Mark Meadows

If we leave it up to a nonspecified, arbitrary fine and fee schedule, it's one thing to say, okay, a fee covers the cost of this particular thing and this is where we collect it and it goes, that's one issue.

That gets us half the way there with fees, fines, and settlement, doesn't it?

We're talking about $600 billion.

Congress needs to be held accountable for the way the agencies operate.

H.R. 5499 would hold the agencies accountable, but more fundamentally, it would make Congress accountable to the people.

I believe that a friendly amendment that would protect our whistleblowers would be in order.

I can assure you that whistleblowers are a vital part of what we do, from an oversight standpoint.

I think at some point, if we want to be anything more than a debating society, we're going to have to start reclawing some of this authority.

The IG Empowerment Act would give you most of the tools, you believe, to be able to make sure that we not only have a transparent and accountable government but empower the IGs to be able to better do their job not just at DOJ but across…

I do believe that--and so maybe you can speak to that critical nature of that particular piece of legislation on how it could have helped in this situation and other similar situations.

If we are going to cut the budget, it doesn't need to be cut from the census, it needs to be cut from other areas of responsibility, from my perspective.

The big one, fraud prevention, according to what you've given us, it doesn't look like you plan to deliver that until March of 2020.

So only 40 percent of them will not be implemented for end-to-end testing. So I was wrong by 10 percent.

I thank the gentlewoman for her interest in making sure that everybody is properly counted.

The egg on our face will not happen with some of the other, granted, very important aspects that you have under your jurisdiction.

I think basically there's----

So what have you changed? I've only got 5 minutes.

I do very much appreciate that. And I didn't mean to convey necessarily population versus people.

It is critical that we handle this problem because you're going to continue to have retention problems.

Well, you've got people behind you that are disagreeing with you right now.

They're not a population. They're people. They're families.

A lot of the people who believe so desperately that we need to put Donald Trump in the White House, they question the loyalty of the Speaker.

TVA says, it isn't particularly concerned about what the purchaser does using the site for power production or industrial manufacturing or recreation, or even residential.

I understand where you were. I understand where you are.

Don't need the history. I know the history.