Political Quotes

“Here is one that doesn't get anything as far as a blue slip. What we now have is 3 years' worth of reports by the General Accountability Office showing at least $250 billion in questionable programs that are markedly duplicative of one another. This is multiple areas, and I have them now memorized and all the new ones too. It is layer after layer, agency after agency, program after program. This is a bipartisan amendment. All this says is that before we create another program in the Senate, we have a report from the Congressional Research Service: Does this duplicate a program that is already out there? If we continue doing what we are doing, we are going to continue to get GAO reports that we are creating programs that duplicate what we are already doing. It is not the fact that maybe our intent is good, it is the fact that we don't know what is out there now--except GAO does now--and how will we ever know until we put a requirement on ourselves to quit creating new duplicative programs? What the commonsense man would say is that if you have programs that are doing things and they are not working, don't create another one, fix the ones you have. Yet we refuse to do that. Committee after committee refuses to do the oversight.…”