Political Quotes

“I wish to start off my remarks by thanking Senator Sasse for us being able to work on this bill together. This is a good bill. He is exactly right--that this bill came out of the Presiding Officer's committee last year, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. We met in the hallway and said: Let's fix this problem, because it is a problem. We have a bill on the floor today that does exactly that. It is a good-government bill. As the Senator from Nebraska has already pointed out, it is a truly bipartisan bill. The GAO Access and Oversight Act makes the government more transparent and more accountable to our taxpayers. Congress passed legislation in 1996 that created the National Directory of New Hires at the Department of Health and Human Services. Since that time, Congress has amended the law to permit other Federal agencies to access the directory. Today, Departments such as the Department of Education and the Department of the Treasury can access the directory for information on the collection of defaulted student loans or the collection of delinquent Federal loans, but the GAO--the Government Accountability Office--has not been allowed access to this directory. Now, by clarifying that the GAO has the authority to access the National Directory of New Hires, we can ensure that the taxpayers' watchdog is more easily able to do its job and root out Federal overpayments as well as waste, fraud, and abuse.…”