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sponsibility of administering the program, they have 
little incentive to ensure it is well run. 
(3) In 1996, a Republican Congress and a 
Democratic President reformed welfare by limiting 
the duration of benefits, giving States more control 
over the program, and helping recipients find work. 
In the 5 years following passage, child-poverty rates 
fell, welfare caseloads fell, and workers’ wages in-
creased. This bipartisan success offers a model for 
improving other anti-poverty programs. 
(b) POLICY ON STATE FLEXIBILITY IN SNAP.—It 
is the policy of this concurrent resolution that SNAP 
should be reformed to reduce poverty and increase oppor-
tunity and upward mobility for struggling Americans on 
the road to personal and financial independence. Based 
on the successful welfare reforms of the 1990s, these pro-
posals would improve work requirements and provide flexi-
ble funding for States to help those most in need find 
gainful employment, escape poverty, and move up the eco-
nomic ladder. 
SEC. 520. POLICY STATEMENT ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND 
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY. 
(a) FINDINGS ON HIGHER EDUCATION.—The House 
finds the following: 
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(1) A well-educated, high-skilled workforce is 
critical to economic, job, and wage growth. 
(2) Average published tuition and fees have in-
creased consistently above the rate of inflation 
across all types of colleges and universities. 
(3) With an outstanding student loan portfolio 
of $1.3 trillion, the Federal Government is the larg-
est education lender to undergraduate and graduate 
students, parents, and other guarantors. 
(4) Students who do not complete their college 
degree are at a greater risk of defaulting on their 
loans than those who complete their degree. 
(5) Participation in Federal income-driven re-
payment plans is rising, in terms of the percent of 
both borrowers and loan dollars, according to the 
Government Accountability Office. Because these 
plans offer loan balance forgiveness after a repay-
ment period, this increased use portends higher pro-
jected costs to taxpayers. 
(b) POLICY ON HIGHER EDUCATION.—It is the policy 
of this concurrent resolution to promote college afford-
ability, access, and success by— 
(1) reserving Federal financial aid for those 
most in need and streamlining grant and loan aid 
programs to help students and families more easily 
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•HCON 71 RH 
assess their options for financing postsecondary edu-
cation; and 
(2) removing regulatory barriers to reduce 
costs, increase access, and allow for innovative 
teaching models. 
(c) FINDINGS ON WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT.—The 
House finds the following: 
(1) 7.5 million Americans are currently unem-
ployed. 
(2) Despite billions of dollars in spending, those 
looking for work are stymied by a broken workforce 
development system that fails to connect workers 
with assistance and employers with skilled personnel. 
(3) The House Committee on Education and 
the Workforce successfully consolidated 15 workforce 
development programs when Congress enacted the 
Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act in 2014. 
(d) POLICY ON WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT.—It is 
the policy of this concurrent resolution to build on the suc-
cess of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act 
by— 
(1) further streamlining and consolidating Fed-
eral workforce development programs; and 
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•HCON 71 RH 
(2) empowering States with the flexibility to 
tailor funding and programs to the specific needs of 
their workforce. 
SEC. 521. POLICY STATEMENT ON SUPPLEMENTAL WILD-
FIRE SUPPRESSION FUNDING. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The House finds the following: 
(1) In 1995, fire activities made up 16 percent 
of the United States Forest Service’s (USFS) an-
nual appropriated budget. Since 2015, more than 50 
percent has now been dedicated to wildfire. 
(2) Wildland fire suppression activities are cur-
rently funded entirely within the USFS budget, 
based on a 10-year rolling average. Using this 
model, the agency must average firefighting costs 
from the past 10 years to predict and request costs 
for the next year. When the average was stable, the 
agency was able to use this model to budget consist-
ently for the annual costs associated with wildland 
fire suppression. 
(3) Over the last few decades, wildland fire sup-
pression costs have increased as fire seasons have 
grown longer and the frequency, size, and severity of 
wildland fires has increased. 
(4) The six worst fire seasons since 1960 have 
all occurred since 2000. Since 2000, many western 
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•HCON 71 RH 
states have experienced the largest wildfires in their 
State’s history. In 2016 alone, there were a recorded 
67,595 fires and a total of over 5.5 million acres 
burned. The suppression costs to USFS and other 
Federal agencies for 2016 totaled over $1.9 billion 
dollars. 
(5) As wildfire costs continue to increase, fund-
ing levels for USFS wildfire suppression activities 
will also continue to constrict funding levels for 
other necessary USFS forest management activities 
focused on land management and wildfire preven-
tion. 
(b) POLICY ON SUPPLEMENTAL WILDFIRE SUPPRES-
SION FUNDING.—It is the policy of this concurrent resolu-
tion that Congress, in coordination with the Administra-
tion, should develop both a long-term funding mechanism 
that would allow supplemental wildfire suppression fund-
ing and reforms on reducing hazardous fuel loads on Fed-
eral forests and lands that could decrease wildfires. 
SEC. 522. POLICY STATEMENT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF 
VETERANS AFFAIRS. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The House finds the following: 
(1) For years there have been serious concerns 
regarding the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) 
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•HCON 71 RH 
bureaucratic mismanagement and continuous failure 
to provide veterans timely access to health care. 
(2) Since 2003, VA disability compensation and 
health care have been added to the Government Ac-
countability Office’s (GAO) ‘‘high-risk’’ list, due to 
mismanagement and oversight failures, lack of a 
‘‘unified vision, strategy, or set of goals to guide 
their outcomes,’’ and the inability to ensure allo-
cated resources are used in a cost-effective and effi-
cient way to improve veterans’ health care access. 
(3) The VA’s failure to provide timely and ac-
cessible health care to America’s veterans is unac-
ceptable. While Congress has done its part for more 
than a decade by providing sufficient funding for the 
VA, the agency has mismanaged these resources, re-
sulting in proven adverse effects on veterans and 
their families. 
(b) POLICY ON THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AF-
FAIRS.—It is the policy of this concurrent resolution that 
the House should require the VA to conduct an audit of 
its programs named on GAO’s ‘‘high-risk’’ list and report 
its findings to the Committee on Appropriations, the Com-
mittee on the Budget, and the Committee on Veterans Af-
fairs of the House of Representatives. 
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•HCON 71 RH 
SEC. 523. POLICY STATEMENT ON MOVING THE UNITED 
STATES POSTAL SERVICE ON BUDGET. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The House finds the following: 
(1) The President’s Commission on Budget 
Concepts recommends that the budget should, as a 
general rule, be comprehensive of the full range of 
Federal activity. 
(2) The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1989 
(Public Law 101–239) moved the United States 
Postal Service (USPS) off budget and exempted it 
from sequestration. 
(3) The USPS has a direct effect on the fiscal 
posture of the Federal Government, through— 
(A) the receipt of direct appropriations of 
$35 million in fiscal year 2017; 
(B) congressional mandates such as re-
quirements for mail delivery service schedules; 
(C) incurring $15 billion in debt from the 
Treasury, the maximum permitted by law; 
(D) continued operating deficits since 
2007; 
(E) defaulting on its statutory obligation 
to prefund health care benefits for future retir-
ees; and 
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•HCON 71 RH 
(F) carrying $119 billion in total unfunded 
liabilities with no foreseeable pathway of fund-
ing these liabilities under current law. 
(b) POLICY ON MOVING THE USPS ON BUDGET.— 
It is the policy of this concurrent resolution that all re-
ceipts and disbursements of the USPS should be included 
in the congressional budget and the budget of the Federal 
Government. 
SEC. 524. POLICY STATEMENT ON THE JUDGMENT FUND. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The House finds the following: 
(1) The Judgment Fund (Fund), established in 
1956, was created to pay judgments and settlements 
of lawsuits against the Federal Government. 
(2) As a result of the Fund’s design, it is ripe 
for executive branch exploitation. The Obama Ad-
ministration used the Fund to make billions of dol-
lars in payments to Federal agencies and foreign en-
tities. For example— 
(A) on January 17, 2016, the State De-
partment announced the Federal Government 
agreed to pay the Iranian government $1.7 bil-
lion to settle a case related to the sale of mili-
tary equipment prior to the Iranian revolution, 
of which $1.3 billion was sourced through the 
Fund, without prior congressional notification; 
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•HCON 71 RH 
the Obama Administration’s use of the Fund to 
make this and other payments raises serious 
concerns by sidestepping Congress; and 
(B) in 2016, the Department of Health 
and Human Services announced its intentions 
to use the Fund for settlements with health in-
surers who sued the Federal Government over 
the loss of funds for risk corridors under the 
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 
(3) Failing to address the lack of oversight over 
the Fund annually costs taxpayers billions of dollars, 
as payments exceeded $4.6 billion in 2016 and more 
than $26 billion in the preceding 10 year period. 
(b) POLICY ON JUDGMENT FUND.—It is the policy 
of this concurrent resolution that the House should con-
sider legislation that reclaims Congress’s power of the 
purse over the Fund. Such legislation should— 
(1) prohibit interest payments paid from the 
Fund for accounts or assets frozen by the Federal 
Government and listed on— 
(A) the Sanctions Programs list of the Of-
fice of Foreign Asset Control of the Depart-
ment of Treasury; or 
(B) Sponsors of Terrorism list of the De-
partment of State; 
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(2) amend sections 2414 and 1304 of titles 28 
and 31, United States Code, respectively, to— 
(A) provide a clear definition and expla-
nation of a ‘‘foreign court or tribunal’’; and 
(B) 
require 
congressional 
notification 
whenever the Fund makes a settlement or court 
ordered lump sum or aggregated payment ex-
ceeding $500 million; and 
(3) require legislative action to approve pay-
ments from the Fund in excess of a specified thresh-
old, increase transparency, and require Federal 
agencies to reimburse the Fund over a fixed time pe-
riod. 
SEC. 525. POLICY STATEMENT ON RESPONSIBLE STEWARD-
SHIP OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The House finds that significant 
savings were achieved by the House by consolidating oper-
ations and renegotiating contracts. 
(b) POLICY
ON RESPONSIBLE STEWARDSHIP
OF 
TAXPAYER DOLLARS.—It is the policy of this concurrent 
resolution that— 
(1) the House should be a model for the respon-
sible stewardship of taxpayer resources, and identify 
any savings that can be achieved through greater 
productivity and efficiency gains in the operation 
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