Political Quotes

“I come to the floor today to question the plan for auditing the Department of Defense. The new Chief Financial Officer, Mr. David Norquist, presented a plan to the Armed Services Committee on May 9. It appears flawed, like a lot of other such plans. The Department may be audit ready by the September 30 deadline, but the goal--and the goal ought to be a clean opinion--isn't in the mix. In its place, we get another lame excuse: ``I recognize it will take time to go from being audited to passing an audit.'' We have heard this story over and over for 26 years. When will it come to an end? I don't think the Pentagon has a clue if the Department is truly audit ready. Then, why is the Chief Financial Officer predicting failure before the audit even starts? Doubletalk is necessary to accomplish that goal. A monster is lurking in the weeds, and nobody wants to talk about it. It is the ``deal- breakers.'' That is a term that is often used in audit reports. They are red-flagged accounting issues listed in Department of Defense reports for years and years. They are prefaced by this warning: ``The deal-breakers prevent clean opinions.'' If Mr.…”