we have to make sure that we do what the President said we are going to do, which is that we are going to watch every dime.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is vital legislation intended to boost our troubled economy and to create and save jobs.

I appreciate your including that aspect in this hearing.

The board is meant to ensure coordinated and comprehensive oversight of stimulus spending and provide regular reports to Congress and the public.

I think we need to more aggressively look at the internal controls in the Federal Government as well as at the State and local levels.

We were pleased that OMB and the Vice President adopted our recommendation, and they are going to clarify that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one final question for me.

The Administration has estimated that more than 3 million jobs will either be saved or created by this Act.

Thank you for your leadership on this set of hearings that we have been holding.

As much as 7 percent of the Recovery Act funds may be lost to fraud and abuse.

I believe it is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that does not happen.

Right now I believe that they are hopeful, but they are also skeptical, of whether we can spend this much needed money wisely.

If recovery is to be successful in cities and towns, the first most important thing we need to do is help educate our local leaders.

We intend to very closely and aggressively monitor spending of stimulus money ourselves.

While there are obvious issues with Congressional oversight, accountability, and transparency with the creation of new czar positions within the Executive Office of the President, that is a totally different issue from Senate-confirmed…

It is critical to do so in a responsible and transparent way.

This mistake may cost taxpayers about $2.5 million and it could easily have been prevented.

Our vision in authorizing such a core of experienced contracting officials applies exactly to this kind of situation.

Do you support legislation that would allow for the rehiring of annuitants without their incurring a financial penalty?

The Senate was determined to make sure that the final version of the bill had a quicker impact on the economy by having a faster spend-out rate than the House bill had.

My concern about having two different methods of measuring job creation or the number of jobs saved is that it could serve to undermine the public's confidence in the credibility of the numbers.

I would add, it did not reconcile the funding in that Act with the funding that we had just approved.

the more eyes, the better, clearly

It is essential to effectively achieving the objective of the President's March 4, 2009 memo to have the capacity and ability to develop, manage, and oversee acquisitions appropriately.

the acquisition workforce... is the number-one problem, over and over again.