Political Quotes

“Mr. President, there is a misguided myth out there--not all myths are misguided, but this myth is--by those who believe that the government shutdown is actually saving us money. I am not going to go into all those details about why that is not true, but I can tell everybody one area where government shutdown is absolutely being negatively impacted in protecting the taxpayer dollar and fulfilling the mission of the agency--particularly in Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, and some others. The Presiding Officer was the attorney general and the U.S. attorney of the Ocean State, Rhode Island, so he knows about scammers and schemers and that where there is need, there is greed. Where there are large government programs, they are open to waste and particularly to fraud. I have been an adamant opponent of fraud, and often that is dismissed with comments such as: Oh, everybody says you are against fraud. But what are we doing about it? Let me say this: As the chairperson of the Appropriations Committee, I was insistent that at every one of my hearings there be an inspector general testifying. I have an inspector general who advises us appropriators, who actually put money in the Federal checkbook, about how we can stop fraud in our own government. I am the first chairman of that committee ever to institute that process where we take the watchdogs of our Federal spending very seriously. The watchdogs who protect taxpayers' funds are known as inspectors general.…”