Joe Pitts represents the 16th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, a diverse district stretching from the western Philadelphia suburbs further west into the Pennsylvania “Dutch” Country. Joe Pitts’ life and career have been wide-ranging as well: he has worked as a teacher, a small business owner, an Air Force officer, and a legislator. In addition to Pennsylvania, he has lived in Kentucky, the Philippines, and the various places the Air Force sent him.
Joe brings this rich and varied background into his work as a legislator. The fact that he joined the Air Force because he couldn’t afford to raise his family on a teacher’s salary helps him understand the hardships many people are going through. His combat experience gives him an appreciation of the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. His time as small business owner gives him a better understanding of how government policies can help or hurt job creation. His time living abroad gives him sensitivity and insight into how our nation is seen abroad and a strong desire to fight for human rights.
Joe is an independent-minded conservative who knows that Republicans lost their moral authority during the last years of the Republican majority. He has a record of making up his own mind about legislation. He voted against one-third of his own party’s appropriations bills because they spent too much. He doesn’t do “earmarks.” He opposed President Bush’s signature legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act, because it spent too much and did too many things that were best left to states and school districts. Once, on the floor of the House, he stared down then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader Dick Armey, and Republic Whip Tom DeLay and successfully defeated a major bankruptcy reform bill because he found it discriminatory.
Joe is a family-oriented conservative who believes strong families are the key to America’s prosperity. While others debate whether more or less regulation, this or that government program, or higher or lower taxes will make America stronger, Joe knows that the family is the fundamental building block of society. No amount of government spending can make a child succeed unless that child has the values and desire to succeed that only a strong family can instill.
Joe is the son of an army officer who returned to the Philippines after World War II as a missionary. Joe spent much of his youth in Philippines, where some of his childhood friends had spent their earliest years in Japanese detention camps. He attended Asbury College in Kentucky, where he met his wife Ginny. Joe received a Master’s Degree in Education from West Chester University in Pennsylvania.
Joe and Ginny taught school in Kentucky until the birth of their first child. Not long after, Joe volunteered for the Air Force, serving from 1963 to 1969. He rose to the rank of Captain and flew 116 combat missions on B-52s during Vietnam. He was a navigator and electronic warfare officer. It was that experience that led him to found the Electronic Warfare Working Group in Congress, advocating for critical technological investments that are currently saving lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.
After leaving the Air Force, Joe returned to teaching math and science at Great Valley High School in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
At the urging of his friends, Joe unexpectedly ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1972 and won. His candidacy was part of a reform movement within the Chester County Republican Party known as the “Independents.” His victory sent a powerful message that from then on democracy, not machine politics, was going to rule in Chester County.
Joe served for 24 years in Harrisburg, eventually chairing the House Appropriations Committee—a position he attained specifically because of his reputation for ethics and fair dealing. In that position, he worked with governors and colleagues in both parties to balance eight state budgets in a row, even during the recession of 1990-1991—without a federal bailout.
In 1996 Joe was elected to Congress after winning a five-way primary election and a well-funded Democrat in the general election. Before his appointment to the important Energy and Commerce Committee, Joe served on the House Budget Committee, the International Relations Committee (now known as the Foreign Affairs Committee), the Small Business Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
As a member of the Budget Committee, he co-wrote the only four balanced budgets enacted into law since the Lyndon Johnson Administration. Each of those budgets, negotiated with President Clinton, actually paid off some of the government’s debt.
Joe is now a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the most powerful committees in Congress. He serves on the Health Subcommittee, the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, and the Commerce Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee.
Joe is an advocate for fiscal responsibility, refusing to request earmarks and voting against Democratic and Republican legislation if he feels it is irresponsibly expensive.
Joe is an advocate for truly bipartisan health reform, working with New York Democrat Nydia Velazquez, chairwoman of the Small Business Committee, to introduce the Small Business CHOICE Act, which would make it easier for small businesses to offer health insurance for their employees.
Joe is an advocate for conservation, the environment, and clean energy. He convinced Congress to protect the White Clay Creek and the historically important open space surrounding the Brandywine Battlefield in Chester County. He introduced the SAFE Nuclear Act to help transition away from fossil fuels. He co-chairs the Conservation Caucus in the House.
Two other important caucuses he chairs are the Values Action Team and the Electronic Warfare Working Group. The Values Action Team advocates for pro-family legislation in the House, while the Electronic Warfare Working Group helps preserve America’s technological edge when it comes to military technology and the electromagnetic spectrum.
Joe is also an active member in the Republican Study Committee (the conservative caucus in the House) and the bipartisan Pro-Life Caucus. He sits on the Helsinki Commission, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China; these commissions provide him with a forum from which to advocate for human rights internationally.
At home, Joe is a member of the Brandywine Valley Association, the Po-Mar-Lin Fire Company, his local Rotary Club, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Among the many award and honors he has received are the Guardian of Small Business Award from the National Federal of Independent Business, The Taxpayer Hero Award from Citizens Against Government Waste, the Hero of the Taxpayer Award from Americans for Tax Reform, and the William Wilberforce Award from Prison Fellowship Ministries. He received special recognition from the North Korea Freedom Coalition for his role in passage of the North Korea Human Rights Act, and from the Brandywine Conservancy for his leadership in Congressional efforts to aid in conservation of open space.
Joe and Ginny have three grown children and four grandchildren.
The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to decide how taxpayer money is spent. It may come as surprise, therefore, that House Republicans voted almost unanimously on March 11 to declare a moratorium on the practice of earmarking funds for specific projects.
I not only voted for the moratorium, I was among the Republicans who called for the move. I stopped asking for earmarks myself more than three years ago.
Why? Because earmarks are out of control. Ronald Reagan once vetoed a highway bill because it contained 152 earmarks. Today, it is not uncommon for one bill to contain thousands. Last year’s omnibus spending bill funded more than 8,000 of them. Most fund good and useful things.
Many, however, do not. Earmarks have been directed for things like migratory loons in Nevada, a museum to commemorate the 1969 Woodstock concert, and a golf school. One earmark spent over $1 billion to reintroduce salmon to a river that had run dry.
The reason for such silly earmarks is that the earmark process seems designed to avoid accountability. Most of the money Congress spends is argued for in hearings, debated in committee, authorized by legislation, and voted on by the House and Senate. Earmarks, on the other hand, are often added to legislation long after most of this process is complete. Some are even added during final House-Senate negotiations when it is too late for the individual chambers to alter the bills. This, of course, is intentional.
Members of Congress have been caught requesting earmarks in exchange for campaign contributions. Members of Congress have been caught earmarking funds for organizations run by friends and family members. Some have even created non-profit organizations through which to funnel money and mask the true beneficiaries of their earmarks.
The process of requesting earmarks is deeply flawed, highly controversial, and clearly prone to abuse. Earmarks have become not only a symbol of what’s wrong with Washington and the current Democratic Congress, but also a symbol of how many Republicans lost their way during the last half of our twelve-year stretch in the majority.
More than anything else, I urged my colleagues to declare this self-imposed moratorium on earmarks because I believe it is an essential step for Republicans as we seek to regain credibility on one of the party’s core goals: limited, frugal government.
When I first got to Congress I asked to serve on the House Budget Committee. Four years in a row, I helped write balanced budgets that actually paid off some of the government’s debt. This was done through sometimes difficult negotiations with the Clinton White House—but it was done. Real bipartisanship works. Balancing the budget is possible. I have done it, both in Washington and in my time in Harrisburg.
But in the latter years of the Republican majority (1995 – 2007), the GOP lost its way. I found myself voting against fully one-third of my party’s annual appropriations bills. I found myself voting against some of President Bush’s top priorities, from No Child Left Behind to the Bank Bailout. Since Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, I have voted for three appropriations bills, but opposed the rest because they spent too much.
When Congress spends beyond its means, it is stealing from our children. Today, Congress is stealing on a scale that would make even Bernie Madoff blush. Most Americans are aware of the government’s $13 trillion debt. Most Americans are not, however, aware that the government has made commitments to spend well over $100 trillion that it does not have and has no prospects of ever being able to raise. Medicare, Social Security, and even our national defense infrastructure will all collapse if Congress does not rein in spending very soon. Some, in fact, say it is too late already.
The Republican earmark moratorium will not balance the budget. It will, however, save far more money than the largely phony earmark moratorium Nancy Pelosi announced the same week. It is a first step, but a crucial one.
Rep. Joe Pitts (R) represents Pennsylvania’s 16th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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