Barbara Lee: “First of all, let me just say that I associate myself with the remarks that have been made tonight about my friend, the…”

“First of all, let me just say that I associate myself with the remarks that have been made tonight about my friend, the Honorable Dr. Michael Burgess. A couple of things that I thought, since I am retiring also and we are here on the floor tonight, to take a moment to tell Dr. Burgess how much I appreciate his leadership and his friendship. It is not often you hear about stories of Republicans and Democrats working together, so I decided to tell a few stories about Dr. Burgess. First of all, we believe that the taxpayer dollars need to be protected and to be used for what we intend taxpayer dollars to be used for. We talked and realized that the only agency that had never been audited was the Pentagon. Dr. Burgess and I worked for years to finally get the requirement into a bill that the Pentagon be audited because we know that there are billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse, but we did not know how much and we were shocked that this was the only agency that hadn't been audited. This never would have happened had it not been for Dr. Burgess and myself working together. We finally put a requirement into the bill that the Pentagon conduct an audit finally, but guess what? We talked the other day about this, the Pentagon has flunked its seventh audit now. I am originally from Texas. I represent the beautiful 12th Congressional District of California. Just know that I am going to continue to work, and I know Dr.…”