Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 111 Part 3.djvu/653

 CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS—JUNE 5, 1997 111 STAT. 2741 (4) at a time when millions of Americans are being asked to sacrifice in order to balance the budget, the corporate sector should bear its share of the burden, (b) SENSE OF THE HOUSE. — It is the sense of the House that legislation should be enacted to— (1) eliminate the most egregious corporate subsidies; and (2) create a commission to recommend the elimination of Federal payments, benefits, and programs which predominantly benefit a particular industry or segment of an industry, rather than provide a clear and compelling public benefit, ana include a fast-track process for the consideration of those recommendations. SEC. 308. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON BASELINES. (a) FINDINGS. — The House finds that— (1) baselines are projections of future spending if existing policies remain unchanged; (2) under baseline assumptions, spending automatically rises with inflation even if such increases are not mandated under existing law; (3) baseline budgeting is inherently biased against policies that would reduce the projected growth in spending because such policies are portrayed as spending reductions from an increasing baseline; and (4) the baseline concept has encouraged Congress to abdicate its constitutional obligation to control the public purse for those programs which are automatically funded. (b) SENSE OF HOUSE. — It is the sense of the House that baseline budgeting should be replaced with a budgetary model that requires justification of aggregate funding levels and maximizes congressional and executive accountability for Federal spending. SEC. 309. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON FAMILY VIOLENCE OPTION CLARIFYING AMENDMENT. (a) FINDINGS. — The House finds the following: (1) Domestic violence is the leading cause of physical injury to women. The Department of Justice estimates that over 1,000,000 violent crimes against women are committed by intimate partners annually. (2) Domestic violence dramatically affects the victim's ability to participate in the workforce. A University of Minnesota survey reported that one quarter of battered women surveyed had lost a job partly because of being abused and that over half of these women had been harassed by their abuser at work. (3) Domestic violence is often intensified as women seek to gain economic independence through attending school or I training programs. Batterers have been reported to prevent women from attending these programs or sabotage their efforts at self-improvement. (4) Nationwide surveys of service providers prepared by / the Taylor Institute of Chicago, Illinois, document, for the first time, the interrelationship between domestic violence and welfare by showing that from 34 percent to 65 percent of AFDC recipients are current or past victims of domestic violence. (5) Over half of the women surveyed stayed with their batterers because they lacked the resources to support themselves and their children. The surveys also found that the

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