Tom Carper

We are trying to change the culture in the Federal Government from what we describe as a culture of spendthrift to something closer to a culture of thrift.

If it is not perfect, make it better.

I think Senator Carper mentioned in his opening remarks that we now have this requirement to incorporate improper payment efforts into employee performance appraisals.

But I think we are on to something. I think we have good partners in the Administration, a bunch of good partners on this Subcommittee and Committee, and in the Senate and House, both parties.

Not everybody gets excited about this stuff. And I know sometimes my colleagues look at me, roll their eyes and say why do you spend so much time focusing on it, or why do you get so juiced up about this?

Enormous is a very good adjective.

Good. Ten million dollars for most of us as individuals or families, that is a lot of money. But I would certainly observe that while it is a lot of money, compared to $125 billion, it is a relatively modest sum.

They say that sunshine is the best disinfectant and it is a pretty good one.

Could I just interrupt for a second? GWACs, BPAs. We go through acronyms every day.

The legal limit for borrowing money by our Federal Government has been met.

I think because we are requiring or having more agencies that are complying with the law and we have amended the law to make the net a little bigger.

I think we have about 2,000 of them in the Federal Government, and the effort is to try to reduce that to about 800 and to save I think he said $3 billion. I think it is $3 billion over 5 years, which that is real money.

Everything I do I know I can do better. The same is true for all of us.

We have record budget deficits as we know, and our national debt stands at about $14.3 trillion dollars.

It reflects this Committee, does it not?

We can have all the laws on the books, we can have regulations on the books, and we can have prosecutors out there trying to capture the bad guys and put them in jail.

The good news is we are all still here. The bad news is, so are the hackers that are trying to get into our bank accounts and steal our secrets.

We could never move the legislation forward because we were on the Banking Committee.

But I am glad at least someone is remembering that.

We have also worked to better secure our ports, our mass transit systems, our chemical facilities, and other key pieces of our infrastructure.

It would really be a shame if it all ended before we got this done.

But to me, those are the important elements that we need to----

I think I can fairly speak for the Administration in that regard.

Just to follow up on the last question that Senator Collins was pursuing.

Well, my guess is the media will help us with that, because every time there is one of these disclosures, we hear a lot about it, and that is probably not a bad thing.