[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 21005]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            GOVERNMENT WASTE

  (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, today I rise to speak on the enormous 
waste that occurs every day as Federal agencies continually fail to use 
proper oversight of disbursements of taxpayer dollars, and I want to 
cite three specific examples.
  Instead of using its Federal food stamp funds to provide food for 
poor children, California chose to waste these funds on microwave 
ovens, catering services, and even on fees for marriage licenses. Some 
agencies, like the Departments of Education and Commerce, have such 
inadequate computer systems that over $2 million of illegal meal 
reimbursements and payroll tax withholdings were not detected and 
escaped oversight. And these systems are inadequate, even though they 
continue to inappropriately spend millions of dollars trying to devise 
systems.
  In the past few years, the Federal Department of the Interior was 
unable to account for $11 billion of its financial transactions until 
it checked with other Federal agencies for confirmation of payment.
  Mr. Speaker, all of these examples stand as proof of why this 
Congress must continue to hold Federal agencies responsible and 
accountable for their accounting standards and move them toward 
compliance with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act. 
Otherwise, Mr. Speaker, this government will not make any progress in 
reducing our bloated Federal bureaucracy; and billions of dollars in 
taxpayer money will continue to be wasted.

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