Political Quotes

“My amendment No. 860 is a good government amendment for which I hope we can get broad support. There are special interests in Washington making the rounds opposing this amendment. These groups have argued this amendment will unduly burden the Justice Department, take away grant money for worthy causes or erroneously ban grantees from future funds. These special interests are trying to protect their income streams of Federal grants and don't want somebody looking over their shoulder to make sure they are spending taxpayer dollars wisely. This amendment is a response to the lack of oversight, accountability, and responsibility for how American taxpayer dollars are spent by grant recipients. It is a response to my work in the Judiciary Committee, uncovering fraud, misappropriation of funds, offshore bank accounts by nonprofit organizations. Can you understand that? Nonprofit organizations in America have offshore bank accounts, and many other shenanigans are occurring in grant programs administered by the Justice Department. To fix this, my amendment includes an accountability and fraud prevention package for grants administered by the Department of Justice. I am glad to report the National Taxpayers Union, an independent nonpartisan advocate for taxpayers, supports the amendment. For the last decade the inspector general has continuously labeled grant management at the Department of Justice a top management and performance challenge. That is from the inspector general.…”