Bob Schaffer: “I was intending to go back to the memo that the gentleman and I received just last Friday. After our visit, the…”

“I was intending to go back to the memo that the gentleman and I received just last Friday. After our visit, the Secretary sent the memo addressed to the gentleman and myself, and it suggests that our questions into this whole slush fund, as the term had been used, is unwarranted. First of all, he says, ``The account was used as a clearing account to make adjustments. The Inspector General never called this a slush fund.'' So since the Inspector General does not call it a slush fund, therefore, according to the memo, it does not exist. But the Secretary goes on and says, ``The Department is legally prohibited from obligating funds for new activities from these accounts.'' Again, pointing out that those funds may not be spent out of the account on other things. But parking hundreds of millions of dollars of cash in that account creates a false-positive balance in the overall books that allows other expenditures to take place. This is the point we are raising.”