Political Quotes

“I thank Congressman Connolly and Congressman Mulvaney for their hard work on this. Mr. Speaker, as one of the Democratic coleaders of this legislation, I am so proud to rise in support of the Federal Improper Payments Coordination Act of 2015. The goal of this bill is straightforward: simply, to save taxpayer dollars that are currently going to waste and to make the Federal Government more effective and more efficient. Each year, Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government spends billions of dollars in improper payments. This not only wastes taxpayer dollars, but it also erodes the public trust in government. Just last year, as my colleagues have pointed out, improper payments by the Federal Government rose to $125 billion. That is more than $1 trillion over a decade. That is according to the Office of Management and Budget. It is also an increase of 15 percent up from the year before, where it was $106 billion. So we are talking about real money here. In tough times, working families have to figure out how to cut costs to get their budgets in line. We all know that. I think it is time that Washington do the same thing. That is why our bill takes reasonable-- reasonable--steps to improve information sharing between Federal and State agencies to prevent these improper payments. This also helps modernize Federal agencies by putting 21st century data analytics to work in identifying and eliminating governmentwide waste and fraud.…”