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“WASHINGTON WASTE WATCHERS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H9256 on Oct. 7, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WASHINGTON WASTE WATCHERS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, while the Democrats continue to want to raise the taxes on the hard-working Americans, or when they keep proposing, as they did this year, over a $1 trillion increase, or close to $1 trillion, $890 billion increase, to be precise, on the already, I think, large deficit, thank God the President, though, has released the President's agenda that we are all familiar with, which outlines a plan to clean up this mess of just waste, fraud, and abuse that exists and is rampant here in Washington and that has always been rampant here in Washington.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) eloquently mentioned some issues that should concern all Americans as to how Washington wastes America's taxpayers' money. I am reminded of all of the cases, case after case, of fraud, waste, and abuse that continue to happen, including money that is just absolutely lost in this huge bureaucracy.
In 1999 the Army, for example, took an inventory of its assets and found that, check this out, 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, I do not know how you lose 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin-command launch units for which it had no record, had no records for them. That same year, GAO identified more than $3 billion in inventory that the Navy had ``lost in transit.'' How do you lose $3 billion of inventory in transit? The GAO also found
$400,000 in computer purchases that the Department of Education had not recorded in the property records. By the way, 200,000 of those computers could never be located.
Yet, I repeat, the Democrats insist on raising the taxes on the hard-
working Americans, because there is not enough money. There is not enough money if you want to lose more money, if you want to throw away more money, if you want to splurge more money; but there is clearly more than enough money to do what we need to do here, as long as we get a little bit more responsible.
I commend the President for his efforts.
Mr. Speaker, the Inspector General at the Department of Veterans Affairs alone has identified more than 5,500 possible cases of individuals who may be defrauding the Veterans Administration by receiving benefits intended for veterans, these are benefits that are intended for benefits, but for people who are dead. Mr. Speaker, 5,500. Fourteen thousand, almost 14,000 incarcerated veterans have been paid about $100 million, and these are not small sums, $100 million in benefits that they were clearly not eligible for. And yet the Democrats insist on coming up with proposal after proposal and budget after budget that raises the taxes of the hard-working Americans in this country. To do more of this?
Over $100 million, another $100 million in improper payments of missed Medicare beneficiaries who rely on them. Over the last 4 years, by the way, for example, the Department of Agriculture has spent $5.13 billion in improper payments, improper payments intended to go to food stamp beneficiaries. Yet, the Democrats say, there is not enough money, and they insist on trying to raise the taxes on the hard-working Americans of this country.
Mr. Speaker, that is why, with a number of my colleagues, we have come up with the Washington Waste Watchers to not only highlight the fact, not that Washington has enough money, but that we have too much money, and that there is not enough accountability. We commend the President for his steps in the right direction, and we are going to continue to let the American people know where their money is being spent and, in many cases, misspent. And, no, we are not going to support raising taxes. We are going to support changing the culture up here from a culture of waste, of fraud, and abuse to a culture of fiscal responsibility.
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