Barbara Mikulski: “I would say on a bipartisan basis we were working for very strong administrative management and fiscal reform. We have…”

“I would say on a bipartisan basis we were working for very strong administrative management and fiscal reform. We have worked. It was our committee that uncovered this fiasco in April. We have been, since, working with OMB on management improvement as well as accounting flexibility to get them over the hump. Remember, it is volunteers who will be penalized. It will be volunteers and communities that will be penalized, not the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy gets to keep their jobs. They get to move papers around. It is the volunteers who are going to be punished. So we have a difference of opinion about how you can get reform. But we did move in accounting flexibility, when this Senate passed it 100 to nothing. We did it in 1 day, the House the next day. The President was able to sign it. But flexibility without funds was a hollow victory. So we need the $100 million to cover the rest of the quarter so these 20,000 volunteers do not lose their slots. That is why this is in this supplemental.”