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The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union has under consideration the bill (H.R. 1000) to amend title 49, United States Code, to reauthorize programs of the Federal Aviation Administration, and for other purposes:

• Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1000.

• Although I support the reauthorization of the FAA and the Airport Improvement Program, I find the manipulation of the current budget structure in this bill detrimental to the fiscally sound budget process the Republicans have been fighting for, and have achieved, as the majority party.

• Why do we want to take a step backwards, back to when this House was governed by a tax and spend policy, in a misguided attempt to drastically inflate a federal agency's budget?

• Where is the Republican agenda--the agenda to make the federal government smaller, leaner, more efficient?

• It is disappointing to see the bill come before the House today under the slogan of ``unlocking the Aviation Trust Fund.'' Federal trust funds are not your run-of-the-mill trust fund that can be compared to a family or business trust fund. These federal trust funds are authorizations for appropriations, and this has always been the intent since their creation.

• But, don't take my word for it. Let me quote a CRS report:

  Whatever their intended purposes, federal trust funds are basically record-keeping devices that account for the spending authority available for certain programs. Although frequently thought of as holding financial assets, they do not.

• I repeat: trust funds do not hold financial assets; there is not money in them.

• The report goes on to say:

  Simply stated, as long as a trust fund has a balance, the Treasury Department has authority to keep issuing checks for the program, but balances do not provide the treasury with the cash to cover these checks.

• So if it's the right policy to take trust funds off-budget, where is the cash going to come from to cover the checks written on the trust fund balances? Are we going to cut funding for our schools, for law enforcement, for environmental programs, for our Veterans? Are we going to increase the debt, raise taxes? I hope not.

• And we are not talking about a few dollars. There are over 100 federal trust funds, and this bill deals with only one. But, at the end of FY1997, these trust funds had a combined ``virtual balance'' of $1.520 trillion--that's one and a half trillion dollars! If we are going to unlock our trust funds because this money was intended for specific purposes, we need to find $1 1/2 trillion to put real money into these funds.

• In addition, we simply cannot govern a nation by compartmentalizing our budget through dedicated funding streams. Revenue streams must be spent on the nation's priorities as a whole. You can't run a business by restricting cash flows to expenses directly attributable to their related sales. Can GM effectively compete in the world market if the money they received from selling shock absorbers couldn't be used for maintenance of brake manufacturing equipment? No. GM can't, and neither can the federal government.

• We need to take a step back and understand where this road leads us. I understand the supporters of this measure see guaranteed money every year. Wouldn't this be nice if everyone had a guaranteed stream of cash flowing into their coffers every October First? But, that is not the way to run a fiscally responsible government.

• Republicans have governed our nation's tax dollars with restraint and have given the taxpayer some of this money back with tax cuts. Let's not sabotage 4 and a half years of work. We should be looking at ways of streamlining federal agencies, not bloating their budgets by creating a mandatory account and increasing the taxes for this account.

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