On the recordJuly 31, 2013
I appreciate the ranking member's support of this bill. This is not an anti-travel, anti-conference bill. This is a commonsense transparency and good government bill. It was designed to stop wasteful spending. You hear a lot of talk here around Washington, D.C., about we've got to stop the waste, fraud, and abuse. Well, we are doing that here today with H.R. 313. What we are doing is saying if there is a government conference, it needs to be for government purposes and real work needs to be done. We are not asking the taxpayers to foot the bill for a vacation for Federal employees. We don't need clowns, we don't need mind readers, we don't need a Star Trek video, we don't need pictures of agency representatives in a bathtub with a glass of wine. We need Federal employees conducting Federal business and doing what the taxpayers are paying them to do. Many of these conferences are great opportunities for training, great opportunities in the scientific community to move forward with advancements. But what we've got to do is make sure taxpayers' money is not wasted, that it is spent wisely. We need a culture in this government where Federal employees, each and every one of them, know it is not their money they're spending; it's the hardworking American taxpayers' money that they are spending. That's what we are doing here today. We are putting limits on the amount that can be spent.…
