[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 24, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H4600-H4601]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   GOVERNMENT WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, one of the things I hear from my 
constituents so regularly is: What are you

[[Page H4601]]

doing about our Nation's debt? What are you doing about this out-of-
control budget?
  From time to time, at our committee, we would hold hearings on an 
inspector general report and actually look at some waste. This started 
our office thinking and some of us on the Budget Committee thinking 
about: How do you begin to quantify that and hold these agencies 
accountable?
  As one of my constituents said: You know, it seems that they are 
always after one of us, a small-business owner, but they never go ask a 
Federal bureaucrat or a Federal agency to pony up or to pay back money 
or to be held accountable.
  In our office, our interns this summer have worked with us on a 
project to actually begin to quantify this waste and to look at these 
inspector general reports.
  Mr. Speaker, this is what we found. Just taking the reports from the 
70 agencies that have inspector generals and looking at a 4-year period 
of time, from 2011 to 2014, what we found is this: we could put our 
finger on $105.7 billion of waste, and that is $105.7 billion of waste, 
of taxpayer money that is being wasted. It has been identified by the 
inspector general's office. That works out to about $1.5 billion for 
each of these 70 agencies.
  Now, what was of concern to us was the fact that many of these 
agencies are doing nothing about it; and we found that, when you look 
at the reports that have been issued, which total 81 different reports, 
the reports for which a management decision was made during the 
reporting period was only 30 of those reports.
  Mr. Speaker, 30 times, management said that they are going to go in 
and they are going to take an action in response to the recommendations 
that the inspector general has found.
  Now, one of the things that we looked at was where these wasteful 
occurrences continue to happen and who are the repeat offenders when 
you look at these IG reports.
  Let me give you some examples, Mr. Speaker. Department of Defense, 
$38.2 billion that has been identified--this is one of the reasons that 
Republicans are pushing to audit the DOD and hold people accountable 
for the wasteful spending.
  Health and Human Services, $10.3 billion--we found that $2 billion 
went toward the ObamaCare Web site, which still is barely working.
  Department of Agriculture, $9.2 billion; Social Security 
Administration, $9.1 billion; Department of Energy, $7.7 billion--and 
by the way, Solyndra, a green energy firm, filed for bankruptcy in 
September 2011, after they got 536 million taxpayer dollars. The list 
goes on and on.
  What we are going to do--and I commend Chairman Price for pushing 
forward to hold some hearings with these inspector generals, with these 
departments, to drill down on the total number of reports and to hold 
them accountable for not taking an action and looking for ways that we, 
as Members of Congress, can charge back these agencies for the 
continued misuse--not occasional misuse, not one time misuse, but 
continued misuse of taxpayer dollars.
  When you look at the list of these agencies and what they have done, 
year after year, there are some of these agencies that end up in the 
top 10 offenders every year--2014, Department of Defense, HUD, Health 
and Human Services, Department of Energy, Social Security, Department 
of Agriculture, VA, Homeland Security, Department of Education, 
Department of State, and the Agency for International Development.
  You can look at 2013, continuing down the list, the top 10 again, 
Defense, HUD, Energy, Health and Human Services, Railroad Retirement 
Board, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Social Security Administration, 
Department of Education, and Department of State--repeated waste, 
fraud, and abuse of the taxpayer money.
  When I came to Congress in January 2003, our freshman class decided 
our project was going to be rooting out wasteful Washington spending. 
We continue to be committed to that, and I submit our findings to the 
body for their review and understanding.

           Inspector General Reports--Waste, Fraud, and Abuse


                               2011-2014

       Total waste (70 agencies) = $105.7 billion
       Average waste of the 70 agencies = $1.5 billion
       Waste by year:
       Our findings
       2011 = $20.1 billion
       2012 = $19.5 billion
       2013 = $40.9 billion
       2014 = $25.2 billion
       Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity & Efficiency
       2011 = $17.2 billion
       2012 = $12.8 billion
       2013 = $35.1 billion
       2014 = n/a
       11 agencies accumulated over $1 billion in waste over the 4 
     years:
       1. Dept. of Defense--$38.2 billion
       2. Dept. of Health & Human Services--$10.3 billion
       3. Dept. of Agriculture--$9.2 billion
       4. Social Security Administration--$9.1 billion
       5. HUD--$ 7.7 billion
       6. Dept. of Energy--$7.7 billion
       7. Dept. of Homeland Security--$5.9 billion
       8. VA--$3.9 billion
       9. Dept. of Education--$3.2 billion
       10. Railroad Retirement Board--$2.5 billion
       11. Dept. of State--$1.1 billion
       Top 10 in 2014 Total Waste
       1. Dept. of Defense--$10.4 billion
       2. HUD--$2.9 billion
       3. Dept. Health & Human Services--$2.7 billion
       4. Dept. of Energy--$2.6 billion
       S. Social Security Administration--$2.5 billion
       6. Dept. of Agriculture--$992.7 million
       7. VA--$957.1 million
       8. Dept. of Homeland Security--$345.5 million
       9. Dept. of Education--$273.4 million
       10. Dept. of State--$264.8 million
       11. Agency for International Development--$202.9 million
       Top 10 in 2013 Total Waste
       1. Dept. of Defense--$23.9 billion
       2. HUD--$2.9 billion
       3. Dept. of Energy--$2.6 billion
       4. Dept. of Health and Human Services--$2.5 billion
       5. Railroad Retirement Board--$2.2 billion
       6. Dept. of Homeland Security--$1.6 billion
       7. Dept. of Agriculture--$1.5 billion
       8. Social Security Administration--$1.4 billion
       9. Dept. of Education--$606.6 million
       10. Dept. of State--$266.1 million
       Top 10 in 2012 Total Waste
       1. Social Security Administration--$3.4 billion
       2. Dept. of Defense--$3.0 billion
       3. Dept. of Homeland Security--$2.3 billion
       4. Dept. of Health & Human Services--$2.3 billion
       5. Dept. of Agriculture--$2.0 billion
       6. HUD--$1.4 billion
       7. Dept. of Energy--$1.2 billion
       8. Dept. of Education--$999.4 million
       9. Securities and Exchange Commission--$557.1 million
       10. Treasury Inspector General on Tax Administration--
     $404.2 million
       Top 10 in 2011 Total Waste
       1. Dept. of Agriculture--$4.7 billion
       2. Dept. of Health & Human Services--$2.9 billion
       3. VA--$2.8 billion
       4. Social Security Administration--$1.8 billion
       5. Dept. of Homeland Security--$1.6 billion
       6. Dept. of Education--$1.3 billion
       7. Dept. of Energy--$1.2 billion
       8. Dept. of Defense--$979 million
       9. Securities and Exchange Commission--$566.9 million
       10. HUD--$395.9 million
       Other agencies total waste 2011-2014 (no particular order). 
     . .
       EPA--$404.7 million
       FCC--$24.4 million
       Dept. of Labor--$147.1 million
       Dept. of Treasury--$38.9 million
       Dept. of Commerce--$467.1 million
       Dept. of Transportation--$478.4 million.

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