Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Federal Improper Payments Coordination Act before the House this afternoon. I am pleased to join my friend from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney) in sponsoring the House companion of this bipartisan legislation. He has already mentioned the cosponsors, Cheri Bustos, Buddy Carter, and Lynn Westmoreland among them. I also want to thank our Senate partners for their work on this important initiative. I want to assure my friend, Mr. Mulvaney, we are going to be marking up a companion bill to this tomorrow in our committee, and hopefully we will send it over to the Senate with a House number on it. Fair is fair. This is the latest in a series of commonsense, good-government laws we have enacted over the last decade as we work to reduce, if not outright eliminate, billions of taxpayer dollars in improper payments made by Federal agencies. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney) pointed out just how large a number this is: $125 billion a year. Now, over a decade, that is $1.25 trillion. That exceeds all of sequestration. We wouldn't have to make any cuts to investments or raise any taxes to deal with sequestration if we just dealt with this. With the GAO reporting nearly $125 billion of improper payments, it is clear that more can and must be done to deal with government waste and fraud. Today's legislation would expand the use, as Mr.…”