[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 18959-18960]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
         FRESHMAN CLASS MISSION TO STOP WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE

  (Mrs. BLACKBURN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, the freshman class agrees that the waste 
has got to stop. The President agrees, the Congress agrees. Taxpayers 
must manage their own money, and so should the government. We are 
saddled with too many costly programs that are duplicated across too 
many agencies.
  It is our goal to provide effective government efficiency by 
eliminating programs that do not use our resources wisely. By using 
outcome-based measures and full cost accounting, this scrutiny can 
provide a powerful motivation for agencies to improve the efficiency of 
the programs that they oversee.
  Virtually every committee in Congress can make this effort a 
priority, reviewing the areas of jurisdiction for waste, fraud and 
abuse. At the Committee on Government Reform, we are particularly 
attuned to this effort and are well into reviews of agencies and 
programs that simply spend and spend without any results.
  I would argue that any money wasted is too much, but we are talking 
millions and billions of dollars. I hope my colleagues will join my 
fellow freshmen and me as we are going after this abuse.

[[Page 18960]]

  Mr. Speaker, now is the time for us to prioritize and reorganize 
government.

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