the postal service for costs incurred in public service including meeting the requirements of the uniformed and overseas citizens absentee voting act in carrying balloting materials expeditiously and free of postage for uniformed service voters their spouses and depends as well as other eligible u s citizens living abroad it also removes the authority to reimburse for making deliveries for blind or other handicapped persons free of charge my amendment is simple it will strike section four  nine to demonstrate how highly we value our service members and their families ability to exercise their right to vote it will also demonstrate our commitment to ensuring that blind individuals and other people with disabilities are able to participate fully in society the majority wisely decided to maintain congress authorization to reimburse the postal service for the loss in revenue from providing free mail delivery to members of the armed services on duty in combat areas but it chose not to preserve the ability to compensate the postal service for the cost of implementing the requirements of the uniformed and overseas citizens absentee voting act to carry balloting materials expeditiously and free of postage unfortunately this provision sends the message that congress does not value our service members and their families ability to participate in our democracy which they have dedicated their lives to preserving furthermore it excludes the cost of sending balloting materials to members of our armed forces as well as postal service to help facilitate democracy particularly with our men and women who are fighting overseas to preserve that democracy while at the same time we are willing to subsidize american business by allowing them to send their marketing materials and other things at costs that are far below what they could pay in any other private venture so it seems to me that this is a very simple straightforward amendment that says we truly value our armed forces right to vote we have required the postal service to carry those ballots those materials expeditiously and free of postage and yet we are not willing to allow federal funds to subsidize the facilitation of that democracy with that i urge my colleagues to support the amendment and i reserve the issa i recognize myself in opposition to the gentlemans amendment although well intended i would like to give you the practical ramification we require the post  deliver to every point in america and every point overseas in which an american is serving on behalf of the american people whether it is a u s embassy consulate military reservation the like no other area is funded additionally the invalid and others that are shut in receive to the door service special service to ensure that their mail is there if they cannot get out to the postal box and the like we do all of this based on a unique situation of the post office one in which they set the rates they have a monopoly and they live within their means over the past few months as this bill had this provision in it the post office has proudly said they never take a penny of taxpayers money they do take a penny of taxpayers money and with that taxpayers money has historically  hundreds over a period of time but billions per year of unfunded mandates the post office has been told what to do and how to do it using unrelated funds these few less than a hundred million dollars worth of funds the postmaster has repeatedly told this committee under both republican and democratic chairmen that he has no problem at all keeping this mandate it is part of his mandate broadly and doing it within the fee base so at a time in which billion here a billion there pretty soon they will have real money to spend taking this off those two things and i appreciate and i want to as a veteran i want to tell you there is nothing more important than making sure that our overseas servicemen and state department individuals and the like receive their ballots and certainly that the blind continue to receive a very narrow but deserved blind assistance basically books on tape and the like as they do but with the postmasters assurance that  taking away the periodic limitations that he gets in unfunded mandates he is better able to plan lastly and i think it is probably one of the important things  postmaster has uncertainty when you appropriate funds and then those fund come down to the limit hours or days by taking this away he and his governing board will be one hundred percent free to plan to deliver every single day with no shut down possible no matter what is happening in washington no matter how we get to the brink again and again so i support the gentleman in every sense of what he wants to accomplish i reluctantly will oppose the amendment but i oppose it because the postmaster has told both republican and democratic chairmen of this committee that this is something that he would like to have like to have the ability to put it in the fee like to have the ability to run the post office and he can do a better cheaper job by doing it but i would certainly ask the gentleman and would ask unanimous consent the gentleman be allowed to put such language into the bill as to state the importance of that mail the importance servicing our servicemen around the world and the expectation that that would be done you dont have to withdraw the amendment that is up to you but i certainly would work together with you on a unanimous basis to find that language  the good intentions of the postal service and the director if they happen to not pan out the way we expect that we ought to able to at least have the ability to provide that of whether who is going to pay for these ballots or whatever but well tell the postmaster what to do it seems all the time it just seems that there are certain things i think we need to really look at i am hoping that you will work with the gentleman i am telling you it is sort of frightening and this is on another note to see that we it is estimated that five million people will not be able to vote in the united states in the next election because of things that are being done in various states in this country i think again we have to anything that promotes this democracy adopted we next go to the lynch amendment the clerk norton ms norton government charge card abuse prevention act of two thousand and eleven it is my intention these bills be considered by unanimous consent does any member object does anyone wish to speak on the bill changes to one of our core open government laws the federal advisory committee act advisory committees enable subject matter experts and industry practitioners to help advance the business of government  offering advice to the president and to all the federal agencies to help inform some of their most important decisions the bill will expand the transparency of these advisory committees by requiring agencies to disclose information about how the committees are formed who is serving on them and what interests these members represent and what business has been presented to the committees for our consideration the bill will also ensure that member who provide expert advice to the advisory committees disclose any conflicts of interest they may face mister chairman ten separate open government groups have now endorsed this bill the project on government oversight the union of concerned scientists o watch and a number of other groups sent a letter praising our legislation as a major step toward government transparency and accountability they noted that our bill will close many of the faca loopholes  that have emerged in recent years strengthen disclosure requirements regarding conflicts of interest provide for greater transparency of meeting proceedings and make more opportunities for public participation i would like to enter this effectively as possible agencies also must be accountable for their expenditure of every single taxpayer dollar appropriated to them the federal government spends billions annually through its purchase card programs using purchase cards and  millions of items everything from paper and pencils to computers and to make payments on government contracts for variety of goods and services such as vehicles and relocation services the primary responsibility for purchasing these items with the cardholders and officials who approve their purchases federal employees hold positions of trust and congress and the american people expect cardholders and approving officials to maintain vigorous stewardship over the federal funds at their disposal specifically purchase cardholders and approving officials are expected to follow published acquisition requirements and exercise a standard of care in acquiring goods and services that is necessary and reasonable for the proper operation of an agency every federal dollar that is spent on fraudulent improper or abusive purchases is a dollar that cannot be used for essential government goods and services so ensuring that purchase cards are used responsibly is a particular concern at this time when the united states  fiscal challenges s three hundred will strengthen and codify the internal control agencies must put in place to ensure the proper use of travel and charge cards under this legislation agencies will be required to perform credit checks on potential recipients of travel cards agencies also will be able to discipline employees appropriately if they mis use charge cards including terminating their employment most importantly s three hundred will hold agencies accountable for charge card mis use by requiring the inspector general of each agency to examine charge card use twice a year and to report any violations to the office of management and budget i strongly support this legislation and i take care of the money that they entrust with us in tax dollars i think s three hundred goes a long way toward doing that but i also think it is necessary to clarify how agencies should proceed with respect to state and local taxes that are  y applied to charge cards issued to federal employees we need to reduce the cost of federal government wherever possible this charge card program allows federal employees to make these purchase on behalf of the government very  often what happens is clerks at hotels and restaurants will erroneously charge state and local sales tax to the federal government under the supremacy clause of the constitution they cant do that we are not subject to taxation by the states so warren buffett may want to pay more taxes i dont think the federal government needs to be paying any more taxes so we need to take care of that the amendment that i offer allows federal agencies to contract with third mister chairman for considering this bill today and i want to thank the ranking member mister cummings for his support during the process of crafting this important bill i have introduced this bill in each of the last two congresses both times it passed this committee and the house with bipartisan support i am confident that this time under your leadership mister chairman we will be able to get it   advisory committee act of two thousand and eleven and s three hundred the government charge card abuse prevention act of two thousand and eleven without objection so  chairman i would like to ask unanimous consent knowing that the outcome of the votes would not change the outcome of the amendments that were taken up that i be registered as voting yes on thirty five by mister cummings yes on