[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11754]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



  WE MUST ELIMINATE WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, one of my goals since first being elected 
to serve in Congress has been to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in 
the Federal Government and many of its programs. While we have been 
successful in identifying and reducing wasteful spending, there is 
still too much unnecessary spending that needs to be eliminated.
  This came out in a report by the Senate Committee on Governmental 
Affairs entitled Government at the Brink that outlines the urgent 
Federal Government management problems facing the Bush administration. 
They cited four core problems that exist: One, work force management; 
two, financial management information; three, technology management; 
and, four, overlap and duplication.
  Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee was the chairman of this committee 
when this report was compiled. I want to share with my colleagues what 
his committee found.
  A chief source of the information was based on reports issued by the 
General Accounting Office, the GAO, and agency inspectors general, or 
the IGs. Now, my colleagues might ask, just how much money are we 
talking about. Well, according to GAO, we are talking about at least 
$35 billion a year, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
  The GAO reported that the Medicare program wastes $12 billion every 
year on improper payments. According to the GAO, 10 percent of total 
health care costs are lost to wasteful spending. What came to light 
about the misappropriation of our tax dollars is downright alarming. In 
order to cut out waste in Medicare claims, the Health Care Financing 
Administration decided that new computer software should be developed 
to create one mammoth computerized method to review bills. Ultimately, 
what the American taxpayers got after 4 years was a bill for $80 
million. An official at this agency had this explanation: He said that 
the money was used in effect as a painful learning experience. We 
learned about this in 1997.
  The Medicare program is not the only offender. Let us take a look at 
the Department of Education. This government agency failed its last 
three financial audits. The government auditors identified accounting 
discrepancies totaling up to $6 billion in Federal education aid that 
was embezzled, lost, used for real estate purchases, luxury car items, 
rent, and so forth. If we intend to increase the funding to the 
Department of Education, then we need to put in strong accounting 
practices.
  Unfortunately, it is not difficult to find all sorts of examples of 
waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government. The Medicare program 
and the Department of Education have a long history of wasteful 
spending. However, the Department of Interior does not know what has 
happened to over $3 billion it holds in trust for the American Indians. 
Or what about what is referred to as the ``big dig'' up in Boston, 
Massachusetts? Boston's central artery has cost tremendous amounts of 
dollars. It has increased about 525 percent, from $2.6 billion to the 
current estimate of $14 billion.
  We have serious problems that are cited in the Thompson report that 
need to be addressed if we are to solve mismanagement of valuable 
resources. The most compelling of these is work force management. Many 
agencies lack the right employees with the right skills to do the job. 
The report also stated that the Clinton administration's downsizing of 
government hardly made a dent in the true size of government. What it 
did do was create a brain drain that cost the government many of its 
most experienced and valuable employees. The end result is that the 
Federal Government wound up doing the same old thing in the same old 
way, but with less experienced workers.
  Financial management. How can the government operate efficiently when 
agencies do not know how much money they have, how much they spend, or 
how much their programs cost.
  Information technology management. This is a critical item because we 
want our government computer systems not to be vulnerable to terrorist 
attacks, either domestically or internationally. The GAO has designed 
computer security, a governmentwide program, but it has problems.
  The last area of concern is overlap and duplication. For instance, 
the Federal Government has seven different agencies administering four 
different programs aimed at job training. Eight different agencies 
operate 50 different programs to assist the homeless. Nine agencies 
operate 27 teen pregnancy programs. Seventy different agencies gather 
and analyze statistical data. Seventeen departments and agencies 
operate 515 research and development laboratories.
  Mr. Speaker, these are just a few of the areas where duplication and 
overlap waste our tax dollars. We must restrain government spending, 
but I realize that, just as President Reagan said, government programs 
once launched never disappear. Actually, a government agency is the 
nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see here on this Earth.

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