[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18425-18426]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   FORMATION OF GROUP AIMED AT ELIMINATING WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE IN 
                               GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gingrey). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we have already heard 
from a number of my colleagues here regarding this new working group, 
the Washington Waste Watchers Group, to expose and to help root out 
waste, fraud, abuse, the double-talk that is so rampant up here in the 
Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, I am relatively new here, as you well know. This is my 
first term. What I have found when I got here is a number of 
interesting things. Number one is how here in Washington when you see 
huge increases in government spending, some on the Democratic side call 
that cuts. How we have found in a very short period of time, millions? 
No, Mr. Speaker, not millions, billions of dollars of wasted, of lost 
taxpayers' money, money that is being robbed from the taxpayer. And 
also, Mr. Speaker, that money is also being robbed from the people that 
are dependent on the services of government. It is money that is being 
robbed from the students, money that is being robbed from the teachers, 
from the law enforcement officers, from our brave men and women in 
uniform.
  While we heard some of my colleagues specifically mention some of 
those billions of dollars worth of overpayments, our dear friends in 
the minority party propose as a solution this year on this floor $890 
billion in more government spending. Mr. Speaker, while my colleagues 
here mention billions of dollars of lost money, money that has 
evaporated with zero accountability, our good friends in the minority 
party propose as a solution to spend

[[Page 18426]]

another $890 billion of the hard-working American people. Take it from 
them, Mr. Speaker, and bring it up here so we can waste, we can 
misspend, we can lose and we can hire more bureaucracy.
  Mr. Speaker, while we heard from some of my colleagues, Republican 
colleagues, about improper payments, billions of dollars of improper 
payments, some going for dead people that did not then go to serve, for 
example, our seniors, our friends in the minority party still propose 
increasing taxes to do more of that? Mr. Speaker, this group is a group 
of young, when I say young, some are younger than others, but new 
Members of this Chamber; and we want to see if we can change the 
culture a little bit here in Washington, D.C. We commend the President 
for trying to do the same thing, to change the culture from a culture 
of irresponsibility, of lack of accountability, of it doesn't matter 
because we will take more money from the hard-working American people 
to bring it up here. So it doesn't matter if we lose money, it doesn't 
matter if nobody is held accountable, it doesn't matter if nobody is 
indicted, it doesn't matter if nobody is imprisoned, it doesn't matter 
because we will just raise taxes on the American people, on those hard-
working American people that are struggling to pay their bills.
  Mr. Speaker, again, we are here to announce that, with a number of 
colleagues, we are not going to sit by idly and watch as money is 
wasted, is thrown away, evaporates, is lost. We are here to come up 
with solutions, to first highlight the problem and then come up with 
solutions, specific solutions so that the American people can know that 
when they send us their valuable, hard-earned tax money, that money is 
going to be well spent on essential services for those that truly need 
it and not on more bureaucracy, on more misspending, on more evaporated 
dollars that nobody can find.

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