Political Quotes

“I come to the floor today to send a message to Secretary of Defense Carter. I wish to alert him to a problem that needs high-level attention. It is standing in the way of one of the top priority goals of the Congress--auditing the books of the Defense Department. The need for annual financial audits was originally established by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990. By March of 1992, each agency of the Federal Government was supposed to present a financial statement to an inspector general for audit in accordance with the prescribed standards. To date, all departments have earned unqualified or clean opinions. But there is one glaring exception; that is, the Defense Department. It has a dubious distinction, under both Republican and Democrat administrations, of earning an unblemished string of failing opinions known as ``disclaimers.'' In the face of endless slipping and stumbling, Congress finally cracked down--except it looks as though the crackdown hasn't done any good. At that time, there was a new line drawn in the sand. It was placed in section 1003 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2009. In 2009, the Department was given a charitable 7-year reprieve from the requirement to have their books auditable, and it was given until September 30, 2017. Those 7 bonus years did not buy us in the Congress much. All the slipping and sliding and stumbling have continued undiminished. The 25-year push to audit the books is stuck at a roadblock.…”