decisions that should never be imposed upon any independent auditor. I still continue of that opinion. I pointed out that if the Comptroller General were to be in fact the independent auditor for Congress and as such a member of the congressional family, he should be used accordigly and should be relieved of his part in the management of those affairs that should be regarded as—and madethe exclusive responsibility of the executive branch of the Government. There were some who chose to assail that testimony as an effort on our part to reduce the importance and prestige of the Comptroller General's office. We hope that what we have recommended here today will dispel this groundless fear, because these recommendations make specific application of the philosophy upon which what we said on that occasion was based. We sought then, and we seek today, to prevail upon the Congress to avail itself of all of the potential usefulness of an officer and of the staff of an organization who are Congress' own, and could be made not only more useful to Congress than they' now are-and their present usefulness is undeniably great-but also the most powerful influence for public thrift (a rather rare virtue these days) at the national level that the country has even seen. should add that the rarity of public thrift is not limited to the Federal Government. I We say this with the deepest sincerity and with some emotion, because we entertain grave concern about what will happen if the present costly situation is not corrected. The Senator realizes how grave the situation is. All of you do, I am sure. So we say: We already have the man, the organization, and the law that it takes to do what is called for by S. 913. Let's not make the mistake of piling more organization on top of the present bewildering colossus and more expense on top of the already inordinate cost of government. What we already have isn't just good enough; it is exceptionally good. All we have to do is use it. So, let's use it. In conclusion I would like to call your attention to one thought that has occurred to me since I wrote that and, also, a statement of the Comptroller General. I hope you will not ask me for any details on this case that I am going to talk about. If you insist I will give them to you, but it would be premature to call names at this time. The Department or organization I shall allude to is really trying to do something about it. I am a member of the Board, and I am sure that correction will be made. If it isn't, I will quit. We have a situation where one organization of the Government is spending $408,000 a year for the purpose of buying only $4,800,000 worth of goods. The CHAIRMAN. Does not the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act apply there? Mr. ANDREWs. That does not take care of it. I have checked and found a city that services twice as many requisitions, issues twice as many purchase orders that does a superb job of purchasing for $56,000. There is a cost of 8 to 1 that is completely out of order. The CHAIRMAN. That is a good instance of the thing that we want to correct. Mr. ANDREWS. Right. What I want to point out to you is this, who is getting us the information on that situation? The General Accounting Office. If you were confronted with the same thing you would do exactly what we have done. You would call the General Accounting Office and say, "Send me your man who had charge of the audit of this organization," and you would talk to him, and you would put him on the trail and on the scent and tell him to investigate it, and he would come back to you, and, believe me, he would give you the story as they are giving it to us. It is so logical. It is so perfectly simple to do this thing, because it is all set up for you. It is right there. The coats are hanging on the rack, all you have to do is to put them on. |