Date: 2003-05-14
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Only $100 million. Ask the American people if that is just only $100 million on some pretty sad things. But it gets worse than that. And when we talk about these things. we get bashed by the Democrats. When we talk about. for example. we were mentioning facts before. and it is important to not just spew rhetoric. but bring in some facts to the discussion. Mr. Speaker. the Federal Government cannot account for. and we need to listen to this. the Federal Government cannot account for $17.3 billion it spent in the year 2001. $17 billion unaccounted for. Yet some criticize us when we talk about let us have some accountability. Let us not misspend. Let us look at ways that we can save some of this money. Mr. Speaker. $17 billion is not peanuts. That is a lot of money unaccounted for. The Federal Government made $20 billion in overpayments in the year 2001. $20 billion in overpayments. on people that were not qualified or things that should not have been funded. The Department of Housing and Urban Development made $3.3 billion. and I repeat. billion. with a B. billion dollars in overpayments in 2001. accounting for 10 percent of the Departments budget. 10 percent in overpayments. in waste. Yet some will tell us that there is not enough money up here. that we need to raise taxes on hardworking Americans. that we should not Incentivize the economy by letting more hardworking Americans keep some of their money. no. because there is not enough money in D.C. Oh. of course not. when we misspend 10 percent of the Departments budget. But some will tell us the answer is. no problem. Do not worry about that. Let us just squeeze the American taxpayer a little bit more. a little bit harder. because you know something? It is okay. they will not mind. or they cannot yell loud enough. so let us squeeze them a little bit louder. a little bit tighter. No. no. It is time that we do not squeeze them anymore. so that we allow them to keep more of their money so that they can spend it and they can create jobs. If the gentleman will allow me. I would like to mention a couple of other examples. The Department of Agriculture was unable to account for $5 billion in receipts and expenditures. $5 billion. Medicare overpayments. overpayments totaled $12 billion in 2001. $12 billion. Mr. Speaker. the Republican majority has passed a Medicare prescription drug plan without raising taxes. We have done it. Actually. the House did it last year as well. but the other body refused to do so. but now we have done it again. and we are going to pass it again. Well. do we want to find where some of the money can come from? There is $12 billion in overpayments. That is money that is not going for the elderly that need it. that is not going for the elderly that deserve it. that is not going for the elderly who have paid into it. No. that is just waste. That is just waste. And that is unacceptable. That is immoral. Totally immoral. So. yes. we are going to do it. There has been a lot of rhetoric for 40 years. the other party has been talking about it. It took the Republican majority to pass it. and we have passed it again in the House. and we are going to do that. but we need to make sure that this kind of waste stops. stops. because that is our hardworking Americans who are paying for it. The food stamp program pays approximately $1.3 billion in overpayments each year. What can we do with that $1.3 billion for health care. for education. for defense. to incentivize our economy? A lot. And yet when we talk about these things. our friends on the Democratic party get upset. They say you cannot do that. you have to tax the American people more. Do not look at fraud. waste and abuse. Just tax the American people more. More than $8 billion is lost in erroneous earned income tax payments each year and again the list goes on and on and on. and we are not talking small amounts of money. If we were speaking about small amounts of money. that would be no excuse. We still have to stop it. because it is not governments money. It is the peoples money. but what is even worse is we are talking about billions of dollars in misspent. misused. lost money. And some want to tax the American workers. tax the American family more to do more of this? I do not unddrstand it.