Political Quotes

“Madam President, 7 years ago, the Government Accountability Office included in its recommendations--something called the High Risk List--a way for us to stop wasting money, which was not to send checks to dead people. It was called improper payments to deceased. The GAO said there was a way to fix this, a way to stop this, and it proposed a way to stop it. I worked with the late Tom Coburn to craft and introduce that idea from the GAO into legislation. It cleared the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee not once, not twice, not three times but, I think, four times. Since the departure of Tom Coburn, it has been cosponsored by other Republicans, including, most recently, by John Kennedy of Louisiana. Improper payments are a huge deal for our Federal Government. The Government Accountability Office tells us that, last year, improper payments, overpayments, mistaken payments, and so forth were about $150 billion. That is billion with a ``b.'' The GAO thinks we ought to do something about it, and it has been thinking we ought to have done something about it for a long time. The person who is the leader of the Government Accountability Office is a fellow named Gene Dodaro. He has been the Comptroller General for, I think, gosh, a decade or more. I was talking to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro the other night. It was right after it was reported last week that Treasury had sent out $1.4 billion worth of checks to people who were deceased.…”