Political Quotes

“I oppose the effort to decimate the General Accounting Office. The GAO is essential to helping us make intelligent budget cuts and program improvements. As chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, that has been responsible for the largest part of budget reconciliation cuts during the past 8 years, I can testify that the GAO has been the key to helping us separate the fat from the muscle of the Medicare Program. We have been able to make tens of billions of dollars in cuts in the growth of Medicare without crippling the program, in large part because of the many Medicare and Medicaid projects of the GAO. To give just one quick example, the GAO's work on abuses by physicians in the referral of patients to facilities in which they have an ownership interest has resulted in legislation that will save the public and private sectors hundreds of millions of dollars per year. As chairman of the District of Columbia Committee, the GAO is currently playing a key role in deciphering the problem of the finances of the District of Columbia and pointing to areas where we need to make improvements in the Federal payment. The one study they are doing for Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Dixon and myself is likely to lead to savings worth many times the amount of the proposed budget cut in front of us. Mr. Chairman, I urge the defeat of this shortsighted amendment.”