Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of our bill, one that now awaits a final vote in Congress before it heads to the President's desk. I thank Representative Jimmy Gomez for helping author this piece of legislation, the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency Act, or GREAT Act. Representative Gomez has been a tremendous partner on this bipartisan, bicameral bill to create more transparency, efficiency, and accountability in the Federal grant reporting process, and I thank him for his hard work. Mr. Speaker, according to USAspending.gov, in 2019, the Federal Government awarded $764.9 billion in grants funding to State agencies, local and Tribal governments, agencies, nonprofits, universities, and other organizations. Roughly translated, this equates to the gross domestic product of Switzerland--or more than the GDP of every country outside the G20. Within our Federal Government, there are 26 agencies awarding Federal grants, and all of them continue to rely on outdated, burdensome, document-based forms to collect and track grant dollars. Society has moved into a new age of information and technology, and it is time that our government follow suit. The GREAT Act represents bipartisan legislation to modernize the Federal grant reporting process. It would do so by mandating a standardized data structure for information that recipients report to Federal agencies.…”