Gary Palmer

I think a lot of people would support a rail if it didn't go through the middle of their downtowns and our neighborhoods and if it was actually safe, which this clearly is not.

I thank the gentleman from North Carolina and the chairman for their indulgence.

My concern is, is that some of the stuff is carried over so long, particularly on improper payments, the amount keeps going up.

Sunshine is, I believe, the best disinfectant.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

Thank you very much. I yield back.

Well, that is an administrative issue ----

Given that for the last 2 years Medicaid improper payments have exceeded $36 billion, does CMS inflate its funding request to include improper payments?

We need to look at it, and I am going to challenge all of you to look at this as if it were your own money because indeed it is.

So, when someone files a fraudulent claim, they file it at the State level...

Today's hearing marks the continuation of the committee's close look at the rising problem of federal improper payments.

If it is above your pay grade, that is kind of depressing.

The point I want to make is really that we can get to a balanced budget.

Can any serious effort to reduce our growing deficit and debt problems exclude reforms to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?

That includes collecting all the taxes. That means taking advantage of our energy resources.

Section 257 B1 of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act requires budget scorekeeping decisions to assume that funding for entitlements already is adequate to make all payments required by those laws.

I think earlier Congresswomen Black asked about the new baseline being altered with CSR payments.

I was in a field hearing at Johns Hopkins Hospital with the former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, and I asked him if we had gone from a war on drugs to a drug with drugs.

But I do think that this is the real issue of border security, and a lot of people lose sight of this, that we are in a war with drugs.

I think we cannot ignore this, that there has been a dramatic increase in addiction in the States that have expanded.

Well, you mentioned fentanyl. It was recently reported that there were three people arrested who enough fentanyl to kill everybody in Toledo.

We have overregulated ourselves, we are overregulating our infrastructure, and it makes it extremely expensive, much more expensive than it ought to be.

The project will have taken 9 to 12 months longer than if it had been a local project.

This is an issue near and dear to my heart and close to me, particularly with my district.

The cost an average would be two times more than a similar project funded solely with local funds.