Claire McCaskill

I do want to say sincerely, Mr. Benson, that it is time for you to be aggressive.

You don't need an accountant to tell you that is a bad outcome.

a per call cost for a Medicare hotline, doesn't seem to pass the common sense test to me.

Imagine the irony of those phone calls in the context of the debates that were ongoing at that time.

I think it is very important. Those are some of the key issues that need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

There are a number of issues I mentioned in my oral statement; for example, negative certification, is one that is troubling to me.

Clearly, you are not a GS-13 anymore or you would know.

There is not a statutory requirement, ma'am, there is none.

GAO found the internal controls at CMS were deficient and resulted in inadequate strategic planning for both staffing and resourcing.

Now, that doesn't inspire confidence.

Thank you both very much for being here.

How can that not be fixed cost?

But you say, saving money. It certainly is saving money over the way we had historically administered the program.

Is the contracting officer that did that, have they been disciplined? Have they been held accountable?

I have nothing against the 8(a) program, but within the 8(a) program, it needs to be fair, it needs to be balanced, and it needs to be equal.

I see the role of this Subcommittee as giving voice and volume to many of these GAO audits.

But didn't Mr. Paulson just want to make money because he thought the market was going to tank?

Typically, do you let a client who wants to make a bet, wants you to do an instrument so they can make a bet--that is what Paulson wanted.

I mean, you don't think that there is a point where we make up stuff to bet on and you guys are securitizing it and tranching it.

There is nothing in a synthetic CDO that is essential to certainty to anybody's business other than somebody just deciding they want to take one side of a deal and the other side of a deal.

You had less oversight than a pit boss in Las Vegas.

I understand that there is--we are trying to hone in on why I have got so many unemployed people in my State.

Would more disclosure, in fact, harm your business model?

You understand that this does not make common sense, right?

I am not sure that, frankly, it is a thing of value that most Americans would be comfortable that we would be backing up and providing taxpayer bailouts to companies that were engaging in that.