Date: 2003-10-20
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. I. once again. want to speak a little bit on the cause the Washington Waste Watchers is trying to get done and that is to highlight and try to get rid of some of the everlasting waste in the Federal Government. waste of the taxpayers money that the Federal Government seems so apt at doing so well. Mr. Speaker. for example. the postal service managers received over $500 million in incentive awards for allegedly improving financial performance when. in fact. all indicators showed at the same time that the financial performance had actually declined. And. yet. we still gave that $500 million because of the performance which. again. the same performance had declined. The examples are just neverending. For example. the EPA had no knowledge whatsoever of the work that a certain EPA applicant was going to perform. but still awarded that same applicant with a $700.000 grant even though it did not know what it was for. Mr. Speaker. HUD paid the full amount of $227.000. Mr. Speaker. for a project even though that same project that it was paying for. the full project. onethird of the project had only been completed. And. yet. the entire sum went out. Again. no accountability whatsoever. And nothing seems to happen. The public housing authority in Bridgeport. Connecticut. received an extra $750.000 in operating subsidies during the year 2000. while incurring $300.000. Mr. Speaker. in unnecessary utility expenses for units that had been vacant for years. Again. these are not new issues. And. yet. the Democrats. Mr. Speaker. still insist on trying to raise the taxes of the hardworking American people to do more of this. You see. Mr. Speaker. the Federal Government has grown at an uncontrollable size. And the Democrats insist on raising the taxes on the hardworking Americans to do more of this. of throwing good money after bad and bad money after good and good money after bad. Because it is not once. it is over and over and over. And their solution. Mr. Speaker. is it is not a ploblem. there is more money where that comes from. The American people will take more money out of their hardearned dollars. take it out of their pockets. send it to D.C. so D.C. can continue to do What it has done year after year after year. I am encouraged. Mr. Speaker. by the Presidents new initiative to try to curtail this. But let me tell my colleagues what I am a little bit discouraged about. Mr. Speaker. The Federal Government loses almost $20 billion before it can even waste it. When the gentleman from Iowa . the chairman of the Committee on the Budget. had an amendment in the committee after we see the amount of money that is wasted. he said lets cut 1 percent. just 1 percent on waste. fraud and abuse. Mr. Speaker. how many votes were there from our distinguished friends of the Democratic party for the motion of the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to cut just 1 percent of waste. fraud and abuse? Zero. Not one. Because. again. they believe in raising taxes. Take the money from the hardworking American people. They all keep sending it up here so they can come up and the money can come up here and the Federal Government can continue to waste it. Mr. Speaker. again I will continue to highlight this waste. I am going to continue to thank the President for the initiatives that he has taken to change this. and we are going to continue to highlight it. And we have already filed some legislation. and we are going to file more legislation in order to try to change this culture of spending and of misspending to the culture of fiscal responsibility. In the meantime. I would ask my friends in the other party to change their attitude from just asking for more money. for asking for more taxes and increases in taxes. and help us change this attitude that the President is trying to change. and we are going to continue to try to change.