DENNIS A. CARDOZA: “I would be happy to, Mr. Ross. Number 12 is to make Congress do a better job keeping track on government programs that…”

“I would be happy to, Mr. Ross. Number 12 is to make Congress do a better job keeping track on government programs that it passes. As Mr. Tanner said earlier, we have basically abdicated our responsibility in this one-party form of government that we have right now. We are doing no oversight. We are not keeping tabs on the bills that we pass. In fact, the last four planks in the Blue Dog program all sort of relate to the same kind of thing. It is about accountability. It is about making sure that we read the bills, that we require honest cost estimates, that we make sure that the new bills fit the budget that we have already passed, and that we make sure that Congress does an adequate review on the bills that we have passed. They are just basic commonsense tenets. If you look back at the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, it is a perfect example of how this process has gone off the rails. And it has cost twice as much. I remember Mr. Dooley had a competing bill, but I think it probably did more for seniors than the one that we passed. And he could not even get a score from the Congressional Budget Office to say how much his bill was going to cost. That is just wrong. A Member of the Congress should be able to get the score. We should all have the score. The American people should be able to get the lowdown on what a bill costs and have that up front 3 days at least before we pass it.”