Dan Coats: “I come down here every week, as the Presiding Officer knows. She is usually in the chair when I am here, listening to my…”

“I come down here every week, as the Presiding Officer knows. She is usually in the chair when I am here, listening to my ``Waste of the Week''. I am a little bit later this week than I normally am. But the issue of waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government continues. We have covered a lot of ground on serious issues such as tax fraud and misplaced death records, to the more absurd, such as the federally funded rabbit massages and marketing support for pumpkin doughnuts. Each of those has a pricetag. That pricetag is paid for by the American taxpayer. I am happy today to be able to announce that one of the items which I highlighted in a previous ``Waste of the Week'' speech has been addressed. In May, my 11th ``Waste of the Week'' speech examined ways to improve compliance measures for higher education tax benefits. I outlined how Congress can fix this problem to achieve $576 million in taxpayer savings. So that is a former ``Waste of the Week''. It is a great benefit to universities, colleges, and educational institutions across the country because previous laws required them to provide information even when those applying for the particular aid refused to provide certain information. It created a nightmare of paperwork and a nightmare of compliance for those colleges and universities. So that provision that we brought forward was incorporated into law that has now been passed, signed by the President, and is operative.…”