Dan Coats: “I am here on the floor almost every Monday, and this is the 11th time I have been on the floor over the last 3 months or…”

“I am here on the floor almost every Monday, and this is the 11th time I have been on the floor over the last 3 months or so to speak about the waste of the week. We are trying to identify those areas of fraud and abuse and waste of taxpayers' money so we can take reasonable steps, hopefully soon in the Congress, to end this misuse of taxpayers' funds. Then we can either return it back to the taxpayers or sometimes use the funds to offset other spending that may be necessary to make for a more efficient government. The taxpayers deserve to have their dollars they send here, after a lot of hard work, treated carefully. We continue to expose areas, and the Office of the Inspector General of the Office of Management and Budget and nonpartisan committees are looking at ways to identify misuse of those funds. One of the areas we haven't spoken about but will today are the benefits for higher education. Many of these are well intended and many of them are used effectively. For example, there is a lifetime learning credit for graduate courses and other classes. There is the Hope credit for undergraduate expenses. There is the American opportunity tax credit, which temporarily replaced the Hope credit, but that is set to expire. There are a raft of confusing proposals that are designed to help people who want to work through their education and get tax credits for the expenses they pay. So this is well intended.…”