Political Quotes

“Mr. President, Senator McCaskill and I rise to have an opportunity to pass a bill and for the Senate to do some work on a bill that has been around for several years and just hasn't been able to go over the finish line. We would like to see that finish today. It is a bipartisan bill with a very straightforward concept. Right now, if any agency head or any sub-Cabinet individual or any individual within the government wants to see what another agency is doing, they have to go to the Office of Management and Budget. They would do a study--and get it back to them--to find out if the program they are doing exists somewhere else. If any Member of this body or of the House wants to find out about an agency and such straightforward things as how many employees they have, what programs they are doing, if they measure those programs, how are those programs measured--if we want to find out those very basic things, we have to go to the GAO office to make a request, and 18 months later, we will get an answer back on that specific thing. This is something that every agency either already has or should have but that the American people can't see, the Congress can't see, and, quite frankly, the individuals within the agencies also cannot see. This is a straightforward concept. We call it the Taxpayers Right-to- Know Act, and it is something Senator McCaskill and I have worked very hard on. It is something that passed out of the Homeland Security Committee unanimously.…”