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“INCREASED EFFICIENCY IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H6998 on July 16, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
INCREASED EFFICIENCY IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, tonight I want to add my voice to those of my fellow Representatives who are calling for increased efficiency in our Federal Government. Our group has taken the charge to protect precious taxpayer dollars by streamlining and improving our Federal Government. There are many important programs that are being hurt. There are expenditures which could have been handled with much greater care. With wise stewardship, we can ensure that public servants have more prudent oversight when allocating American taxpayer dollars for Federal programs.
Mr. Speaker, in my previous life I was a simple country doctor. I want to share with my colleagues some astonishing examples of some of the extreme expenditures in the Medicare program.
Over 90 percent of Medicare payments to community medical health centers in five States, $229 million, were ``unallowable or highly questionable.''
Medicare paid roughly $20 million to dead beneficiaries between 1999 and 2000. Some of these benefits were distributed despite the fact that the Departments's database had the dates of death already logged in.
Mr. Speaker, since coming to Congress, I have been appointed a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. On that committee, I wanted to make certain that the United States Department of Transportation was ensuring the most efficient business practices within the agency. On March 19, 2003, I met with the Department of Transportation Inspector General, Kenneth Mead, to discuss the business practices of the agency and how the Congress can better facilitate the decrease of inappropriate expenditures in relation to transportation's spending. Inspector General Mead and I discussed the need for greater stewardship and oversight in all of the Department of Transportation's programs.
The Department of Transportation has not changed the way the agency disburses transportation funding to State and local entities since President Eisenhower was in office. We talked some tonight about trying to achieve one penny in savings for every dollar that we spend. The Inspector General of the Department of Transportation pointed out that if 1 percent of the $500 billion spent over the last 10 years on transportation programs was set-asides, the Department of Transportation would have an extra $5 billion to spend. That $5 billion, incidentally, would fund four of the current top 11 transportation building programs going on in the country today. I believe this practice could better assist the Department of Transportation in spending the taxpayers' dollars more wisely.
There are several successful transportation projects that can be used as examples for greater government efficiency. For example, Interstate Highway 15 in the State of Utah was rehabilitated ahead of schedule and under budget. Today, from my district, I met with representatives of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit and those officials reported to me that they are currently within their budget, and DART intends to return some transit funding to the Federal Government.
And, of course, we all know there are examples that are not so good of transportation projects that are overbudget and behind schedule: the Springfield Interchange, not far from here in Virginia; and perhaps the poster child of government inefficiency, the Central Artery Project in Boston, Massachusetts, the Ted Williams Tunnel, we all know down in Texas as the Big Dig.
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We need to address the misuse of Federal transportation expenditures as soon as possible.
Members may also be interested to know the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure believes government efficiency is important because next week on July 22 the committee will hold a hearing on the elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse in mandatory transportation programs as required by the fiscal year 2004 budget resolution instructions. I look forward to participating in the hearing, as well as working with the Inspector General, Mr. Mead, to further address this issue within the U.S. Department of Transportation.
We are dedicated to protecting taxpayers' hard-earned dollars from being spent on inappropriate expenditures. We need to work together to ensure that our Federal Government is more effective and more efficient for the American taxpayer.
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