On the recordJune 23, 2011
This week, I cosigned a letter to Transportation Secretary LaHood expressing concern about the waste of taxpayer dollars at the Federal Highway Administration's International Scan Program. This program has likely wasted millions of dollars over the past 10 years, sending government officials abroad most recently to study billboards in five different countries, over 17 days, at a cost of $300,000 to the taxpayers. Rightly, Secretary LaHood responded to our letter by immediately suspending the program, but the question remains: Why did it exist in the first place, and how many others like it exist throughout the Federal bureaucracy? We must continue to scrutinize the budgets at all Federal agencies so we can put an end to this type of wasteful spending once and for all. Hopefully, the suspension of this billboard program is just a sign of things to come. ____________________
