[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 32 (Tuesday, February 21, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1957-H1961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         REINVENTING GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Maloney] is 
recognized for 46 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to convene tonight's 
special order to discuss dramatic improvements in how the Federal 
Government does business. These improvements have come thanks to the 
Clinton administration and the 103d Congress' efforts to reinvent 
government. The American people's faith in government is at a historic 
low. Recent surveys show that only 17 percent of Americans believe in 
the ability of their government. Outcries for change in both the 1992 
and 1994 elections speak for themselves. But stump speeches denouncing 
government have successfully obscured the fact that government is 
changing. It is getting smaller, more efficient and more user friendly.
  For the past 2 years, we have been working to implement the 
recommendations of Vice President Gore's National Performance Review. 
Implementation of these major reforms involves hard and patient work in 
the nuts and bolts of government management.
  It is not flashy or eye-catching, but it is getting results.
  Tonight my colleagues and I will offer real-life examples of how 
government for the first time in a generation is actually working 
better with less people and fewer resources than it did the year 
before. As I mentioned earlier, the restructuring was first announced 
by Vice President Gore in a report of the National Performance Review 
from redtape to results, creating a government that works better and 
costs less.

                              {time}  2230

  This ongoing initiative has four main themes: customer service, 
procurement reform, eliminating obsolete programs, and reducing the 
Federal workforce.
  Think back for a minute to a memorable sporting event, the Super Bowl 
or the World Cup. Think about the size of the stadium, like the Rose 
Bowl, one of America's largest, filled to capacity. That is the net 
number of people, over 100,000 to date, that the Clinton administration 
has taken off the Federal payroll, 100,000 people whose salaries and 
benefits the taxpayers no longer have to pay.
  Madam Speaker, 2 years from now, that number will grow to 272,000, 
enough people to fill nearly three Rose Bowls. This year, Penn State 
won the Rose Bowl, but Vice President Gore deserves the national 
championship for leading this downsizing effort.
  Today the number of employees of the Federal Government is at the 
lowest level since the Kennedy administration. Because of this action 
taken by President Clinton and the Democrats in Congress, there are 
fewer Federal employees than under the so-called Republican fiscal 
conservatives: Presidents Nixon, Ford, Bush, and even the Gipper. This, 
Mr. Speaker, is an amazing accomplishment.
  I just want to show it on this chart. This was in 1963, the Kennedy 
years; it has gone up, and for the first time it is going down, and we 
have reduced government by over 100,000 employees.
  Due to other initiatives in reinventing government. Employees still 
working for the Federal Government are able to interact with the public 
in a more intelligent and friendly manner. I will give one example from 
my district in New York City.
  For years, the Veterans Administration has carried a terrible 
reputation among veterans. Notorious even within the VA was the New 
York regional office. Before Clinton and Gore, an application for 
veterans benefits would be handled by at least 12 employees working in 
4 separate operations.
  However, if a veteran actually showed up in person, they would not 
meet with any of the 12 people who handle the application. Instead, he 
or she would meet with a benefits counselor, employee No. 13, but the 
benefits counselor would not have access to all the necessary 
information. The counselor would have to go to yet another unit of the 
office on a
 different floor and get the file from another clerk, employee No. 14. 
That is the way it used to work.

  Today the application is handled by a single team responsible for 
processing, filing, and dealing with the veteran face to face. When a 
veteran comes in, he or she deals with someone who knows their file, 
their history, and can tell the veteran exactly what is going on. This 
change has brought a tremendous increase in customer satisfaction for 
the veterans.
  We have reduced the Federal workforce, and we are doing more with 
less. But taxpayers should be most excited about procurement reform. I 
know that the word ``procurement'' can put a lot of people to sleep, 
but there are more than 200 billion reasons for taxpayers to stay awake 
and be very concerned about procurement. That is because the Federal 
Government spends over $200 billion on procurement every year. That is 
$800 for every American spent on goods and services.
  There is no more important area in which to control spending and 
better manage our limited resources. The Federal Government's record on 
procurement before 1993 was terrible. We all remember stories about the 
$600 hammer or the $2000 toilet seat, but one you may not have heard 
occurred during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
  During the Gulf war, the Air Force needed 6,000 standard, commercial 
Motorola radios for the troops, like this one. They wanted to order 
them so they could communicate with each other. But even in that 
emergency, the Government could not just buy commercial products at 
competitive prices.
  Under the regulations at the time, Motorola would have had to supply 
records of what it cost to make these, and documents, proving they had 
never charged anyone less for them. For quite a while, the U.S. 
Government could not purchase these radios.
  It is hard to believe, but finally, Japan had to buy the radios from 
Motorola and give them to the Air Force. That is how bad it was.
  Last year's procurement reform legislation solved this problem by 
eliminating requirements that the Pentagon obtain cost and pricing data 
for commercially available items. In other words, if they are 
commercially available, you can buy them and cut out the redtape.
  I am certain that this historic law will simplify and streamline the 
Federal procurement process, while ensuring fairness, accountability, 
and integrity.
  Let me give you another example about how procurement reform is 
making the Government work more intelligently and effectively. For a 
long 
[[Page H1958]] time, the Government, particularly the Pentagon, spent 
enormous amounts of time and money developing its own specifications 
for easily available products, like salad dressing.
  Instead of being able to buy commercial brands of salad dressing, 
like this one, off the shelf, like every other American, the Government 
ended up buying products like this one, paying more for less quality, 
but this salad dressing was designed for Government specs. No more. If 
it is available on the shelf, you can buy it off the shelf.
  As a result of changes initiated by the Vice President and the 103d 
Congress, the Defenses Personnel Supply Center, which buys all the 
food, clothing, and medical supplies for our troops has been able to 
undertake common-sense procurement techniques that make ordinary 
commercial products like this Wishbone dressing available to the troops 
like it is to every other American.
  To date, the supply center has realized savings
   between 5 and 10 percent, and for those lower prices, our troops get 
better tasting, nationally recognized products.

  Lastly, we also save money because we now get our commercial products 
delivered when they are needed, so there is no longer any need to 
warehouse enormous quantities of Government-designed salad dressings.
  In addition to this commonsense program, this new law will reduce 
paperwork, especially for contracts under $100,000, and encourage the 
Federal Government to buy commercial products at the fairest prices. It 
will strengthen oversight and procurement, improve integrity, and 
standardize the procurement code by eliminating obsolete and redundant 
laws.
  It incorporates many of Vice President Gore's National Performance 
Review recommendations, such as providing for multi-year contracts, 
promoting excellence in vendor performance, and allowing State and 
local governments to use Federal supply centers. In a nutshell, the law 
is going to save the taxpayers billions of dollars.
  This is what is projected to be saved: from the downsizing, $46 
billion; procurement reform, $12 billion; and in other areas, five, 
coming to a total of $63 billion.
  However, President Clinton plans to reform the procurement process 
even more. Today there was a hearing in the Committee on Government 
Reform and Oversight to outline the administration's plans for more 
improvement to America's procurement laws.
  I would like to enter the entire record of that committee hearing 
today into the Record, so that the American taxpayers can have easy 
access to read everything that took place in this hearing today.
  As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, reinventing government means one more 
thing, abolishing obsolete programs. Senator James Byrne once said 
``The closest thing in this world to immortality is a government 
agency.'' But President Clinton has demonstrated that immortality for 
Federal programs is no longer a sure thing.
  For example, more than 50 years ago, wool and mohair were deemed 
important for making Army and Navy uniforms, so a Government subsidy 
was started. That program survived and grew under every President from 
Roosevelt to Bush until Bill Clinton.
  In 1993, the President and Congress affirmed eliminating the wool, 
mohair, and honey subsidies, thus saving the taxpayers $695 million. 
That is a lot of money. We are just getting started reviewing other 
obsolete programs. That was just 1 of the more than 300 programs that 
have been eliminated so far.
  What does this reform add up to? It adds up to $46 billion in savings 
to the American taxpayer, and an estimated $60 billion over the next 2 
years.
  Madam Speaker, we have more obsolete programs to abolish, and more 
procurement reforms to achieve, but thanks to the Reinventing 
Government program, the American people have reason to believe that 
their Government can work again, and America can compete and win again 
in the world economy.
  We have taken important first steps toward the day when business as 
usual in Washington will actually have positive connotations.
  On that note, Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to yield to my 
distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Maryland [Steny Hoyer].
                              {time}  2240

  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentlewoman from New York for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I rise tonight with my colleagues to highlight the 
many achievements thus far of the reinventing government efforts under 
the Clinton administration.
  With the leadership of the Vice President and the strong support of 
the House Democrats and, I might say, the Republicans, we were able to 
enact many more reforms which have already had a positive impact on the 
people they were designed to help, the American people, the taxpayers. 
Congresswoman Maloney has cited a number of examples. The opportunities 
for reinvention in the Treasury Department under the jurisdiction of 
the appropriations subcommittee I chaired were great. As a result of 
our efforts, the Treasury Department and related agencies are more 
customer-friendly, more cost-effective, and much, much more efficient. 
Where we could eliminate waste, we have. Before reinvention, every time 
the Government made a small purchase, it spent on an average $50 in 
paperwork over and above the cost of the item. This obviously accounted 
for tens of millions of purchases last year, totaling hundreds of 
millions of dollars in paperwork costs.
  I want to show this Visa care, which has Bill Clinton's name on it. 
Now with this purchase card, the very same purchases are made with no 
paperwork cost at all. Let me reiterate that. No paperwork cost at all. 
Eliminating an average $50 cost on millions of purchases. That is tens 
of millions of dollars instantly saved by our Government because of 
this little card that all of us use all the time.
  Let me show you what that meant. We used to purchase this stapler for 
$54. Outrageous. That did not mean that the stapler cost $54, but in 
order to purchase it, we had to spend $54 on the paperwork.
  Bill Clinton and Al Gore came to town and said, ``That is done.'' 
Bill Clinton and Al Gore said we can save the American taxpayers 
millions and millions of dollars if we cut out all that paperwork and 
simply use this little card.
  Now with Bill Clinton and Al Gore's reinvention of government, we pay 
$4 for this stapler, which is what we ought to pay for this stapler. 
Fifty dollars on just one item. That is the kind of government American 
taxpayers expect and want.
  The American people have asked us to cut our pork and justify Federal 
projects. As a result of reinventing government, the General Services 
Administration now carefully reviews all Federal construction projects 
in a program called Time-Out and Review. They assess the Federal need 
and appropriate size and design of these projects and ensure that the 
costs are fully justified.
  Very frankly, Mr. Johnson, who is the administrator of that agency, 
was asked by President Clinton and Vice President Gore to look at these 
projects, see if we can save some money. Some of these projects are in 
districts that are represented by Democrats, some in districts 
represented by Republicans. This was not a political matter. This was a 
commonsense matter. How can we exercise common sense and save our 
people money?
  Madam Speaker, I know you will be pleased to hear that so far over 
200 projects have been reviewed and, you are not going to believe this, 
a $1.2 billion savings has been effected, now that Bill Clinton and Al 
Gore are looking at these things very carefully.
  These reforms have taken what was wasteful and inefficient and 
reinvented these programs into efficient successes.
  Madam Speaker, how many times have we heard tragic stories of people 
who have never received or lost their Government checks and have had to 
wait for countless weeks for their new checks to be processed? A 
critical problem, a crisis for some. Many times these checks, often 
Social Security checks, are vital to pay for medical expenses, rent, 
food, medicine. Checks missed that created crisis in home.
  Because of reforms instituted as part of Vice President Gore and 
President 
[[Page H1959]] Clinton's reinventing government initiatives, the 
Financial Management Service office of the Treasury located in my home 
State of Maryland has turned their once horrible 54-day turnaround into 
a more customer-friendly less than 2-week turnaround and alleviated the 
concerns of many average working Americans and Americans who are 
retired and concerned and reliant on those checks. This office now 
processes 8,000 check requests a month, over 400,000 claims each year, 
quickly, efficiently, and in a way that is customer friendly.
  Perhaps, Madam Speaker, what is most surprising about this success 
story is that this office improved their customer service and 
productivity with 32
 percent less staff, which is what the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. 
Maloney] was talking about in terms of that little graph going down. 
And in the face of a 28 percent workload increase. Twenty-eight percent 
increase in workload, 32 percent decrease of staff, and doing it in 25 
percent less time than it used to take. Those Federal workers should be 
commended, Madam Speaker, for their efforts at not only taking part in 
initiating these reforms but also for successfully implementing the new 
techniques and procedure.

  As the Vice President has correctly pointed out on many occasions:

       We don't have bad workers, we have bad systems. We have 
     worked hard and succeeded at reinventing the bad systems into 
     systems that work and work well.

  Madam Speaker, I want to close with one of the biggest examples of 
wasted paper and inefficiency. During the previous 12 years prior to 
Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore coming to town, the Federal personnel 
management manual had been thousands of pages. They spell out many of 
the policies and procedures for Federal employees. But unfortunately it 
contains too much unnecessary information and red tape.
  Because of our efforts last year, and I want to show a picture here 
of Mr. King, Jim King, who is the director of OPM. He has a wheelbarrow 
full of paperwork.
  I know all of us on both sides of the aisle have talked about, ``We 
need to get rid of all this paper.'' Well, here is a wheelbarrow that 
Mr. King is pushing full of paper. We have reduced those forms.
  Madam Speaker, you will recall when our President was talking about 
the Federal budget. This is the paperwork that we had when we came to 
town. Mr. Gore and Mr. Clinton, this is what they have gotten rid of.
  We no longer have that to deal with. Luckily, the table withstood the 
impact of all that paper. We are getting rid of it.
  Why? Not just for the sake of having a gimmick that I can put on the 
table here and make sort of a funny little demonstration of, but 
because all of us know that America is drowning in paper. Business 
complains about it, educators complain about it, citizens complain 
about it, and we are doing something about it.
  The Vice President in his leadership of reinventing government at the 
direction of President Clinton has said, We hear you, Mr. and Mrs. 
America. We hear that you want a smaller, more efficient, less costly 
government. We hear you, that you want you government reinvented so it 
does more with less and does it better, like those checks getting to 
recipients in a much quicker fashion.
  I am very pleased to join my colleague from New York in saying that 
we are not there yet. We have more to do. There is still 10 percent. 
Ninety percent of the paperwork we have gotten rid of. But there is 10 
percent left.
                              {time}  2250

  We are still looking at that to make sure that manual is as lean and 
effective as we can make it.
  As important, Madam Speaker, as these reforms and other reforms are, 
it is equally crucial that we continue to build on these many successes 
and continue to enact more reforms in this Congress.
  We are pleased that our Republican colleagues are joining us in the 
effort to reinvent government. Yesterday's government is behind us now 
and we must continue the task of doing our share in developing the 
government of the 21st century.
  I have high hopes that the success of reinventing government in the 
103d Congress that the Democrats so proudly enacted with the help of 
many of our Republican colleagues is only the beginning and that the 
second National Performance Review will be as successfully implemented 
in the months ahead.
  I thank my colleague from New York, Mrs. Maloney, for her leadership 
on this issue and for yielding to me for this time.
  Mrs. MALONEY. I thank the gentleman so much.
  Madam Speaker, our next speaker is Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and I 
yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro].
  Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to join my colleagues 
here tonight to talk about what we have been doing over the course of 
the past 2 years to address a major concern of the American people--
reducing the size of the Federal Government and making it work better 
for them. I want to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Hoyer, 
Mrs. Maloney, and Mrs. Thurman, who have already spoken. And I want to 
add my voice to theirs in welcoming our House Republican colleagues who 
have joined the efforts of congressional Democrats and the Vice 
President to remake our Federal Government.
  While some of our efforts have been mentioned by previous speakers, I 
believe they bear repeating because I'm not sure the magnitude of our 
successes has gotten the attention it merits. Why? Because there are 
those who, in order to try to score political points, would have the 
American people believe nothing has changed. But President Clinton and 
Vice President Gore ran on a platform of change in 1992, and together, 
change is what we have delivered.
  We passed legislation that has produced a record amount of deficit 
reduction--more than $600 billion. For the first time since the Truman 
Administration, we have reduced annual deficits for 3 consecutive 
years. And the deficit will soon be the smallest its been in nearly 20 
years relative to the size of our total economy.
  We have enacted legislation that will reduce the number of Federal 
employees by 272,000. Already, we have cut more than 100,000 jobs and 
we will soon have the smallest Federal Government workforce in nearly 
40 years.
  We have cut 300 programs, eliminated others altogether, and we have 
cut more than one-quarter of a trillion dollars in spending.
  My colleagues, we should all be proud of these accomplishments. We 
are delivering on what we set out to do.
  But these numbers don't tell the whole story. Not only have we made 
dramatic cuts, but we have set out to fundamentally re-tool the way our 
Government conducts its business so that it provides better service to 
its customers--the American people--while it gets more for each tax 
dollar it spends. Let me give you one example from my home State.
  The Defense Contract Management Area Operations office in East 
Hartford, CT, manages Department of Defense contracts in parts of four 
northeast States, including most of Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts 
and part of New York. Recently, this office overhauled its method of 
operation to improve oversight of defense contracts by changing to a 
team approach to customer service. Under this new system, whenever a 
contractor has a problem, with one phone call it gets rapid assistance 
from one team of expert professionals whose job is to solve the 
problem. In the old days, that contractor might have had to make 
several phone calls to people with overlapping responsibilities before 
it could get that same problem resolved.
  As a result of this new system, 23 fewer employees are covering the 
same 33,000 square miles of territory. So the taxpayer wins--to date 
nearly $1 million has been saved--and the Government wins--it is better 
assured of receiving high quality products that can be delivered on 
time.
  For their efforts, the employees of the Hartford Defense Contract 
Management Office have been recognized by the Vice President as heroes 
of reinvention and they received the Hammer Award for doing their part 
in responding to the National Performance Review. And their success in 
[[Page H1960]] reinventing Government has been accomplished by Federal 
employees in dozens of agencies all across our country. These dedicated 
men and women have proven that they are a far cry from the stereotyped 
lazy unproductive Federal worker. They have taken their cue from the 
Vice President, embraced his call for change and are producing for all 
of us.
  But we cannot rest on our laurels. Our task of making Government 
smaller and more effecient continues. I remain committed to working 
with my colleagues to carry on with this effort, and I look forward to 
hearing about more success stories this evening.
  I want to thank the gentlewoman from New York for spearheading this 
effort tonight and really being in the forefront of the fight not only 
to reinvent government but about trying to get the message out and the 
word out about what has been done over these past 2 years. And I want 
to compliment the gentlewoman for her efforts tonight.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Our next speaker is a member of the committee, and I 
yield to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman].
  Mrs. THURMAN. Madam Speaker, I think that has a wonderful ring to it 
and to the gentlewoman from New York who is my colleague and who came 
with me to Congress in 1992, and we have worked very hard together on 
the Governmental Operations Committee, I want to take this opportunity 
to thank the gentlewoman for doing this tonight.
  It is not a sexy issue, or not one of those pounding issues that 
people want to do all of the time and raises the spirit, but I think it 
is a great story that needs to be told and I certainly think that it is 
one that I think that the American people just are not aware of because 
it does not happen every day in their districts, or things that are 
happening to them. But it is something that I believe that ought to be 
talked about to give our American people the idea that there is a 
changing government and it is going to take some time, but it is 
changing and we are working to their betterment and we are trying to 
really achieve what many of us believe is a good idea in downsizing our 
government.
  We are eliminating burdensome red tape which we think is important, 
and at the same time we understand that the primary focus of 
reinventing government programs still is remaining by putting 
customers, the American taxpayers first.
  During the last Congress, we passed over 30 bills containing 
reinventing government proposals, and I just want to kind of go through 
some of that legislation.
  We looked at reducing the Federal work force by 100,000 full-time 
positions, which has already been talked about. It is a work force that 
is going to be the smallest since the Kennedy administration. We had a 
thing up here a little while ago on that.
  We consolidated education programs under the Improving America's 
Schools Act of 1994. In doing so, we have created multipurpose 
technical assistance centers while eliminating 49 categorical centers 
and 50 State national diffusion network contracts.
  We also improved overall government management under the Government 
Management Reform Act of 1994 and the Federal Management Act of 1994. 
In addition, we simplified the Federal procurement procedures under the 
Federal acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994.
  In the Federal agencies there are numerous examples of reinvention at 
work, and I am going to give some examples of that.
                              {time}  2300

  The Federal Aviation Administration recently started using the 
quality through partnership process to design and implement a new radar 
facility in southern California that will eventually consolidate 35 
existing facilities. In Miami the Customs Office--and this is in my 
home State--has developed a government-industry partnership where major 
exporters are instructed on how to do their own inspections. By 
allowing companies to conduct their own routine inspections, Custom 
agents are free to do more spot checks. But, more importantly, 
exporters now make more than 40 percent of the drug busts in Miami 
alone while moving the entire process at a much more efficient pace.
  NASA has provided technology to test for lazy eye in children through 
another government-private sector partnership. A Marshall space flight 
engineer and a private sector scientist developed a testing system now 
available commercially under an exclusive license from NASA. In 1993, 
one of our natural resources, our children, over 300,000 children were 
tested for lazy eye at 5 major test projects in Florida, Alabama, North 
Carolina, and Ohio.
  This is a type of Federal-private partnership that not only reduces 
bureaucracy but also produces a beneficial result for all Americans.
  Madam Speaker, since the House will be considering the 
reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act this week, here is an 
example of an actual paperwork reduction. The Small Business 
Administration loan application went from a stack of forms 1.5 inches 
thick to a single page. Since the reinventing Government program began, 
over a quarter trillion dollars in spending and 300 domestic programs 
have been slashed. And I know we all talked about this, but this is a 
monumental achievement that we have come this far.
  But I have to tell you we still have more to do.
  Today, in the Committee on Government Reform, we actually had Steven 
Kelman, who is administrator for Federal procurement policy, come 
before the committee, the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, 
and in about, I would have to say, 7 or 8 pages here, he told us some 
great stories of what is going on in our Federal Government.
  But what was important was that he talked about real-life people who 
made a difference.
  You know, I remember when reinvention started and we kept saying, 
``You know, we need to let these employees have a little bit of room, 
we need to let them think, because they have been out there, they have 
been on the front line, they know best how to make things happen in our 
government.''
  We just never gave them any leeway which allowed them to be creative 
and use those ideas.
  I am going to name a couple of areas in procurement particularly that 
they really did some good things.
  Increasing reliance on commercial practices: We had Tony DiCioccio; 
we had Col. Craig Weston from the space-based program office; we had 
Jim Bednar, with the Federal Highway Administration.
  Madam Speaker, when they had the earthquake, through using incentives 
to motivate contractors, they took what was supposedly going to be a 
104-week project down to 10 weeks to rebuild the Santa Monica Freeway, 
10 weeks instead of 104 weeks, through incentives to motivate 
contractors.
  In the area of increasing use of purchase cards, we actually--and I 
think Mr. Hoyer from Maryland
 mentioned this--for any purchases under $2,500, we saved $54 every 
time we used this.

  But let me tell you what it does, more importantly: How many times in 
your districts have you heard, ``You know, if you went over to so-and-
so and bought this, you could buy it for half-price.'' You have heard 
it, I have heard it. It is incredible to me.
  Now, here is one. At a Customs Service field office, the Government 
was able to purchase privacy panels from an office, from a liquidator, 
for $2,450 compared to a low bid which they had received of $4,000. We 
saved $1,550 by using this particular card. That was done, by the way, 
by Annelie Kuhn, of the Department of Treasury.
  In the area of ``expanding the use of past performance,'' Paul 
Zebrowski, of the Defense Personnel Supply Center, DLA; ``using 
multiple-award contracting,'' Kay Walker; ``increasing use of 
performance-based service contracting,'' John Richardson, of the Law 
Enforcement Training Center, Department of Treasury; and in the area of 
``streamlining the award process,'' Harry Schulte, Lydia Butler.
  These are all real people who have had these ideas, have had these 
concerns, and finally somebody said, ``We want to hear what you have to 
say. We want to know what your experiences are, and we want to put them 
to work because we believe you offer us something in this government.''
  [[Page H1961]] I think it is working. I just want to say that I have 
enjoyed the time I have spent on the Committee on Government 
Operations. We get an awful lot of time to look at GAO reports, learn 
about all the bad things about Government. Those are the ones that make 
the sound bites, they are the ones that get the headlines in the 
newspapers and stuff. I just hope as we go through this next couple of 
months that we all remember we have done some changes. We have done it 
on a bipartisan group basis. Most of these bills, I believe, were 
passed probably by the majority of this House. But we need to continue 
this on. Let us not make sound bites, let us not do it for political 
gain, let us do it for American taxpayers because they come first.
  I thank the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Maloney] for the time 
afforded me, and I appreciate the gentlewoman's leadership and look 
forward to working with her again.

                          ____________________