Political Quotes

“when we take a look at it again, when we see the waste fraud and abuse, I mean, it is really scary. But then it also gets to be scary when we take a look at some of the places where we consciously make the decision to spend the money. My colleague, the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune), talked about the mural. Somebody in Federal Government made the conscious decision that spending $20 million of taxpayer money in that area was a good idea. Someone also made the decision consciously that taking people and busing them to these events was a good use of taxpayer money. The Department of Education's closed captioning. We pay for this. We can watch The Young and the Restless; The Bold and the Beautiful, I never heard of that one; Days of our Lives; Sunset Beach; Men in Tool Belts; the New Maury Povich Show; Dukes of Hazard; Bewitched; Gomer Pyle; Dynasty; WKRP in Cincinnati. The Federal Government is paying for closed captioning, all of those programs, to the tune of almost $9 million dollars. At the same time, we recognize that a lot of our kids are not reading by third grade, they are not reading by fourth grade, they are not reading by fifth grade. But we are doing these types of things, and it really is time, I think, for us not only to wipe out the waste, fraud and abuse but to take the dollars and focus them on the programs and the efforts that will make the biggest difference.”