Dan Coats: “last month I came to the floor to launch what I call the ``Waste of the Week.'' We look at how we spend the taxpayers'…”

“last month I came to the floor to launch what I call the ``Waste of the Week.'' We look at how we spend the taxpayers' dollars. We all know the biggest issue over the past several years is now sort of fading into the ether is the fact that the government continues to spend the taxpayers' money in reckless ways, including not balance our budget and go deeply into deficit spending every year, then borrow to cover the cost, and increase our debt limit from the staggering $18 trillion-plus and growing. My purpose in coming to the floor was to highlight some examples of this waste. I wish to step back for a moment to say this follows numerous bipartisan efforts to deal with a larger issue, and that is our debt and deficit, in a way that we can put a budget proposal together to get us out of this mess and stop loading up our children and grandchildren with the responsibilities and costs they probably will not be able to repay without significant sacrifice in terms of their standard of living. Having failed every one of those over the past 5 years--Simpson- Bowles, the Gang of 6, the Committee of 12, the supercommittee, the dinner committee on which I serve 7 arduous months trying to come to some minimal agreement in terms of how to deal with our debt and deficit because the President blocked every single attempt. I thought the least we could do was look at the simple things, the easy things.…”