James Lankford

Let us fix it. I thank both of you for being here and what you are doing.

OK. Can we set a date on that now? Can we set an October 1 date? Do we need to set a November 1 date?

That is what I needed to hear.

I just have one final question.

USA Jobs just has to get fixed.

As Chairman Lankford noted last week, the Russian attacks on our election infrastructure in 2016 were an attack on our democracy.

But I am still back to the same issue.

I know that is a sore point for Senator Heitkamp.

How does the moving HR services over improve customer service?

I know. It is so fun, is it not?

The target goal is how to get some of these resolved long term so that we can go start fighting for the new places and the new countries to be able to do business and be on offense again.

They want those to be fixed, but they're still looking for the new places, more places they can take their product.

It's so extreme at $800 billion that we just can't nibble around the edges, we have to change, and particularly with respect to China, where it's $375 billion.

You inherited a mess on trade worldwide, and there are a lot of issues that are happening, but they all need to be cleaned up.

So the balance that this committee will have as we walk through the process and the insight that we'll need from you is: We have redundancy in this area; we could use those resources in another area more efficiently.

You are right. Thank you. Thank you for that.

I understand that. That is fine.

The backlog is untenable for the Federal worker at this point, and it has to be resolved, but it has to be resolved fairly.

The incrementalism of the past would not be enough.

There are lots of issues with OPM that are historic issues there that absolutely affect our Federal retiring workforce dramatically.

If I could say this, Mr. Chairman, as well, Senator Heitkamp and I are in a hearing on the Office of Personnel Management, coming up very soon.

It was a terrible idea 15 years ago.

We are paying for the building twice.

We should probably own the facility.

That is a clear line for us that we have to be able to know what is our part, what is this Administration's part.