Political Quotes

“This is a bipartisan amendment. This amendment is sponsored by Senator McCain, Senator McCaskill, Senator Udall from Colorado, Senator Burr, and Senator Paul, as well as myself. This is a straightforward amendment. We have asked for this multiple times but have not gotten it. What this amendment says is, every bill that comes before Congress and to be considered by the Senate should determine whether it is duplicating something that is already happening in the Federal Government. It is common sense, and all we are saying is to have an analysis by the CRS, Congressional Research Service, to determine if the bill creates a new Federal program, office, or initiative that would duplicate or overlap any existing Federal program, Federal office, or initiative with a similar mission, similar purpose, similar goal or activities along with a listing of all the overlapping duplicative Federal programs or offices or initiatives or initiative. Now, why is that important? Last February the GAO brought to us the first third of the Federal Government and outlined to us $200 billion worth of spending on duplicate programs. They gave it to us. It was held as a great thing. Now we know we have all of these areas: 82 teacher-training programs, 47 job-training programs, 56 financial literacy programs, and on and on. They brought that to us, and we all said that was good. The problem is we didn't do anything about it.…”