John W. Olver: “let me just point out here that Citizens Against Government Waste, which held a number of hearings, a group that was…”

“let me just point out here that Citizens Against Government Waste, which held a number of hearings, a group that was invited to a number of hearings to put a focus on government waste during the 104th Congress, had put forward 7 criteria on which to judge what might be considered waste. Their criteria included cases where the request was made by one chamber of commerce; where it was not authorized; number three, where it was not competitively awarded, not peer reviewed, in essence; four, where it was not requested in the President's budget; five, greatly exceeds the President's budget or the request of the previous year's funding; and, six, had not been the subject of congressional hearing. Six out of the seven, this project violates. So what I think here, let me go back and just reiterate, what we are comparing is a $48 million increase in veterans' health services to fulfill a promise that we have made to our veterans for a continuation of their veterans' health programs, versus a program, a proposal which is at best not ready for this stage, where it is meant as a partnership, there is no industry portion in the partnership.”