I appreciate your including that aspect in this hearing.

Thank you for your leadership on this set of hearings that we have been holding.

I would add, it did not reconcile the funding in that Act with the funding that we had just approved.

if you take $787 billion, even if it is a 1 percent loss, you are talking about a huge amount of money

Our vision in authorizing such a core of experienced contracting officials applies exactly to this kind of situation.

Waste or fraud in the spending of the $500 billion of stimulus funds will only further erode the American people's confidence in their government.

Right now I believe that they are hopeful, but they are also skeptical, of whether we can spend this much needed money wisely.

We were pleased that OMB and the Vice President adopted our recommendation, and they are going to clarify that.

the more eyes, the better, clearly

The board is meant to ensure coordinated and comprehensive oversight of stimulus spending and provide regular reports to Congress and the public.

It is extraordinarily important that we track the job creation provisions of this bill so that we know whether or not we were successful in creating or saving 3.5 million jobs.

I think if you are looking at re-employing annuitants, we have to take away the huge financial disincentive for them to come back to work.

the intent--indeed, the letter of the stimulus act--requires Federal, State, and local governments, but also private businesses, that are receiving money under the Recovery Act to adhere to the transparency and accountability requirements.

We intend to very closely and aggressively monitor spending of stimulus money ourselves.

In the American Recovery Act, otherwise known as the stimulus bill, there is some very good language and good provisions to put us in a position to protect the taxpayers in the spending of this money.

Now the challenge is to make sure that the billions of dollars provided by that law achieve the purpose of boosting our economy and saving and creating jobs.

I think that Senator McCaskill has raised an important point, and it is a point that I had intended to raise as well.

The more eyes that we have on this spending, the better.