[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 73 (Tuesday, June 9, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H4254-H4259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   SENSE OF HOUSE REGARDING FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT BY FEDERAL AGENCIES

  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
resolution (H. Res. 447) expressing the sense of the House of 
Representatives regarding financial management by Federal agencies, as 
amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                              H. Res. 447

       Whereas financial audits are an essential tool to establish 
     accountable, responsible, and credible use of taxpayer 
     dollars;
       Whereas Congress needs such information to accurately 
     measure performance of Federal agencies and distribute scarce 
     resources;
       Whereas Federal agencies should meet the same audit 
     standards with which such agencies expect State and local 
     governments, the private sector, and Federal contractors from 
     which such agencies purchase goods and services to comply;
       Whereas sections 331 and 3515 of title 31, United States 
     Code (as enacted in section 405 of the Government Management 
     Reform Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-356; 108 Stat. 3415)), 
     require that Federal agencies prepare annual financial 
     statements and have them audited, and that the Secretary of 
     the Treasury prepare a consolidated financial statement for 
     Federal agencies that is audited by the Comptroller General;
       Whereas the enactment of these provisions resulted in the 
     first time ever that the financial status of the entire 
     Federal Government was subjected to the same professional 
     scrutiny to which many who interact with the Federal 
     Government are subject;
       Whereas section 3521 of title 31, United States Code, 
     requires that the audit follow the Generally Accepted 
     Government Auditing Standards, which incorporate the common, 
     private sector guidelines of the American Institute of 
     Certified Public Accountants Statements on Auditing 
     Standards;
       Whereas Congress intended these audit requirements to 
     provide greater accountability in managing government 
     finances by improving financial systems, strengthening 
     financial personnel qualifications, and generating more 
     reliable, timely information on the costs and financial 
     performance of government operations;
       Whereas the data found in the financial reports was not 
     sufficiently reliable to permit the General Accounting Office 
     to render an opinion on the Government's financial 
     statements;
       Whereas only 2 of the 24 Federal agencies required to 
     submit reports have reliable financial information, effective 
     internal controls, and complied with applicable laws and 
     regulations;
       Whereas the financial statements of the Department of 
     Defense could not be relied on to provide basic information 
     regarding the existence, location, and value of much of its 
     $635,000,000,000 in property, plant, and equipment;
       Whereas the Department of Defense could not account for 2 
     utility boats valued at $174,000 each, 2 large harbor tug 
     boats valued at $875,000 each, 1 floating crane valued at 
     $468,000, 15 aircraft engines (including 2 F-18 engines 
     valued at $4,000,000 each), and one Avenger Missile Launcher 
     valued at $1,000,000;
       Whereas inaccurate or unreliable data, such as the findings 
     that 220 more tanks, 10 fewer helicopters, 25 fewer aircraft, 
     and 8 fewer cruise missiles existed than those reported in 
     the system of the Department of Defense, harms deployment 
     activities;
       Whereas the Department of Housing and Urban Development 
     spends $18,000,000,000 each year in rent and operating 
     subsidies, with $1 of every $18 being paid out unjustifiably;
       Whereas financial management is so poor within Federal 
     credit agencies that the true cost of the Federal 
     Government's loan and guarantee programs cannot be reliably 
     determined;
       Whereas the Federal Aviation Administration's records 
     regarding $5,500,000,000 in equipment and property are 
     unreliable, including $198,000,000 in recorded assets that no 
     longer exist, $245,000,000 in spare parts that were omitted 
     from the financial statements, and $3,300,000,000 in works-
     in-process that could not be verified;
       Whereas the Forest Service lacks a reliable system for 
     tracking its reported 378,000 miles of roads;
       Whereas the Medicare program identified an estimated 
     $20,300,000,000 worth of improper payments in fiscal year 
     1997;
       Whereas the Social Security Administration has identified 
     $1,000,000,000 in overpayments for fiscal year 1997;
       Whereas the Department of the Treasury recorded a net 
     $12,000,000,000 ``plug'' recorded as ``unreconciled 
     transactions'', made up of over $100,000,000,000 of 
     unreconciled, unsupported transactions, to make its books 
     balance; and
       Whereas the disclaimers, mismanagement, and poor 
     recordkeeping in the Federal Government expose taxpayers to 
     continued waste, fraud, error, and mismanagement, and provide 
     inadequate information to Congress for budget, 
     appropriations, and reauthorization decisions: Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of 
     Representatives that--
       (1) the first-ever Governmentwide financial audit 
     demonstrated serious concerns with financial management by 
     the majority of Federal agencies;
       (2) current efforts with respect to financial management by 
     all too many Federal agencies have failed; and
       (3) therefore, Congress must impose consequences on Federal 
     agencies that fail their annual financial audits and conduct 
     more vigorous oversight to ensure that Federal agencies do 
     not waste the tax dollars of the people of the United States.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Horn) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn).
  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, on April 1, 1998, the Subcommittee on Government 
Management, Information, and Technology held a hearing on the first 
ever audit of the United States government. We were presented with the 
consolidated government-wide financial statements issued March 31, 
1998.
  The Democratic 103rd Congress, in which I was a freshmen, enacted 
this law on a bipartisan basis in 1994. As a result of this audit, we 
found the Federal Government could not balance its books. That is why 
we gave them 5 years to do it way back in 1994. In fact, the 
information in the financial statements was so poor that the auditors 
were not able to determine the adjustments necessary to make the 
information reliable.
  For the first time, however, Congress was provided a concise 
accounting for the many financial management problems faced by the 
executive branch of the Federal Government. This report, by the General 
Accounting Office, the audit arm of the legislative branch known as the 
GAO, confirmed that at least tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars are 
being lost each year to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement in 
hundreds of programs throughout the executive branch.
  Government financial management is largely in disarray in some 
departments. Its financial systems and practices are obsolete and 
ineffective, and do not provide complete, consistent, reliable, and 
timely information to either congressional or presidential decision-
makers, let alone to agency management, which is responsible for the 
implementation of these various programs.
  The GAO report provided a synopsis of the significant weaknesses in 
the financial systems: problems with fundamental recordkeeping and 
incomplete documentation. There were weak internal controls, including 
weak computer controls. These structural problems then prevent the 
executive branch from accurately reporting a large portion of its 
assets, its liabilities, and its expenses.
  According to the General Accounting Office, ``These deficiencies 
affect the reliability of the consolidated financial statements and 
much of the underlying financial information.'' More important, ``These 
problems also,'' said the GAO, ``affect the government's ability to 
accurately measure the full cost and financial performance of programs, 
and effectively and efficiently manage its operations.''
  Looking at some of the charts here, the subcommittee released the 
first report card measuring the effectiveness of the financial 
management at 24 Federal agencies, which were required over a 5-year 
period to prepare financial statements and have them audited. The 
grades were based on reports prepared by the various agency Inspectors 
General, independent public accountants, and the General Accounting 
Office.
  The report card is a gauge for Congress to see where attention is 
needed to push agencies to get their financial affairs in order. A few 
agencies, most notably the Department of Energy and the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration, demonstrated that they could 
effectively manage their finances.
  However, these agencies were the exception, rather than the rule. Six 
other agencies earned commendable Bs. Eleven of the 24 agencies, 46 
percent, were not able to meet the March 1 reporting date in the Act. 
That is 5 months after the close of the Federal fiscal year.

[[Page H4255]]

  As of today, four laggard agencies, the Department of Agriculture, 
the Department of Education, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 
the Department of State, have yet to submit audited financial 
statements. The Federal fiscal year ended 8 months ago.
  Many other agencies could not pass muster. The Agency for 
International Development, the Department of Defense, the Department of 
Justice, the Office of Personnel Management, they all received Fs. Two 
more agencies that reported late, the Department of Commerce, 
Department of Transportation, also wound up with Fs. Another six 
agencies failed at the D level.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Neumann), the author of this resolution, one of the most fiscally 
conservative and fiscally articulate Members of this body, and one of 
the handful of us who have spoken on the unfunded liabilities facing 
the Federal Government. The gentleman from Wisconsin looked at a lot of 
these documents and drew up the resolution we have before us today.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about this because I 
come from the private sector. In the private sector, for our business, 
our small business, we literally had to go through an audit every year, 
so I come into this looking at it with some private sector experience. 
I bring with me the standards and the expectations that were required 
of us in our business in the private sector.
  I have to say, after a brief review of this, it becomes very apparent 
that the management here in the government is set by an entirely 
different set of standards than what was expected of us out in the 
private sector. I would like to explain exactly how an audit works, so 
it is clear what has happened here in this audit.
  What happens in an audit is the auditors come in and look at all of 
the assets and the financial statements, and where the money went in a 
given agency. So, for example, if you are the Forest Service, you would 
look for a list of all the roads that were controlled and managed by 
the Forest Service, and where they spent their $3.4 billion in the 
Forest Service management. So you would take this whole list of things 
and then go into it and pull a couple of the things out. You would go 
looking for them.
  Let me give another example. In the military, for example, in the 
Navy, they went looking for 79 ships. 79 ships they went looking for.

                              {time}  1500

  Out of the 79 ships they went looking for, they found out that in 
fact they could not find 21 of them. Twenty-one out of 79 they could 
not find. I am in the home building business and when they did an audit 
in my company, I gave them the list of all the lots we were working 
with and all the houses we had built and all the money I spent on a 
given house, all the money we took in on a given house. We had to give 
our auditors that and they would pull those records on a particular 
house out of 120 homes that we were building in a given year. They 
might pull out three or four or five and see if the money that we said 
we spent to pay for drywall, for example, we actually had a check that 
we could document that we spent that money.
  No, in the private sector if one fails an audit, effectively the bank 
shuts the business down and the company goes out of business. The 
businessman must go find something else to do. That is what happens in 
the private sector.
  Our purpose for being here today is to, number one, disclose the 
results of this audit; and, number two, disclose how different the 
standards are that are being applied here in the government and what is 
happening here; and three, to make sure that we start doing something 
about the mess that has been created.
  Mr. Speaker, I have brought a few pictures with me to help make this 
clearer. When the Navy went looking for these 79 ships, they found out 
they were missing tugboats. I think that is important. We are not 
talking about rubber duckies in the bathtub. We are talking about the 
tugboats, for heaven sakes, that the Navy has on their list that was 
not available when they went looking for it.
  Another thing the Navy went looking for, they went looking for these 
two skiffs. These things are supposed to be out there. They are not 
there. They are on their list, they say where they are, they say they 
are supposed to be available. They are not there.
  So when we go looking for 79 ships on the inactive list and 45 on the 
active list, 21 of the 79 could not be found. But think about this for 
a minute. On the active available military ships, 2 out of 45 were not 
available. That is to say if we were to go to some sort of a military 
conflict, assuming that these ships are available to move troops around 
or to do whatever they might do, 2 out of 45 could not be found.
  I have some more examples here. As I go to the Air Force, and I go to 
this one that I think is very, very important, they went looking for 
missile launchers. In fact, they found out they could not find this 
particular missile launcher. Now, since the audit has been completed, 
they believe they have found the missile launcher. But the facts are 
when the time came for the auditors to go looking for this missile 
launcher that was supposed to be available, they could not find the 
missile launcher.
  Now, in all fairness to the people in the uniform, and I want to make 
this very clear, this is not a reflection of our young men and women 
who are doing so much to defend our country. This is a reflection of 
mismanagement by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. That is what we need 
to go after. This should not in any way reflect negatively on our 
military.
  In fact, as we understand that these military parts and pieces of 
equipment that are so necessary for our military cannot be found, we 
should understand that it puts our young men and women in uniform in 
jeopardy and that is why it is so significant that we do something 
about correcting this problem.
  Mr. Speaker, here is another one with the Air Force which is 
particularly disturbing. They said we had a C-130 transport plane. This 
is what it looks like. And again this is a huge plane. It is designed 
to move troops around. So if we were to have a military conflict and 
they went looking for this C-130, this troop transfer plane, it does 
not exist anymore.
  It turns out when the auditors went to look for this C-130 plane, it 
had been destroyed 4 years ago in a test involving corrosion. So the 
military gave this list of available military equipment that if we were 
to have a military conflict of some sort they were expecting to be able 
to find, but when the auditors went looking for this particular plane, 
this C-130, and, remember, they just went looking for a small sample, 
when they went looking for this it turns out the thing had been 
destroyed several years back.
  I do not want to stop at just the military. That would be very 
unfair. As we went through this audit, we found similar activities in 
virtually every agency we went into and looked at. Coming from the 
private sector, if we had ever been in this shape in the private 
sector, we would have been out of business instantaneously because 
there is not a bank in the world that would have loaned us money if we 
could not have found the houses we built or if we could not find the 
lots we were supposed to own to build the houses on in our company. 
That is just exactly how ridiculous this situation is.
  I have here a picture of a computer. This thing weighs 825 pounds and 
is 5 feet tall. The Energy Department listed this $141,000 computer on 
their asset sheet. When they went looking for the computer, it was 
nowhere to be found. When people say we cannot control Washington 
spending and we have no more room to get spending under control in 
Washington, we do not have to look any farther than this waste and 
mismanagement to understand how far it is that we still have to go to 
get government spending under control.
  I would like to give a couple more examples.
  HUD. We hear so many cries that we have homeless people in America 
and HUD needs more money. It turns out the auditors went into HUD. This 
is the housing department and provides housing for homeless and poor 
people in this country. They have a budget of about $18 billion, and 
when they went looking for the money, approximately 1 out of the $18 
billion could not be accounted for.
  Let me put this in perspective. I live in Wisconsin and part of my 
district is a city of 85,000 roughly, Kenosha, and

[[Page H4256]]

another city of 80,000 people called Racine. The amount of money that 
HUD was missing is enough to house all the people in the City of 
Kenosha and all the people in the City of Racine for an entire year. 
That is just the money they cannot find and cannot account for in HUD.
  This one hit particularly close to home. We went over to the FAA, and 
in this audit they went looking for some of the assets that were listed 
on the FAA sheets and they said they had this building out there. Well, 
the auditors went to look for the building. The building had been 
demolished years ago. I guess we were not supposed to feel too bad 
about that because they went to another lot that was supposed to be 
vacant and they found out they had built a day care center on it, but 
it did not show up on the asset list.
  The point again is just the total mismanagement of what is going on 
in these agencies and how far we have to go to get this government 
spending under control.
  I would like to read specifically, and I had this prepared as a 
summary for my office on this GAO audit, I would like to read a couple 
of the different parts and I would like to start with Medicare. This is 
what it says and I quote, and this is a GAO summary prepared for my 
office.

  Quote on Medicare: $23 billion, or about 14 percent of the total 
payments, this is for Medicare, for reasons ranging from inadvertent 
mistakes to outright fraud and abuse; $23 billion in Medicare is 
missing. And the responsibility for reasons ranging from inadvertent 
mistakes to outright fraud and abuse.
  Here is a scary one. This is regarding the Air Force Logistics 
Systems and I want to read this word for word, what the auditors found: 
These databases included in the Air Force's Central Logistics System 
contained discrepancies on equipment, on the number of assets on hand, 
including ground-launched and air-launched cruise missiles, aircraft, 
and helicopters.
  Let me say that once more. This is where there were discrepancies in 
this Air Force Logistics System, including ground-launched and air-
launched cruise missiles. They are unaccounted for. The numbers that 
are actually existing out in the field versus the number that we are 
reporting that we have at the Pentagon are two different numbers. They 
are not accounted for.
  Mr. Speaker, that is serious. That puts our Nation in jeopardy. We 
need to get this system under control.
  Let me read just one more. Whenever anybody says to me, ``Mark, you 
cannot do anything more with government spending, we need to spend more 
in the government, spending has to increase faster than the rate of 
inflation, we cannot get spending under control,'' I come back to this. 
And quote, word for word from the summary that was prepared for my 
office:

       The Forest Service could not determine for what purposes it 
     spend $215 million of its $3.4 billion in operating and 
     program funds.

  They could not account for $215 million. We are not talking about a 
buck or two here out of our wallet; $215 million that they could not 
account for out of a $3.4 billion budget.
  When we looked at overall Treasury, that is the cash flow of going 
from one agency to another agency and the billing back and forth, the 
Treasury was off by over $100 billion, some plus and some minus, and in 
the end a net of $12 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to pass this resolution, we need to move forward 
over the course of the summer and get this mess straightened out.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that every American agrees that we want fiscal 
responsibility and accountability. I think both sides of the aisle can 
agree on that. And I think what is important, as we set higher 
standards of accountability for our government is that we take an 
accounting of the measure of progress which has occurred under the 
Clinton administration, because the people of this country ought to 
know that before the Clinton administration took office there had never 
been a comprehensive review of how the government handles our tax 
dollars. As a matter of fact, after hearing a similar recitation to 
that just offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann) in our 
Government Management, Information, and Technology Subcommittee, I 
questioned officials of the Department of Defense and found out that in 
fact for decades, for centuries, the Department of Defense has had its 
problems keeping track of their materiel. It does not excuse it for one 
year or one minute, but I think we have to establish a context of this 
discussion this afternoon.
  When the Clinton administration began their efforts, there were no 
accounting standards for the Federal Government. Most Federal agencies 
had never issued a financial statement and there had been no 
governmentwide financial statement.
  Furthermore, there had been no independent verification of the 
agencies's estimates of their financial positions. Now, thanks to the 
changes that have been put in place through the administration and, I 
might say with the help and the constant vigilance of people like the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), we have more agencies than ever 
issuing financial statements and having them audited.
  As Members of Congress are aware, the Subcommittee on Government 
Management, Information, and Technology headlined a series of hearings 
recently on the financial audits of the Federal Government. We 
conducted those hearings in a bipartisan manner because the issue of 
good financial management is not a partisan issue. And we need to 
continue to work in this manner. The sponsors of this particular 
resolution have accommodated our concerns, and while I may not 
completely agree with their positions, the need for increased attention 
to financial management and strong efforts leads me to support this 
resolution.
  Without question, there is a need for intensified financial 
management by Federal agencies. The governmentwide audit and many of 
the agency audits shows that the Federal Government has a long way to 
go. House Resolution 447 is based on the results of the first 
governmentwide financial audit conducted in 1997. I want everyone to 
listen very carefully. In 1997, we had the results of the first 
governmentwide financial audit conducted that year. The law mandating 
this audit was passed by a Democratic Congress, with the active support 
of the Clinton administration. The Clinton administration is addressing 
financial problems at Federal agencies that date back decades. And I 
feel it should get credit for serious attention to this longstanding 
problem, just as we must place on their shoulders, because they are 
there now, the responsibility for making increased progress.
  But real progress has been made by this administration. The key to a 
financial audit is whether the financial information presented in the 
balance sheets is reliable. When the financial information is reliable, 
auditors issue what is called an unqualified opinion or a clean audit.
  As we can see on this chart right here, Mr. Speaker, in 1990, only 
two agencies had an unqualified opinion. But by 1997 under President 
Clinton, nine CFO agencies had unqualified opinions. Clearly, 
additional improvement is needed. Getting an unqualified opinion is not 
sufficient. Adequate internal financial controls and compliance with 
laws and regulations are two other areas where agencies must improve.
  However, it is clear that the Clinton administration has come a long 
way. And by 1998, the goal, as can be seen from this chart, is to come 
further and to keep reaching what I think is the next plateau of 16 
clean and unqualified opinions.

                              {time}  1515

  The current administration is committed to these additional 
improvements and to achieving a clean governmentwide audit for fiscal 
year 1999. To that end, the President issued a memorandum to agency 
heads requiring that specific agencies prepare action plans to ensure 
that the government receives an unqualified opinion on its fiscal year 
1999 audit. Federal chief financial officers now predict that at least 
15 of the 24 Federal departments will receive clean opinions of their 
fiscal year 1998 financial statements.
  Good financial management of taxpayers' money is too important for it 
to become bogged down in partisan warfare. There is simply too much to 
the done. For that reason, I am glad we have been able to address this 
issue in a bipartisan way.

[[Page H4257]]

  Again, look at this, Mr. Speaker, 1997, how far we have come from 
1990, and, again, when the administration began, there were no 
accounting standards for the Federal Government. Most Federal agencies 
never issued a financial statement. There had been no governmentwide 
financial statement, no independent verification of the agencies' 
estimates of their financial positions. So we have come a distance. We 
have a great distance to go.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Waxman).
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I will not take a great deal of time on this 
debate, but I want to take this opportunity to commend the authors of 
this legislation, the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) and the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann).
  As amended, the resolution underscores the importance of sound 
financial management. The effort to promote sound financial management 
should be and is bipartisan. As amended, this resolution deserves 
bipartisan support.
  The recent governmentwide audit shows that many Federal Government 
agencies do not have adequate financial management. This resolution 
sends an important message that we need to do more.
  It is also important to recognize the progress that has been made by 
this administration, by the Clinton administration, and by Vice 
President Gore's reinvention efforts. In 1992, only one Federal agency 
had a clean audit. Due to the administration's efforts, nine agencies 
now have clean audits. Next year 15 agencies are expected to have clean 
audits. So it is clear that while we have a long way to go, we are 
making progress.
  This resolution says that we want to build bipartisan support to push 
for more progress. In that effort I join my colleagues in urging all of 
the Members to vote for this resolution.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time.
  First of all, I would like to thank the ranking member, the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), for his hard work on this, and also the Chair 
on the subcommittee on which I had the honor to serve for many years, 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), for working hard on this and 
for accepting some changes in the language from the Democrats to 
Resolution 447, which we are now supporting.
  The bad news contained in this resolution is that the Federal 
Government, the world's largest financial entity, has financial 
problems. These problems are not new; they have existed for decades. We 
knew this when we decided to initiate reforms. When we began reforms, 
there were no accounting standards for the Federal Government. Most 
Federal agencies had never issued a financial statement, and there had 
been no independent verification of the agencies' estimates of their 
financial position. So in a bipartisan effort, a Democratic Congress 
crafted and passed the Government Management Reform Act along with the 
Republicans in 1994, and a Democratic President signed it into law.
  The administration has worked hard to implement this law. Next year 
15 of the 24 major agencies are expected to receive clean financial 
opinions. This year the administration met the bill's statutory 
deadline by completing the first governmentwide audit ever, the first 
in more than 200 years. We should congratulate them for this effort.
  I commend the ranking member and all who have worked on this. As we 
have worked in the past for increased procurement reform, for increased 
debt management and position systems, I join my colleagues in 
supporting this.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I think it is important for the American people to have a progress 
report at this moment as to Federal financial management, because that 
is what this resolution lends itself to. We have stated earlier that 
prior to the administration taking office, that there were no general 
standards, but now a structure has been put in place to assure fiscal 
accountability for the American people.
  Qualified chief financial officers and deputy chief financial 
officers have been appointed so there is accountability and there is a 
system of command. Accounting standards have been issued. We have had a 
foundation for agency financial statements, the accounting standards 
that have been developed by the Treasury, the Office of Management and 
Budget and GAO, working together through the Federal Accounting 
Standards Advisory Board, and that was initially created in 1990 to 
fill a void. But so far, through the help of OMB, we have seen some 
real strength put into that process, and accounting standards have been 
issued. And that information has been transmitted down through the 
departments.
  The OMB has issued financial system requirements, and the agencies 
are now issuing audited financial statements.
  I would also like to point out that it was on March 31, 1998, that 
the Department of the Treasury issued the first ever audited, 
consolidated financial statement for the Federal Government.
  The President's budget states the objective of having an unqualified 
audit opinion, a clean audit on the government's 1999 financial 
statements, so the President has firmly stated the administration's 
goal of receiving a clean opinion on the 1999 governmentwide financial 
statements, and also the administration has been very interested in 
identifying weaknesses in the audit as far as the first ever 
governmentwide statement for fiscal year 1999.
  As I am sure many Members know, the President has directed agency 
heads to submit action plans to address impediments to an unqualified 
audit opinion on the government's 1999 financial statements.
  Mr. Speaker, we could ask, as we are thinking of our financial status 
and whether or not the American people are getting a good accounting, 
we could look at a glass and say, is it half full or is it half empty. 
We can point today to deficiencies which do exist, and we could say the 
glass is half empty. But we could also say that with all the water that 
has gone under the bridge, we have a lot of progress that has been made 
towards rebuilding the financial accountability of the country.
  I know with some testimony I heard in committee, it would seem as 
though the glass is neither half empty nor half full, it is missing. 
Wherever that is the case, we certainly want to make sure that our 
audits work to identify wherever there is waste and inefficiencies in 
the Federal Government, and we need to work to rid it out.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, we have come a distance. We have a great distance 
to go to have the kind of accountability which the American people have 
a right to expect, but I think at this time a progress report has been 
in order.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, I first thank both the former ranking member 
and the current ranking member. We have worked on a bipartisan basis. 
We have got a lot accomplished. I appreciate their kind words.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Armey), distinguished majority leader, PhD in economics, who 
also knows how to read a balance sheet.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Upton). The gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Armey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ARMEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) 
and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann) for their persistence on 
this matter.
  I listened with some interest to the remarks that were being made as 
I came in. It is always interesting to try to debate whether the glass 
is half full or half empty, but I think we would all agree that in any 
enterprise in America, other than the government, whether it be our 
family, whether it be our business, whether it be even a State or local 
government enterprise, everybody would understand that they have to 
have an audit to determine how much water is in the glass. Then we can 
debate whether it is half full or half empty, as long as we know that 
half of the capacity for the glass is taken up. And our problem with 
our government, Mr. Speaker, it does not know what it has. It does not 
know what it does. It loses things, sometimes

[[Page H4258]]

things that would be fairly difficult to lose.
  A missile launcher was identified as lost for 6 months, and it is not 
clear to us that they realized that it was lost until Congress 
encouraged them to have an audit, find out what they had and where it 
was.
  They did finally find the missile launcher. I am not so sure that 
without the work of this committee they would have suffered enough 
embarrassment and awareness of their loss to have found the missile 
launcher. But the job is not done. We still are missing a tugboat, a 
crane and other large equipment.
  Nobody here is seeking to be angry or nasty about this. We are not 
even particularly interested in criticizing or blaming. But the fact of 
the matter is that every organization in the world must know what it is 
doing with its money, and certainly the Federal Government of the 
United States, a government that is given the trust and confidence of 
the American citizens to spend literally $1.5 trillion of our money, 
should be willing to subject itself to the same auditing principles, 
the same accountability as any small enterprise that may, in fact, find 
itself subject to the audits of some of those very same government 
agencies that are not doing so well in these audits.
  Jerry Jeff Walker has a wonderful song. The song is ``The Pot Can't 
Call the Kettle Black.'' If the government will not accept the rigors 
of auditing, the rigors of accountability, how can the government have 
any moral basis by which they would themselves hold you and I 
accountable for these same rigors as they seek to regulate and invest 
in our lives?
  The IRS might even come in and lock your doors, throw the business 
owners in jail for negligence, embezzlement or worse.
  Now, I, as the gentleman from California said, I am an economist. I 
deal with all these things in theory. I am proud to tell colleagues 
that in theory my world is, as they like to say, tractable, all the 
pieces fit. That is very comforting to me.
  My daughter, on the other hand, pity her, is an auditor. She 
understands that when she shows up, she is not going to be welcomed 
with open arms. As I said earlier before the committee, pity the poor 
auditor. They are always the skunk at the garden party.

                              {time}  1530

  But the auditor in any business will tell you, the audit department 
is absolutely imperative. I have made the homely observation before 
many times that Armey's axiom is, ``Nobody spends somebody else's money 
as wisely as they spend their own.'' The auditor does that. The auditor 
comes in and says to the agency of the Federal Government that is not 
doing well, not showing up well on the books, ``You and I are doing the 
same thing here. We're really quite the same. I spend that money like 
it's my money, and you spend that money like it's my money.''
  Everybody in every agency should be encouraged to take the rigor, 
face the hard recordkeeping, the disciplined process of knowing exactly 
what they are doing with the taxpayer's dollar, having a clear idea 
what their responsibilities are, how they intend to fulfill those 
responsibilities, and what and how they spend of the taxpayers dollars 
in the fulfillment of those responsibilities, and then just having the 
fundamental decency to be accountable in the expenditure of those 
dollars.
  Where does the Congress come in in this process? The Congress of the 
United States is as if we were the board of directors. It is our job to 
see to it that the rigors and the disciplines, the protocols, the 
techniques and the methods are as rigorously adhered to in each and 
every agency of this Government as this Government in fact would 
require them to be adhered to by each and every business enterprise, 
each and every charitable enterprise that exists in our districts.
  There is another old saying that maybe comes into play here: ``What's 
good for the goose is good for the gander.'' The Federal Government of 
the United States in fulfilling its obligations and its duties to 
police the integrity of business practice and enterprise in America so 
that markets can work smoothly cannot possibly have a moral authority 
by which that is done unless they first accept that responsibility and 
fulfill that responsibility in full accountability in the manner in 
which they do their own job. That is really what this is all about. 
Will this Congress accept its responsibility, and by so doing so, can 
we assure our constituents that, in response, every agency of this 
Government fulfills its responsibility so that we can measure and we 
can judge and we can improve the extent to which the taxpayer gets 
something that is known in the private sector as value for your dollar.
  Once again, I want to thank the committee for their hard work.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Upton). The time of the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Horn) has expired. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich) has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Horn).
  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, I am sure the gentleman from Ohio who supports 
this resolution, I appreciate that, and the ranking member on the 
committee, I have appreciated his support.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann) 
who did the craftsmanship of this particular resolution.
  Mr. NEUMANN. Mr. Speaker, I would just say it is very important to me 
that we keep this from becoming a partisan issue. This is not about 
Republicans or Democrats, or even about the Clinton administration. 
This is about where we are right now today. In my opinion after 
reviewing this audit, we have a long way to go in this Government.
  It is incomprehensible to me, coming from the private sector, to look 
at this situation and say it is okay. It is not okay. Before we go out 
and spend $1.7 trillion more of the taxpayers' money next year, I think 
we should put some things into place that force these agencies to at 
least know what it is they have, where it is located, and how they are 
spending their money. I would hope we proceed with that over the course 
of the next 6 months here yet this year.
  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, I think as the gentleman from Ohio knows and 
certainly as the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) knows, the 
ranking member, the aim of our committee over time is to assure that 
the Federal Government not only has audits but also that the Federal 
Government can measure the effectiveness of its programs which has to 
be basic when the President has to make a determination between do I 
keep this program or do I reduce or do I add to it, and the same 
decision has to be made by the Congress. There is only one State in the 
union that has a system like that, that is the State of Oregon with its 
benchmarking of programs. There are only two countries in the world 
that have a fiscal system such as that, and that is Australia and New 
Zealand. We have a lot to learn from both of them.
  Over the last 3 years, we have been holding various hearings on how 
this could be done so that the program analysis becomes part of the 
monetary cost of the particular unit of program. That is what is 
important if we really want to make sure that the taxpayer dollars are 
not wasted.
  I do not think there is a person in this Chamber that wants to waste 
taxpayer dollars. I think sometimes by either our failure to be very 
specific in a law or the executive branch's failure to interpret the 
law, regardless of party, regardless of ideology, but you have got a 
culture there that when you get to the end of the fiscal year that 
says, ``Well, let's spend it, and if we don't spend it, the Congress 
won't give it to us.'' I have seen that in universities, I have seen 
that in city government, I have seen that even in business, in large 
corporations. It is something that we have got to fight if we are going 
to be conscious of where the money comes from. It comes from the 
pockets, the hard-earned pockets of the American taxpayer.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I first want to say how much I appreciate a chance to 
work with the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) on issues of this 
import in the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and 
Technology. I congratulate him for his tireless dedication to the 
American taxpayer. I also want to congratulate the

[[Page H4259]]

gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann) for bringing this resolution 
forward and for working with us in crafting the language which would 
enable it to have bipartisan support.
  I think it is important that we proceed in a bipartisan manner here, 
because the American people expect us to, and they know the only way we 
can make Government accountable is if we insist from both sides that 
Government be accountable. Certainly it needs to be said again that the 
Clinton administration has taken the lead in highlighting and 
addressing the problems that have been discussed here today.
  In 1993, Vice President Gore recommended annual consolidated 
financial reports and comprehensive Governmentwide accounting standards 
as part of his Reinventing Government Initiative. The Federal 
Accounting Standards Advisory Board completed basic Federal Government 
accounting standards in record time. And as has been previously stated, 
the administration submitted the first Governmentwide financial audit 
by the statutory deadline of March 31, 1998. President Clinton has sent 
a memorandum to each agency head requiring that specific agencies 
prepare action plans to ensure that the government receives an 
unqualified opinion on its fiscal year 1999 audit.
  Mr. Speaker, the administration needs both of us, needs all of us, to 
work with it to make Government work better. I remain dedicated to that 
cause. I know that is a dedication that I share with my colleagues, 
with the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), with the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann) and with everyone else.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) that the House suspend the rules 
and agree to the resolution, House Resolution 447, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 5 of rule I and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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