On the recordDecember 19, 2012
I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his leadership. Particularly, I want to thank Mr. Kelly for his perseverance, his introduction and sponsorship of H.R. 6016, and encourage my colleagues to support that legislation today. Most often when you hear about scandals in the Federal Government, there's a little bit of a flurry and then not much is done. Mr. Kelly has stepped forward and introduced legislation that will correct one of the most egregious actions against the Federal taxpayer that we've seen. Our committee, the Transportation Committee, does oversee the General Services Administration. Within that agency, we heard about the conduct of one senior executive employee, the Senior Executive Services, one of the highest levels of administration in our government. That person thumbed his nose in a hot tub at the taxpayers, at the Congress, and at everyone else. Today, this is taxpayers' revenge. This is a little gift hopefully we can put under the Christmas tree for the taxpayers so that people in those positions will not receive their pay and can be removed from office. We had to change the law--and we will change the law--to make certain that people who are supposed to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollars are held accountable. So I thank everyone in a bipartisan manner in bringing this legislation forward and strongly support its adoption.
