David Thomas: “I will talk for just a few minutes on the bill before the Senate. Of course, we are talking about the Labor, HHS…”

“I will talk for just a few minutes on the bill before the Senate. Of course, we are talking about the Labor, HHS, Education bill, one of the largest bills before the Senate. As a matter of fact, a total of about $270 billion of expenditure. Only about $80 billion of that are we really discussing because that is discretionary. The rest are entitlements. However, I do think it is illustrative of one of the things I feel very strongly about, and that is the opportunity to have oversight on the expenditure of large amounts of tax money, or small amounts for that matter. I want to make it clear that I will support this bill. I think the appropriations folks have worked hard on it. I have no particular quarrel with what they have done, but I want to make a point that it seems to me this system needs to be reviewed. The system needs to be changed. I cannot think of another institution in the civilized world that spends $270 billion annually and has no more oversight than we do in the U.S. Congress. We have a remedy for that. We think we ought to go to a biannual budget so that we would do this on a 2-year basis, which has some advantages. It allows the agencies to know what their funds will be for a longer period of time. But more importantly, in this instance it allows the Congress to have some oversight of the efficiency of the spending of these dollars.”