Are there areas where the SBA has taken concrete steps to improve past performance?

Over the past now 8 years, we have witnessed just how brutal Bashar al-Assad truly is.

With an almost $20 million budget for fiscal year 2018, its audits and investigations achieved more than $224 million in monetary recoveries and savings.

When compared with the previous years' reports, it appears that the SBA has not made sufficient progress implementing OIG's recommendations to statutorily mandated programs and functions.

So it sounds like we are doing something right. So glad to hear it.

The Small Business Administration's Office of Inspector General, or SBA OIG, is required to deter, identify, and investigate instances of fraud, waste, and abuse, and inefficiencies in the SBA programs and operations.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, thank you for being here, Mr. Ware.

The situation in Syria has been truly a tragedy to watch unfold.

The SCORE Audit and subsequent reform efforts demonstrate the power and necessity of unbiased oversight conducted by OIG.

I want to commend the Chair and commend this Committee in a bipartisan way because we really do work in a bipartisan manner on this Committee.

We certainly need to keep an eye on that.

In some cases, those challenges were identified more than a decade ago. Why has it take so long for the SBA to address these challenges? It is pretty frustrating.

Could you briefly maybe expand a little bit upon the capital improvement or what was the term you used?

I fully support the chair in delving into these things, and I have full confidence that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will ask the important and sometimes tough questions that are necessary.

As Congressman Chabot, who has long been a leader on this subject, has long reminded us, the justices pass judgment on the constitutionally of your actions, but you are prohibited from watching them do so.

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you for holding today's markup.

I urge my colleagues to support it and I yield back.

This legislation will streamline SBA and SBDC processes and reduce programmatic duplication to maximize the program's impact on America's small businesses.

The Chinese Communist Party proceeded to break all those promises, not surprisingly, like most of the other promises that they had broken over time.

I urge my colleagues to support this and, again, want to thank them for working together in a bipartisan manner.

I am proud, and happy, and thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that today we are standing with the people of Hong Kong by enacting these measures.

These bills will also set authorization funding at responsible levels and timeframes to ensure future Congresses can improve and amend these programs as necessary.

I want to focus on Hong Kong and on the three related measures we have before us today.

I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it, and I yield back.

I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul) for yielding, and I rise today in support of H.R. 2229, the First Responders Passport Act, legislation I introduced along with Congressman Boyle to exempt first responders operating on behalf…