Sean Patrick Maloney: “The bad news contained in this resolution is that the Federal Government, the world's largest financial entity, has…”

“The bad news contained in this resolution is that the Federal Government, the world's largest financial entity, has financial problems. These problems are not new; they have existed for decades. We knew this when we decided to initiate reforms. When we began reforms, there were no accounting standards for the Federal Government. Most Federal agencies had never issued a financial statement, and there had been no independent verification of the agencies' estimates of their financial position. So in a bipartisan effort, a Democratic Congress crafted and passed the Government Management Reform Act along with the Republicans in 1994, and a Democratic President signed it into law. The administration has worked hard to implement this law. Next year 15 of the 24 major agencies are expected to receive clean financial opinions. This year the administration met the bill's statutory deadline by completing the first governmentwide audit ever, the first in more than 200 years. We should congratulate them for this effort.”