[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5059]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           WASTEFUL SPENDING

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, bureaucracy is a word we hear every day. 
The Federal Government has become so large that it is difficult to 
follow how individual agencies are spending taxpayer dollars.
  Take the Federal Aviation Administration, for example. The FAA spent 
$4 billion on an air traffic control modernization program that was 
unreliable, did not work, and was shut down before it was completed. 
Mr. Speaker, $4 billion just flew out the window.
  The General Accounting Office remains concerned about the agency's 
poor accounting and lack of control over costs, as the agency proceeds 
with its new $42 billion air traffic modernization program. The GAO has 
every reason to be concerned about the FAA's decision-making process.
  According to the Department of Transportation's report, FAA employees 
are using programs designed to acquaint air traffic controllers with 
cockpit operations for personal travel. And as my friend and colleague, 
the gentleman from the 17th district of Ohio (Mr. Traficant), would 
say, ``Just beam me up, Scotty.''
  One employee took 12 weekend trips in a 15-month period to visit his 
family in Tampa, Florida, at taxpayers' expense.
  Mr. Speaker, the waste of taxpayer dollars just will not fly any 
more.

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