how much time remains? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senators Durbin and Coburn have 5 minutes remaining, Senator Hagan has 1 minute remaining, and Senator Stabenow has 1 minute remaining.

What we need is dedicated Members of Congress to get busy fixing it.

Oklahomans are going to do fine. We had a tragic loss of life. The material things can be replaced, and we will.

The Congress is reticent to approach those things.

We have lost the countervailing weights of slowing things down.

Yet, 95 percent of the Federal Government has no metric on its strategy.

We have met the enemy and the enemy is us, because we will not do our work.

Eliminating is a lot easier.

What we do is we actually defy our own oath to uphold the Constitution.

So we are throwing $19 billion out there every year for job training programs and your statement is there is little known about the effectiveness of most of these programs.

The closest thing to eternal life on this earth is a government program.

You have to have metrics first.

A million dollars a year is how you get to a billion.

Is there any program in the Federal Government that should not have a metric on it?

As a recovering Governor, I know that you cannot manage what you cannot measure, and that is why the successful implementation of the Performance Act is so important.

However, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done to realize the full potential of the Act and we plan on using this Committee to fulfill our part of Congress' role in that shared effort.

Why would we not design the--you know, here is the problem with Congress.

I am thankful that we have the leadership at GAO that has done the hard work over the last 3½ years.

I cannot think of anything off the top of my head.

We ought to get the best price. And you know what? We do not.

Would you think that would be a good rule for the U.S. Senate?

The law states--the law that I authored and we passed--states that you are to make recommendations for eliminations.

The other thing I would do is praise the House. They passed the SKILLS Act, which consolidated, I think, 36 of the job training programs into six.

I actually think the Administration pays attention to the work you do, and President Obama and his team have made lots of great recommendations in their budgets.

On improper payments, we have been like a dog with a bone. And while improper payments are still high, they have come down a lot and we need to keep the pressure on, to keep the spotlight on.