[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 11319-11320]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               WASTE FOUND WITHIN THE PELL GRANT PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, as another member of the Washington Waste 
Watchers, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight just one 
example of what we are now learning to be the vast amount of waste 
throughout our Federal Government. Unfortunately, no Federal agency is 
immune to this waste, even those that are implementing the Nation's 
most important Federal programs.
  One particularly troubling example of waste is found within the Pell 
grant program. $336 million in Pell grants were improperly dispersed to 
applicants that understated their income in 2001. Let me be clear, 
American taxpayers spent $336 million in Pell grants for applicants 
that were not eligible.
  Not only does this represent a terrible misuse of taxpayer dollars, 
the expenditure of these funds denies the legitimate financial 
assistance provided by Pell grants to the thousands of students who 
truly need and deserve this help.
  Mr. Speaker, we belong to a Congress that has brought unprecedented 
increases in Federal funding to our schools. Yet the administrators in 
my district continue to ask why have I not seen that money. I should 
not have to report to the administrators, teachers, and parents in 
Minnesota that the money they need to provide the quality education our 
children deserve is not available because it has been wasted by an 
inattentive Federal bureaucracy.
  We have got to put an end to this harmful waste. Unfortunately, some 
of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would prefer to ignore 
this waste and simply complain about, quote, lack of funding for Pell 
grants. Rather than crack down on the ineffective bureaucracy 
responsible for this waste, they would like to create more funds by 
raising taxes on hard-working American families.
  My colleagues and I in the Washington Waste Watchers have a more 
responsible approach. It begins with eliminating the waste in 
government spending and creating more efficiency in Federal programs.
  The budgets passed by the House Republicans both last year and this 
year make great progress toward our goal of eliminating waste. Last 
year's budget led to a report that highlighted between $85 and $100 
billion of wasteful spending. This year's budget instructed committees 
to reduce or eliminate the most egregious examples of waste.

[[Page 11320]]

  Mr. Speaker, American taxpayers deserve better than to have their 
hard-earned paychecks squandered by an irresponsible bureaucracy in 
Washington. I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join 
us in creating a better Federal Government, not making it bigger 
through more tax increases, but helping us to expand services for those 
who truly need them by eliminating the waste.

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