[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6350-6351]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           WASTEFUL SPENDING

  Mr. COATS. Madam President, I am back on the floor again for ``Waste 
of the Week'' No. 10. As my colleagues know, I have been coming down 
every week talking about waste, fraud, and abuse, ways we can save 
taxpayer dollars. While we have not been able to address, 
unfortunately, tragically, the larger issue of the plunge into deficit 
spending and debt that our Nation has incurred over the past several 
years, in particular--every effort, every bipartisan effort, has been 
thwarted by the President's refusal to engage in that, and yet the debt 
clock keeps on ticking. We keep spending more money than we take in. We 
keep putting more and more of a burden on future generations as well as 
our own.
  Our economy is not growing. One of the reasons is that we have not 
achieved fiscal responsibility in the Congress. So while we have not 
been able to address the larger issue, we can at least address some of 
those issues that have been documented as waste, fraud, and abuse, 
documented by nonpartisan agencies that are established for the sole 
purpose of weeding out some of the excess spending that is not 
essential to the functioning of government.
  We have put up some pretty interesting numbers relative to what we 
have achieved. We are already over $50 billion of spending that has 
been documented as totally unnecessary. Some of it has been of the 
character of somewhat ridiculous. Some has been very, very substantial. 
We are going to continue to do this, pointing out to the American 
taxpayer and pointing out to government officials who run these 
agencies and make these decisions that we simply cannot afford to keep 
doing this.
  So today's waste of the week will be addressed, hopefully by the 
Appropriations Committee, which will soon be working now that we have 
passed a budget, to distribute those funds that are necessary for the 
functioning of government.
  I am urging them to use a system and means of identifying what is 
essential and what is not essential. Now, there may be some things we 
would like to do but cannot afford to do. They need to be put on hold 
until we can do them. But there are a lot of issues and a lot of 
spending that goes on that should not be done in the first place.
  Significant savings can be made. Even though it is much smaller than 
what we need to do, we certainly can address issues that will save 
taxpayer dollars and better allocate spending for government. When our 
previous Governor in Indiana, Mitch Daniels, took over, he brought with 
him a resume as former Director of the Office of Management and Budget. 
Then-President George W. Bush gave him the name ``The Blade.'' ``The 
Blade'' looked at every small, little detail of spending and asked a 
lot of questions: Why are we doing this? How can we save? How can we 
make government more efficient? There are essential things government 
has to do. But when he became Governor, he transferred over some of 
that knowledge and expertise and started doing some simple things, 
asking some simple questions: Why are we spending money on this? Why 
are we spending money on that?
  Let me give you just a couple of examples. He gathered some of his 
staff and said: I want you to go out and put pennies on the tires of 
our State-owned vehicles wherever they are housed. Wherever they are 
parked, put pennies on them. He waited several months then said: Now, 
go back and identify all of those vehicles where the pennies are still 
on the tire. In other words, they had not been moved. They had not even 
been shifted to another parking spot. They simply were just sitting 
there.
  Well, interestingly enough, he found that many unused State vehicles 
still had the pennies on their tires. If they had been sitting there 
for months and nobody was using them, why are we paying for them? Why 
are we spending money on purchasing these? Let's sell them off, save 
some money for the State. They obviously are not necessary. It was one-
third of the State's fleet of vehicles.
  Another thing he did, he said: Let's look at our printing costs. The 
State had its own printing operation. He said: Let's shop around and 
see if the private sector can do this more effectively and efficiently. 
Of course, they did find a private vendor in Indiana that did it much 
more effectively.
  You save a lot of money just going black and white, maybe not quite 
as pretty, maybe not quite as attractive as color, but another way to 
save money.
  These are small things, but when you total them up for all the 
agencies that are in Washington--as was determined by the National 
Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform--it adds up to a lot of 
money. This government is more vast than anyone can possibly imagine.
  Well, the Commission found that Federal agencies could save at least 
$10 billion over 10 years by cutting out waste in federal travel, 
printing and vehicle expenses. So here again is a waste of the week 
that we are going to add to our ever-increasing gauge of the waste. All 
this now in red, these are what we have been adding, the 10 items that 
we have added. We are approaching now, looks like $60 billion, on our 
way to $100 billion. I think we will probably be having to add 
extensions to this because, folks, I mean, there is waste out there, 
there is fraud out there, there is abuse out there like you would not 
believe.
  Should we be dealing with the larger question, the runaway 
entitlements, the lack of money to adequately fund NIH or scientific 
research or education but we cannot because our budget is totally out 
of control? Should we be doing this? Absolutely. That is what we are 
here for. We have talked about this for the last 5 years since I have 
been back here. Despite the many alternatives that have been presented 
to the White House, every one has been rejected.
  So at least let's do those things where we have more control through 
the appropriations process and better manage government, make it more 
efficient and make it more effective. That is why we point out these 
and we will continue to point out these in the ``Waste of the Week'' 
No. 10. I cannot wait to get down here next week and do No. 11.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coats). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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