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How Oversight Should Work
Earlier this year, the Congressional Research Service released a report underscoring the important function that congressional oversight plays in working with the executive branch: "A fundamental objective of congressional oversight is to hold executive officials accountable for the implementation of delegated authority. This objective is especially important given the huge expansion of executive influence in the modern era."
As we move closer to the November midterm elections, a discussion is taking shape regarding what kind of oversight will occur should the Republicans regain the majority in Congress. Some partisan voices have tried to push a narrative that would have America believe that oversight guided by a Republican majority would aim to stifle the White House in a series of politically motivated witch hunts.
It's ironic that the very Democrats who are spreading this rhetorical paranoia struck a much different tone just a few years ago. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., once asked, "If we're doing our constitutional duty of oversight, how can they refuse to give us information? If they withhold information and try to get away with it, I think it will be very unfortunate for them."
In June of 2007, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., proclaimed, "And when people talk about this Congress, they have to recognize that there's a big distinction between this Congress and previous Congresses in terms of shedding the light of oversight and accountability on this administration."
And when discussing the importance that Waxman would play in his new role as chairman of the Oversight Committee, former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said, "We want to be the party that is ferreting out waste and fraud, and (the Oversight) committee is the point of the spear for us."
Emanuel, Pelosi and Waxman certainly had a very clear, concise and concrete definition of what oversight meant to them.
'A renewed spirit of action'
The truth is, the only way the Republicans can regain the majority in Congress is if the American people send the message to Washington that they want change from the status quo. This means coming to the table with a renewed spirit of action and reform where common sense is the ideology.
Bottom line: Nothing could be more counterproductive and destructive to this effort than embarking on a series of misguided and politically motivated investigations.
Oversight is not and should not be used as a political weapon against the occupant of the Oval Office. It should not be an instrument of fear or the exclusive domain of the party that controls Congress. Oversight should make the people's government work better for them. Oversight should force the bureaucracy to identify and correct waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. Oversight should leverage the resources of the 21st century to make the federal bureaucracy transparent, accountable and a model of efficiency and effectiveness.
No matter who controls the Congress next year, the reality is we have a federal bureaucracy that has been tasked with absorbing, distributing and overseeing trillion dollar bailouts, a trillion dollar stimulus and a trillion dollar health care package.
Whether you agree or disagree with these policies, the result is a federal bureaucracy that has grown in size, scope, authority and responsibility. Oversight, however, has not kept pace with the growth of government. Earl Devaney, whom President Obama appointed to coordinate efforts to weed out waste in the stimulus bill, estimated that 7% of all government spending is lost to fraud. If we ever hope to improve on this or cut other excessive spending, then more rigorous oversight must be a top priority.
The only way to begin this effort is working with the administration on what deserves to be a bipartisan effort.
While the Oversight and Government Reform Committee may attract more attention for its oversight efforts, it's the ability — or, more accurately, responsibility — of this committee to reform broken government that needs emphasis.
Tackling the bureaucracy
Regardless of whether I serve on this committee as chairman or ranking member next Congress, I will continue efforts to reform a bureaucracy that is overrun with waste, fraud, and mismanagement and leave a legacy behind that make government work better for all Americans.
It's very clear that the American people do not want a divided government hell-bent on fighting one another in an attempt to score cheap political points. They want a government with checks and balances, run by adults who are up to the task of solving the very real problems confronting our nation.
Republicans and Democrats have very different and fundamental views on the federal government's role in our lives. And while we may disagree on what policies should be advanced to address the challenges of today, that doesn't mean we cannot agree and work together on what we already know is broken. That doesn't mean we can't be better stewards of the taxpayers' dollars.
I am committed to seeking out the cooperation and, if he's willing, a partnership with our president to conduct rigorous oversight that leads to bipartisan reforms and, ultimately, more transparency and accountability to government. The enemy isn't Republicans or Democrats. It's the bureaucracy.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Time for a Hiring Freeze
Republicans try to bring the federal government in line with the private sector.
While millions of Americans struggle to find work, the federal civilian workforce has prospered. Federal employees’ salaries and benefits have spiked over the past decade. In fact, their compensation advantage over workers in the private sector has grown since 2000 from about $24,000 to almost $51,000.
Not even the recession has slowed this trend. Unemployment remains dangerously high, and the number of poor is at its highest level since 1959. But as the private sector has lost 7.7 million jobs since December 2007, the federal government has added 212,100 jobs.
Unlike the private sector, the federal government is largely unaffected by competition or market forces. One might think that therefore, the government would use the private sector as a benchmark when it decided how much to pay its employees. Yet in 2009, federal employees’ average pay and benefits totaled $111,725, while private-sector employees earned an average of $61,051. Even when one looks at workers in comparable occupations, the federal government pays an average of 20 percent more than the private sector.
And the federal workforce continues to pad its pockets with taxpayer dollars. President Obama asked for a 1.4 percent pay increase for the federal workforce (with the exception of political appointees) in 2011. If the federal government froze salaries at the 2010 level, it would save American taxpayers $2.2 billion next year alone.
Are the spiking salaries due to excellent performance? According to the federal government, yes. Shockingly, of the 2.1 million federal workers, only 177 received unsatisfactory ratings on their 2009 evaluations. Of those employees, 150 still received an automatic pay raise.
Most federal workers are dedicated and competent public servants, and they must be frustrated that their workplace policies bestow raises and other rewards on even their poorly performing coworkers. The private sector incentivizes worker productivity and job performance with regular employee reviews, pay raises, promotions, and added job security. Once employed by the federal government, however, a worker is on a one-way upward track regardless of job performance.
That’s why House Republicans have proposed a net-hiring freeze on non-security federal employees. The “Pledge to America,” released last month by Republican leader John Boehner, lays out numerous policy goals that promise to keep the federal workforce from growing and put America back on track for private-sector job creation.
The government exists to serve the American people, but Americans are now forced to pay for a bloated, inefficient federal workforce that is too often rewarded with pay raises and job security for unacceptable job performance. A system that rewards good work, punishes poor performance, and keeps employee pay and benefits in sync with the private sector is an important first step to returning the country to fiscal discipline and restoring the confidence of the American people in their government.
– Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) is the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Congress must oversee executive branch
By Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) - 09/28/10 09:25 AM ET
The unparalleled encroachment of the federal government in the private sector and the lives of individual Americans that began during the Bush Administration and continues in the Obama Administration (see, for example, the Troubled Assets Protection Program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the rapid growth of the federal workforce, and the health care and financial overhauls) has led to concerns of an oncoming tsunami of opacity, waste, fraud, and abuse. This trend must be met by vigorous Congressional oversight of the massive federal bureaucracy.
The vast expansion of the power and reach of the executive branch of government under both Republican and Democratic administrations has only increased the need for vigorous, unflinching congressional oversight. Under one-party rule in Washington, with Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress and the executive branch, the majority reiterated its commitment to congressional oversight.
Unfortunately, since President Obama took office 19 months ago, the country has seen the emergence of a large accountability gap. Congress’ chief watchdog committee has failed repeatedly to conduct meaningful and sustained investigations and hold federal executives and bureaucrats responsible for the unprecedented levels of waste, fraud, and abuse that such rapid growth has nurtured.
Despite repeated requests by the Republican minority for oversight hearings, joint investigations, and subpoenas, and despite myriad news reports raising allegations of waste, fraud, and other misconduct, the Oversight Committee and the Democratic-controlled Congress have overwhelmingly shunned responsible but tough oversight of the Obama administration.
As of August 2010, the Republican members of the Oversight Committee had sent 46 letters to the Democratic Chairman of the committee or its subcommittee chairs requesting hearings, additional witnesses at hearings, or subpoenas of important documents related to significant investigations. Formal responses were received for only six of those requests.
If you’re looking for a blueprint of what type of oversight agenda we should pursue next year, regardless of whether or not Republicans are in the majority or minority, these hearings requested by the Republican minority but ignored by the Democratic majority are a good start:
Food Safety - In 2009, following a salmonella outbreak in a Georgia peanut plant that led to at least 8 deaths and more than 500 illnesses, I sent a letter to Chairman Towns requesting a hearing on the federal food safety bureaucracy, citing a GAO report that identified 15 different federal agencies responsible for administering 30 food safety-related laws and noting that “our Committee is uniquely positioned to look at the coordination and cooperation amongst departments and agencies.” No response to the request was received, and nothing was done to hold the federal agencies accountable. A year and a half later, the nation has suffered another salmonella outbreak with more than 500 million eggs in 22 states recalled and more than 2,000 reported illnesses.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Despite the role Fannie and Freddie played in the financial crisis and the huge financial stakes for the American taxpayer involved in continuing to prop up these organizations, the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill did nothing to address them and Treasury Secretary Geithner announced that the administration would not produce a plan to reform Fannie and Freddie until 2011.
Wasteful Stimulus Spending – The Republican minority has provided the Democratic majority with evidence of government agencies wasting stimulus funds on projects of dubious merit that appear to contradict the administration’s stated goals for stimulus-worthy projects and that therefore are ripe for oversight. For example, the committee minority requested in a letter that the committee hold a hearing to scrutinize hundreds of thousands of dollars for wasteful projects funded by the National Endowment for the Arts through ARRA.
Minerals Management Service – The last time Republicans had subpoena power was in 2006, where as a subcommittee chairman I used it to compel the testimony of oil executives and expose cozy relationship with the Minerals Management Service (MMS) - the federal entity charged with over-seeing oil companies and their drilling activities. In wake of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, we need to ensure that reforms within the bureaucracy are happening and working.
School Choice – The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) was launched by Congress in 2004, with bipartisan support, to give economically disadvantaged District of Columbia children the chance for a quality education outside of public school classrooms plagued by problems. The program has been proven highly successful by every known measurement, including academic improvement, personal safety, and parental satisfaction. A strong coalition of academics, journalists and civic leaders are supporting reauthorization of OSP in the House and Senate. However, the Obama administration is now phasing out the program.
Congress’ chief watchdog committee requested 61 percent less information in the first year of the 111th Congress than it did in the 110th. The committee held 21 percent fewer hearings, and the subjects of those hearings were too often far outside the most pressing issues facing the American people. It is difficult to attribute these changes from the 110th Congress to the 111th to anything other than the party in control of the White House.
Only four years ago Democrats lamented a lack of congressional oversight under one-party rule. But today, at a time of unprecedented expenditures and growth in the federal workforce and its presence in Americans’ lives, with all the potential for fraud, waste, and abuse such growth carries with it, the Democratic-controlled Congress has consciously abdicated its Constitutional responsibility to provide oversight of the executive branch.
Perhaps White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said it best in 2007, “We want to be the party that is ferreting out waste and fraud, and [the Oversight] committee is the point of the spear for us.”
Rep. Darrell Issa represents the 49th Congressional District of California and is the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
The Obama Spoils System
In using government positions to reward loyalty to the Democratic party, the Obama administration broke the law.
A disturbing precedent appears likely to emerge from the controversy surrounding the job offers by White House officials to Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak and former Colorado house speaker Andrew Romanoff in exchange for their withdrawal from primary challenges to sitting Democratic United States senators. The White House counsel’s office has asserted that a desire to protect the campaign coffers of the president’s political party is a “legitimate interest,” and that White House officials may therefore offer taxpayer-funded positions in the federal government to further that interest. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs elaborated on this theory, arguing, “The president has, as the leader of the party, has an interest in ensuring that supporters don’t run against each other in contested primaries.” Gibbs later added, “Again, does the leader of the party have an interest in ensuring that primaries that tend to be costly aren’t had so that you’re ready for a general election? Of course.” Oversight must focus on gov't too
If you go to the Democratic Web page for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, it reads: “The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. It has jurisdiction to investigate any federal program and any matter with federal policy implications.” An extremely premature public conversation is now taking shape about how the Congress would shift if the Democrats lose the majority in the November midterms — and more specifically about how I would act as chairman of the Oversight Committee. For the record, when Republicans were in the majority and I was an Oversight subcommittee chairman, the only time I ever made use of subpoenas was to compel the testimony of five of the biggest oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico in an effort to uncover the true nature of the dysfunctional and too-cozy relationship companies had with the government agency that regulated their drilling and oil exploration efforts — the Minerals Management Service. That investigation by the committee, which held five hearings and reviewed thousands of pages of documents, was cut short when the Democrats took control. The new committee chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), did his best to shut it down. Despite repeated requests, he never once held a hearing to follow up on the problems that had been exposed at the agency now at the center of the Gulf oil spill. Between a trillion-dollar stimulus, numerous bailouts and a government takeover of health care, the role, size and scope of the federal government has grown dramatically. Yet the resources needed to oversee the bureaucracy have not kept pace. I have made no secret of my commitment to bolster the efforts of the Oversight Committee by calling for an increase in the number of committee investigators so that we can aggressively oversee a bureaucracy in which the landscape has significantly changed and hold corporate But, rather than join with me in a partnership to bring more oversight, transparency and accountability to government, Democrats are attempting to mislead the American people by creating an illusionary scenario where wrongdoing by corporations gets a free pass while the diligent and hope-filled president is besieged by subpoena-wielding congressional investigators. Never missing an opportunity to add some fictitious fodder to the debate, the Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee said, “Instead of focusing on holding big corporations like [BP] accountable, if Issa and Republicans have their way, as chairman, Issa would use subpoenas and an 80-person staff to launch taxpayer-funded witch hunts against the president.” The DCCC is embarking on this ridiculous effort to distort the truth in a distasteful fashion to score cheap political points. In other words, business as usual. Quite frankly, a quick look at our history demonstrates that oversight of both corporations and the government can be done vigorously and effectively — perhaps to the chagrin of the Obama White House and Democratic congressional leaders. Since becoming ranking member of the Oversight Committee, I’ve led investigations into American International Group’s backdoor bailout, Countrywide’s VIP mortgage program, Toyota’s profit-first, safety-second mentality, General Motors Corp.’s shredding of documents despite being owned by the taxpayers and Johnson & Johnson’s safety standards in relation to significant children’s medicine recalls. When there are legitimate questions to be asked regarding corporate But that doesn’t mean our committee should not also look inward at the litany of waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement and corruption that exists in our own federal bureaucracy. Does this mean that some issues will create uncomfortable questions for this administration?
Yes. Does that mean we should abandon our obligation to conduct rigorous oversight?
No. The bottom line is, if the DCCC or anyone else wants to engage in a debate on oversight, that is a debate we welcome. Some Democrats seem to think that a Democratic Congress should give this administration immunity from legitimate questions and appropriate accountability. I challenge them to make that case to the American people. This is a fight that speaks to the very heart of our democracy. It is a fight between those who would aggressively pursue oversight so that the American people can have the government they deserve and those who seek to preserve the status quo at all costs. To know what can go wrong when oversight becomes a passing thought rather than a first priority, look at the catastrophe in the But don’t worry; the DCCC considers such oversight efforts a “taxpayer witch hunt against the president.” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) serves as the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Can a president make it legal?
By REP. DARRELL ISSA
President Richard Nixon uttered one of the most infamous quotes in
This sentiment embodies all that is wrong with politics. It explains why, more than 30 years later, the political establishment struggles with the image that Nixon’s misguided statement creates.
Since February, questions have swirled around allegations first made by Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.). He is now the Democratic nominee for Senate in
Title 18 U.S.C. Section 600 clearly says: “Whoever directly or indirectly promises any employment position, compensation, contract, appointment or other benefit provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, in favor or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
Aside from the obvious legal issues that offering someone what amounts to a bribe in an effort to manipulate an election could present, there is a broader and symbolic issue at heart.
After winning the
Flash-forward. Sestak has said, without equivocation and on numerous occasions on network TV, that he was offered a job. The White House, after refusing to answer questions about the matter for weeks, finally relented and, through press secretary Robert Gibbs and senior adviser David Axelrod, said that, according to their administration lawyers, nothing “problematic” or “inappropriate” had occurred.
Mind you, they didn’t deny Sestak’s allegation. They spoke to the potential illegality of his claim.
But given the movement that swept Obama into office and the assault on the status quo he promised, doesn’t this implication and the White House’s refusal to deny Sestak’s account equate to a betrayal of the standards set by the president himself?
For weeks, this issue has been the topic on Sunday shows and cable programs. The one thing that I’ve heard to justify what may or may not have happened is the rationale, “this sort of thing happens all the time.”
Is there any wonder why the people of this nation are screaming for change and establishment candidates are losing — regardless of whether they have a “D” or an “R” next to their name?
Maybe if we held people accountable, this status quo of trading positions for political gain wouldn’t be so easily accepted by the
Obama led a movement that shook the very foundation of
Yet, from inside his White House, someone thought it was OK to try to maneuver Sestak out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary — effectively betraying the promises that candidate Obama made.
Gibbs and Axelrod say nothing “inappropriate” or “problematic” happened. But they have yet to disclose what was said and by whom. Even if no laws were broken, Obama’s pledge to change the status quo has been.
But don’t worry, this sort of thing happens all the time.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) serves as ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Constitution Says 'No' to District Seat in Congress
The debate about Congressional representation for the federal city presents neither an instance of political novelty nor an occasion of constitutional ambiguity. Consistently, the people and the courts have rejected efforts to grant the privileges of statehood to the District and have instead affirmed the plain meaning of the Constitution. Article 1 of the Constitution states unambiguously that “the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states.” Moreover, Congress has the power to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” over the District of Columbia. The “enclave clause,” as it has come to be known, forged an agreement between the Federalists — led by Alexander Hamilton — and the Anti-Federalists — led by Thomas Jefferson — to locate the federal city in the South while ensuring federal control of the territory, not to exceed 10 miles square. In 1800, the federal government officially moved to Washington, D.C. Through the years, the courts have consistently upheld federal control of the District and rejected claims that the nation’s capital is “like a state” and therefore due the rights of statehood, including voting representation in Congress. As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in Loughborough v. Blake (1820), “although in theory it might be more congenial to the spirit of our institutions to admit a representative from the district, it may be doubted whether, in fact, its interests would be rendered thereby the more secure.” In the late 1970s, a Democratic-controlled Congress proposed a constitutional amendment to grant the District a Congressional vote “as if it were a state,” but the amendment was only ratified by 16 states, falling far short of the 38 states required by the Constitution. Contrast that with the 23rd Amendment permitting the District’s citizens to vote in presidential elections, which was proposed by Congress in June 1960 and ratified by the states less than one year later. Nevertheless, the push for District “statehood” continues, and the same, tired arguments are always marshaled to support it. “Taxation Without Representation” is emblazoned across the license plate of almost every car registered in the District. District residents, we are told, pay their fair share of federal taxes and are therefore due equal representation. What this argument fails to recognize, however, is that residence in the federal city is an entirely voluntary act. It also doesn’t address the fact that our Founding Fathers clearly understood residents would live within the District’s boundaries, yet still decided against granting it a vote in Congress. Our national interest demands a capital city that serves the states and not itself, and for generations the American taxpayers have honored this commitment with generous federal funding. Today, D.C. residents receive the highest allotment of federal dollars per capita in the nation — a whopping $65,109 per person. The next highest allotment goes to Alaskans at $13,950 each. This staggering disparity becomes questionable, however, when you realize that the District’s municipal government is “Exhibit A” for bad administration. From failing schools that employ grossly underperforming teachers to a penchant for sham contracting that awards millions of taxpayer dollars to shell nonprofit corporations run by the cronies of convicted city leaders, the District is run amok with scandal. In late 2007, federal prosecutors uncovered a $50 million embezzlement scheme on the part of city leaders that spanned more than two decades. This year, the Washington Post revealed that D.C.’s large population of people with AIDS/HIV were being preyed upon by District contractors who received more than $25 million to run treatment centers that never existed. Astonishingly, Congressional Democrats including the District’s own Congressional Delegate have steadfastly rejected Republican calls to investigate these abuses. Instead, Democratic leaders hope to reward the District with its own vote in Congress. Not even former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) has the temerity for that kind of kickback. It’s time to finally stop this decades-long push to subvert the Constitution and carve out another liberal enclave designed to stack the deck of Congressional apportionment. The District of Columbia is not a state; it has never been a state. It’s not even a responsible municipality. The only acceptable way to seek representation for the District is one that respects our constitutional framework and simultaneously addresses the District’s shortcomings in its duty to serve as our nation’s capital. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
If White House won't investigate, special prosecutor will
By: Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. On six different occasions, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has offered six different responses to straightforward questions regarding Rep. Joe Sestak’s, D-Pa., accusation that he was offered a plum appointment in exchange for his withdrawal from a primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Sestak has been clear. For months his story hasn’t changed. Sestak has gone on record that in July 2009 the White House offered him a federal job to keep him out of the Pennsylvania Senate race. He will not divulge the name of the person who offered the position, and he will not disclose the nature of the job that was offered. But the essence of his story has not changed, and he has not walked-back his allegation. The law is also clear. If President Obama – or anyone else at the White House for that matter – used his official authority for the purpose of interfering with, or affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate for federal office, then a felony has been committed subject to both a fine and a prison sentence. Clearly, these are very serious charges. The White House, however, seems to subscribe to the notion that if they ignore the issue and stonewall questions from the media and Congress alike, the issue will simply go quietly away. The underlying question for the American people is: Will we let them get away with it? I have now sent two letters to the White House – both of which remain unanswered – asking some straightforward questions about who offered Sestak a position, what position was offered, when and under what conditions the offer was made, and what investigation the administration is conducting to determine the extent of the crime. After being asked day-after-day in White House briefings, Gibbs finally acknowledged that something had happened and that he, the press secretary, personally discussed the matter with several White House staffers and concluded that “whatever conversations have been had are not problematic” and that “whatever happened is in the past.” A few off-hand questions posed by the chief press aide hardly constitutes the type of inquiry that is warranted by a serious charge of criminal conduct on the part of administration officials. The arrogance is apparent in Gibbs’s assertion that the American people need not worry about illegal activity in the White House because the press secretary has read a memo or two and bumped into fellow staffers at the water cooler. The White House’s insistence that Sestak’s allegation of a corrupt offer isn’t “problematic” is indicative of the disturbing Chicago-style mindset that pervades this administration. Either the congressman is telling the truth, and administration officials have broken the law, or he’s lying, in which case his outrageous falsehood should be exposed. Until we get answers, the questions aren’t going away. Frankly, if what Gibbs says is true, there is no reason why the White House shouldn’t be willing to put forward who said what and when. Their refusal to offer a real explanation only reinforces the unavoidable conclusion that the White House is hiding something. The bottom line is if the White House continues to stonewall Congress and the American people, I will petition the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to launch an investigation into the allegation. In the meantime, I fear we’re in for more obtuse and evasive statements from administration officials. In that case, the White House will be falling back on a concerted scheme and cover-up strategy not seen in Washington since the days of Watergate. Somebody might want to remind the president how that story ended. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In Re Excreta
On March 10, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Gershon -- a Clinton-era appointee -- ruled in ACORN v. United States that the federal government was permanently enjoined from enforcing its funding bans against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Of course, this is the same Judge Gershon who a decade ago made a similar ruling against New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the result of which protected the use of city funds for an art exhibit that included elephant dung smeared on a painting of the Virgin Mary. In her opinion Judge Gershon claimed the government "ignore[d] the existence of comprehensive regulations promulgated to address the very concerns Congress has expressed about ACORN." According to Gershon, the Code of Federal Regulations "establishes a formal process for determining when federal contractors can be suspended or debarred." However, Judge Gershon ignored the discretion Congress has to serve the public interest by exercising its oversight powers when federal agencies have failed to adequately implement debarment policies. In fact, Congress retains the plenitude of legislative power, even when that power is narrowly delegated to administrative agencies. If federal agencies do not act responsibly to protect the taxpayers' interest, then Congress is constitutionally required to intervene, especially in questions that arise under Congress's power to appropriate dollars that originate from the wallets of the American people. Because we were concerned that several agencies were not exercising proper oversight, Congress defunded ACORN and the President signed a Continuing Resolution banning all federal funds to ACORN and its affiliates. Subsequently, several federal agencies gave notice to ACORN that they were suspending their contracts. The federal government was simply responding to Congress's emergency action to protect the public interest. In recent months, congressional investigators have made several findings, which Judge Gershon ignored, concerning our federal agencies' lack of proper oversight in federal contracts. On March 18, 2010, my committee held a hearing concerning the government's efforts to protect taxpayer dollars from going to unworthy contractors. At this hearing, Congress heard testimony from Inspectors Generals who opined about the ongoing struggle for federal agencies to apply suspension and debarment policies and procedures against poorly-performing contractors. Witnesses at the hearing exposed the reluctance of some federal agencies to protect taxpayers, and in the case of one agency, we learned that suspension and debarment decisions were regarded as either unimportant or unnecessary. These facts intensify my alarm at Judge Gershon's recent decision to protect one of the worst actors in American history. If ever there was an organization that deserved to have its federal funding permanently stripped, it is surely ACORN. From election fraud, to embezzlement, to abuse of tax-exempt privileges, money-laundering, racketeering, and a host of other criminal acts, ACORN is emblematic of the problems that can occur when federal agencies are careless in awarding taxpayer dollars. There is no ambiguity in the government's process for suspension and debarment. The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) prescribes the process clearly. The government always retains the right -- indeed the responsibility -- to terminate or cancel any existing contract. Over a year ago, the Oversight Committee convened a hearing to examine issues related to government contracting. I said then, and I repeated on March 18 that we have a singular obligation to ensure that federal funds are spent in a cost-effective manner, with as little waste as possible. I also noted that the system designed to protect taxpayers suffers from fundamental flaws. Today, and especially given Judge Gershon's recent decision, I am concerned that we have made little progress in this area. Every federal agency and every federal contractor must know that Congress will not falter in its vigilant oversight of all issues related to federal contracting. We will not turn a blind eye to the squandering of taxpayer dollars on contractors who are guilty of waste, fraud, and abuse. And we will not tolerate bureaucratic inertia or ideological favoritism to protect organizations like ACORN, and others, that routinely violate the taxpayers' trust. Judge Gershon's ruling is wholly preposterous, and the Justice Department must vigilantly pursue its reversal on appeal. Perhaps there are more luminous jurists at the Second Circuit -- or the United States Supreme Court -- who will see her glaring jurisprudential folly and correct her mistake. EPA: Regulatory Mess, Economic Massacrre
The Environmental Protection Agency announced on December 7, 2009, that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide emissions, contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to “pose a threat to our health and welfare.” If this finding is allowed to become law, the Obama Administration will succeed in gaining greater control over everyday life in America, at a time when small businesses are already struggling.
After the endangerment finding was announced, an unnamed White House official prophesied that if Congress failed to pass climate change legislation “the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area.” The source went on to say, “[The EPA] is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it’s going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way.”
The pattern is becoming clear. The Obama Administration – unsatisfied with the process of representative democracy – disregards the Constitution and forces upon the American people an agenda that Congress would not pass and the majority of Americans do not want. So how did we get here?
In 1999, Massachusetts and several other states began a campaign to force the EPA to regulate carbon emissions from motor vehicles, claiming that these gases contribute to man-made global warming. The Supreme Court, legislating from the bench, ruled in 2007, “The [EPA] Administrator must determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases…cause or contribute to air pollution.” Under the 1970 Clean Air Act (CAA), any source that emits an “air pollutant” above 250 tons per year will trigger additional taxes and onerous permit requirements levied directly on businesses – costs that are ultimately passed along to consumers. To fly this terribly expensive energy tax under the radar, the EPA contrived a clever “tailoring rule,” arbitrarily amending the CAA without Congressional authority by raising the CO2 emissions threshold from 250 to 250,000 tons per year so that only the largest polluters are regulated.
But according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, this threshold would be reached by “one-fifth of all food services, one-third of those in health care, half of those in the lodging industry, [and] 10 percent of buildings used for religious worship” in America. Even the EPA’s own estimates project that small entities will incur more than $55 billion in costs under the endangerment finding absent the tailoring rule.
This small polluter exemption, however, rests on questionable legal footing, causing the usually EPA-friendly Center for Biological Diversity to object that “the EPA has no authority to weaken the requirements of the statute simply because its political appointees don’t like the law’s requirements.”
What can Americans expect if the EPA gets away with this? The EPA’s first step will be to regulate the auto industry. Once they have established control over automobile emissions standards, the EPA will be emboldened to continue controlling any carbon emitting source, imposing draconian measures on hospitals, schools, churches, farms, restaurants and malls. In fact, a recent study by the EPA found that more than 6 million businesses would be financially burdened by a full enforcement of the endangerment finding.
Additionally, a recent analysis by the Heritage Foundation estimates that EPA’s actions could result in a cumulative loss of nearly $7 trillion in GDP by 2029 (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars) and annual job losses could surpass 800,000 for several years.
Simply put, under the Obama Administration, the EPA is a wrecking ball that is destroying jobs, putting more businesses under water and increasing government control over our everyday lives.
With the U.S. already in a soft economy, many cash-strapped communities will face a tough choice – jump through another expensive regulatory hoop or cancel much needed community development projects. Compound this situation over many times around the nation and you have a crisis of economic gridlock.
While the EPA is expanding its regulatory jurisdiction, Congress has the sole right and responsibility to enact legislation nullifying any rogue determination they make – and we should do just that.
Bipartisan support is growing for legislation that will force the EPA to abandon this aggressive pursuit of more regulatory control and unbridled authority over our daily lives. Unless Congress acts fast, Americans will be forced to pay for the most expensive regulatory scheme in a generation.
Census and Sensibility
In the face of the growing challenges, Congress must scrupulously guard its Constitutional responsibility to ensure a fair, accurate and trustworthy count for the 2010 Census.
Since antiquity, nation-states have needed a reliable headcount of the population to know what size of army could be raised, what taxes could be levied, and to keep governing officials apprised of the customs, habits and social structures of the citizens living in remote areas of the empire.
Today, the Census is just as important to our Republic. It is the very foundation of our representative system of government, and it is not surprising that it presents a source of incredible political controversy. Professional partisans seeking to influence the apportionment of Congressional seats based on Census results or manipulate the distribution of federal dollars arise to advocate the use of dubious mathematical estimates rather than an actual headcount. Elected officials from states and cities large and small, urban and rural, marshal tremendous efforts to make sure their constituents get counted.
Indeed, the American Census is the largest peacetime mobilization of resources, both human and otherwise, undertaken throughout our history. Along with the Census come regular threats to subvert a full and fair counting.
…the American Census is the largest peacetime mobilization of resources, both human and otherwise, undertaken throughout our history. Along with the Census come regular threats to subvert a full and fair counting.
The frontal assault comes in the form of “statistical adjustment,” or the use of estimates to achieve population counts. Proponents of statistical adjustment argue that no Census can count every single person within the United States – a fact that everyone readily acknowledges. Because the undercounted population typically lives in poor, urban areas, it is argued that complex mathematical estimates should be employed to achieve a more equitable representation in Congress for these urban areas.
Of course, these arguments aren’t the result of the phenomenon of urbanization in modern American life. During the public debate over the ratification of the Constitution, our nation’s Founding Fathers wrestled with the issue of using estimates to count the fledgling country’s citizens. Then, it was the virgin wilderness, dense forests and primitive modes of transportation that made an actual headcount difficult. Nevertheless, the Founders overwhelmingly rejected the use of estimates in favor of an actual headcount, realizing the only fair way to enumerate the people was house by house, head by head.
There are other routine challenges to overcome. This month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that highlighted various problems that are facing the 2010 Census, including weaknesses in the Census Bureau’s information technology, problems with the equipment used in canvassing, and uncertainty over the ultimate cost of the Census – now estimated at $14.7 billion. Simply put, the Bureau created to conduct the Census every ten years struggles to keep pace with technological advances that occur every ten minutes. Remarkably, however, GAO reported that the Census Bureau is making “noteworthy gains in mitigating risks and in keeping the headcount on-track.”
This year, there were new, yet unsurprising challenges that threatened the Census. Early in his administration, President Obama stepped up efforts to cut out the Census Bureau’s superiors at the Department of Commerce and have the Census Director report to his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. This plan raised the concern that politics would interfere with the Census Bureau’s work and thus jeopardize the independence needed to carry out a Constitutional mandate. After the public outcry over the politicization of the Census escalated, the White House walked back the President’s power grab.
More subtly, then, the President seemingly ran afoul of the Constitution’s requirement of Congressional advise and consent when the man publicly acknowledged to be his original choice for Director of the Census, Kenneth Prewitt, withdrew his name from consideration. Shortly thereafter, Prewitt was hired by the Administration as a paid consultant for the 2010 Census, reinforcing concerns that President Obama was circumventing the proper nomination and confirmation process in the U.S. Senate to give his political ally a place of key influence over the Census.
In the great sea of partisanship that is the seat of federal government, a lone island of nonpartisan calm must always be the United States Census Bureau.
Other scandals have fed an atmosphere of doubt about the legitimacy of the 2010 Census under President Obama’s watch. Earlier this year, it became known that the notorious and largely discredited Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) had received a Census Bureau contract. Thanks to the diligent efforts of my colleagues on the House Oversight Committee, particularly Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), the ACORN contract was withdrawn, but only after the now-infamous ACORN videos became public.
Washington, DC is by its nature a very political environment. In the great sea of partisanship that is the seat of federal government, a lone island of nonpartisan calm must always be the United States Census Bureau. Any effort to colonize it with party loyalists – whether Republican or Democrat – or tinker with the Census results must be stopped if the American people are to have confidence in their government.
Counterpoint: Fake job numbers vital to stimulus propaganda
Since President Obama took office, the American people have been subjected to an aggressive propaganda campaign designed to convince them that the $787 billion stimulus bill is working. Month after month, as unemployment continues to rise, the administration has sent its spinmeisters out to trumpet an altogether dubious number of jobs "created or saved."
Vice President Biden -- the man appointed by the president to oversee the recovery effort -- has shamelessly continued to claim credit for as many as one million jobs that the administration argues the stimulus has "created or saved."
Meanwhile, unemployment hit the highest point in a quarter century, and 3.8 million more Americans are out of work since the White House promised to "get the economy moving again." There's good reason to doubt thepresident's policies are working.
"Here in Washington, we've all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending," the president noted in his State of the Union address while responding to skepticism about the stimulus. "And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right.
"That is why I've asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort -- because nobody messes with Joe."
Apparently, somebody is messing with Joe. Or even worse, Joe seems to be messing with us.
On top of espousing fictitious jobs claims, the White House has now directed the stimulus auditor to report inaccurate information on the Recovery.gov Web site. This continues to occur even as media reports savage the ridiculously inaccurate data.
From $1.2 million in stimulus funds that saved 935 jobs at a Georgia community council with only 508 employees, to a $1,047 lawnmower in Arkansas purchased with stimulus funds that resulted in 50 jobs, to the $26,174 grant for roof repairs in Texas that created 450 jobs, the signature item in the president's economic policy has been fraught with Enron-style accounting tricks and fraudulent reporting.
And all from a president who promised an "unprecedented level of openness and transparency."
The manifest inaccuracies in the data the Obama administration uses to justify its economic policies constitutes the promulgation of inaccurate and misleading information by the federal government. The American people deserve a straightforward accounting of the way the president spends their tax dollars, and they have the right to expect a return on their "investment."
So far, all they are getting is deceitful propaganda and a backbreaking trillion-dollar tax bill from the officials they elected to bring about change. Administration Asleep at the Wheel on FHA Oversight
Have you heard? Wall Street -- stoked by never-ending taxpayer largesse -- is again chugging down the rails. Destination: raising its own stock prices in the midst of a jobless recovery. But don't be fooled: the engineers of this paper recovery are still asleep at the wheel, allowing runaway mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to burn through billions more tax dollars without an Inspector General or independent oversight.
Meanwhile, the capital reserves of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) have dropped dangerously low, raising the specter of another taxpayer bailout of a federal housing agency. As these Casey Joneses watch the next economic train wreck pick up steam, Congress should slam on the brakes and take a long hard look at whether it makes sense to continue pouring public money into a broken federal housing bureaucracy without holding it accountable for every tax dollar it receives.
We recently learned that the Justice Department ruled in September that the Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) -- the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - could not continue as an independent overseer of the mortgage giants. Instead, IG Ed Kelley has been relegated to the position of "internal auditor," lacking independence and reporting to a political appointee.
Fannie and Freddie were at the heart of the financial crisis and were responsible for trillions of dollars of high-risk lending that inflated the housing bubble. They have already consumed billions, yet Congress and the Obama administration seem comfortable allowing these mortgage behemoths to operate without sufficient independent oversight -- absurd.
In spite of the bailout bonanza, the Federal Housing Administration's capital reserves have plummeted 30 percent as a percentage of its assets in just one year, even as the number of loans FHA supports has increased dramatically. FHA's reserve capital fund has fallen to 0.53 percent, well below the 2 percent required by law. If total reserves fall below zero, FHA will receive an automatic taxpayer bailout. FHA Commissioner David Stevens has promised to turn down the automatic taxpayer cash infusion. I'll believe that when I see it.
This all adds up to a Congress and an administration addicted to using taxpayer subsidies to prop up the flailing U.S. housing market. Yet it was precisely this negligent behavior -- lenders pushing taxpayer-subsidized, low-down payment lending to people who couldn't afford to pay their mortgage -- that got us into this mess. For as you read this, Fannie, Freddie, the FHA and the Veterans Administration stand directly behind more than 50 percent of all American mortgages. That is a shocking amount of money for which the public is already on the hook. Congress, however, continues to run up more mortgage debt on the taxpayers' tab, hoping the next bailout will get America out of this housing mess -- all without independent oversight, transparency and accountability.
Congress can begin fixing this today by putting the brakes on taxpayer money headed into a failed federal housing system until real oversight by an Inspector General is reinstated and an investigation into the congenital lack of transparency and accountability in the federal housing bureaucracy begins. Independent oversight should be the locomotive driving reforms of the federal housing bureaucracy. Instead, many in Congress and the White House have stuck transparency and accountability back in the caboose, an unconscionable mistake for which the American people should not have to pay...again.
Nexus of Political Influence and Special Interests Deals Paved Way to Financial Crisis
This passed week, I’ve released a report that chronicles how the politicization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paved the way for today’s financial crisis. The truth is, Fannie and Freddie had a unique relationship with the federal government that created an environment in which the market viewed them as an extension of the U.S. government and therefore ‘too big too fail.’ The fact that they directly answered to the federal government and its elected officials created an environment of ‘crony capitalism’ similar to that of Russia or China. Emphasis began to be placed on volume of lending vs quality/sustainability of loans meaning a policy of reduced down payments and riskier unsustainable lending. Clinton-era policies extended a pattern of behavior of lowering mortgage underwriting standards in order to drive up the national homeownership rate.
There were no limits that Fannie/Freddie officials and their allies would go to prolong their charade. In a number of cases, political officials even engaged in unethical conduct, helping their political allies, family members and even themselves obtain lucrative positions in the mortgage lending industry and other benefits. At a time when government intervention in private markets has become alarmingly common, government “affordable housing” initiatives offer important lessons about the dangers of government efforts to manipulate or conjure outcomes in the market.
They hired well-known academics to write papers that gave an aura of academic rigor to policy positions favorable to Fannie Mae. For example, one paper coauthored by now-Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag, concluded that the chance was minimal that the GSEs were not holding sufficient capital to cover their losses in the event of a severe economic shock. The authors suggested that “the risk to the government from a potential default on GSE debt is effectively zero,” and that “the expected cost to the government of providing an explicit government guarantee on $1 trillion in GSE debt is just $2 million.” As of May 14, 2009, the taxpayers had already been exposed to $700 billion of GSE bailouts.
The report also details the symbiotic relationship that developed between Fannie/Freddie and the nexus of political advocates of affordable housing, non-bank mortgage lenders like Countrywide, the homebuilding industry and Wall Street firms that came together to create a powerful coalition led by Fannie/Freddie and their congressional allies. This group of vested interests used its money, power and influence to protect its political prerogatives and profits, blocking repeated attempts at reform and distorting the relationship between government and business. Between 1998 and 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent over $176 million on lobbyists. They paid lobbyists to influence Members of Congress to block legislative proposals that would have stripped them of their preferential advantages.
When Congressman Jim Leach (R-IA) proposed assessing a fee on the GSEs to offset the federal subsidy they receive on their cost of borrowing, “it took just twelve hours for Fannie to blow the idea out of the water.” Fannie Mae also forced then-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to “tone down” a report that was originally going to criticize the cozy relationship between the federal government and the GSEs.
When Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) sought to increase regulation of the GSEs, Fannie Mae sent lobbyists to harass him in his Wisconsin congressional district, going so far as to call his constituents and accuse him of seeking to increase mortgage rates, generating 6,000 angry responses to his office. When Ryan transferred to a committee without direct oversight of the GSEs, Fannie CEO Raines sent him a “congratulatory” note. “He meant good riddance,” said Ryan.
When Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT) introduced legislation to end the GSEs’ unique exemption from SEC registration, he “had lobbyists literally barging into my room,” while Fannie CEO Raines reportedly called the lawmaker to ask, “What the hell have [you] done?” The GSEs retaliated by ending their home-buying forums in Shays’ congressional district in an attempt to hurt him politically.
Just as the perils of opposing the vested interests of the affordable lending coalition were rife, so the rewards for supporting them were lucrative. From 1998 to 2008, GSE employees contributed nearly $15 million to the campaigns of dozens of Members of Congress on key committees responsible for oversight of Fannie and Freddie. At the time federal regulators seized the insolvent companies, sitting Members of Congress had received over $4.8 million in political contributions since 1989, with over $3 million of that coming from the GSEs’ political action committees. Not all of this fundraising was in compliance with federal law. In 2006, Freddie Mac paid the largest fine in Federal Election Commission history – $3.8 million – for improperly using corporate resources to hold 85 fundraisers for Members of Congress, raising a total of $1.7 million.
The housing bubble that burst in 2007 and led to a financial crisis can be traced back to this nexus of influence that put a premium on profit for the few with no regard for the future implications that would follow. Government intervention incentivized by special interest led to reckless actions exposing taxpayers to tremendous losses brought about by politicians, lenders and lobbyists who profited from the “affordable” housing market and acted to kill reforms. While government intervention and special interest peddling was not the sole cause of the financial crisis, its role was significant and has received too little attention.
Mr. Issa, a Republican, represents the 49th Congressional District of California, which includes the cities of Oceanside, Vista, and Temecula. He currently serves as the Ranking Member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Mozilo's friends on the Hill
Angelo Mozilo has lots of friends. Or at least, he used to. The former chief executive of Countrywide Financial now faces a series of federal lawsuits, including one brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud and insider trading. Suddenly, some of the most powerful Washington politicians are eschewing the shameful appellation "Friend of Angelo."
Back in the early 1990s, when Countrywide was climbing to the top of the mortgage industry, Mr. Mozilo was looking to make friends on Capitol Hill. According to documents obtained by congressional oversight investigators, these key VIPs were afforded preferential and personalized treatment, including specially priced home mortgage loans at below-market rates. This generosity was not limited to elected officials but was extended as well to select congressional staff members, administration officials and Washington lobbyists.
In his aggressive pursuit of market dominance, Mr. Mozilo tried to make friends everywhere, especially among people who had a primary responsibility to craft legislation and oversee government enterprises with a stake in the U.S. housing market.
In March 2009, the minority staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform produced a detailed, 63-page report that analyzed Countrywide's VIP program and Mr. Mozilo's successful scheme to buy political influence and manipulate public policy decisions.
At that time, I renewed my call for congressional hearings into the Countrywide scandal, but my requests have been denied repeatedly and obstructed by the Democratic majority.
While some have attempted to characterize our efforts to uncover the true scope and depth of this pay-for-play program as a partisan attack targeting specific members of Congress, it should be noted that Republicans controlled both Congress and the White House at the height of the Countrywide VIP program's influence.
It stands to reason, therefore, that more Republicans than Democrats could have been the beneficiaries of Mr. Mozilo's special treatment. The undisputed fact remains: We know there was corruption. We know Countrywide's intent was to influence decision-makers to pursue policies that favored Countrywide's portfolio.
Yet congressional Democrats seem afraid to move forward with the investigation into a bribery scandal that contributed to the housing crisis and the financial collapse.
A variety of excuses have been offered for Congress' failure to launch a full-scale probe into the Friends of Angelo program. At first, it was argued that deference was needed for the Senate Ethics Committee to conclude an investigation into the conduct of two senators.
Then speculation concerning a Justice Department investigation was cited to trump congressional oversight. Never mind the fact that Democrats and Republicans in Congress had worked together to investigate the Jack Abramoff scandal, even though the Justice Department continues to prosecute actions connected to this wrongdoing to the present day.
Once the final report of the Senate Ethics Committee was released, however, the way was cleared for the House oversight committee to subpoena the records of the Friends of Angelo program to determine the full nature and scope of Countrywide's efforts to manipulate Congress and purchase political favor.
The limited focus of the Senate investigation was the actions of two elected officials, not the actions of an entire division of a billion-dollar corporation designed to curry favor with those officials.
Unfortunately, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Edolphus Towns, New York Democrat, does not believe the Countrywide VIP program is worth the committee's time. In a letter sent to oversight committee members on Sept. 30, Mr. Towns characterized the VIP program as "... enhanced customer service, in a manner similar to airline frequent flier programs or supermarket discount cards."
Countrywide Financial and Angelo Mozilo clearly are at the nexus of the current economic crisis. It was Countrywide's packaging of subprime mortgages that helped inflate the housing bubble, and it was Mr. Mozilo's VIP program that sought to minimize congressional scrutiny and derail housing policy reforms that could have mitigated the crisis.
The documents that can lift the veil from Countrywide's VIP program are readily available, however, and their custodians are prepared to provide them to Congress upon receipt of a subpoena.
But somewhere in Washington, Mr. Mozilo's secrets are getting cover.
"Public investigating committees ... have always been opposed by groups that seek or have special privileges," wrote former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in 1936. "The spokesmen of these greedy groups never rest in their opposition to exposure and publicity. That is because special privileges thrive in secrecy and darkness and [are] destroyed by the rays of pitiless publicity."
As Congress continues to assess the causes of the current economic crisis, the protests of those most responsible doubtless will grow louder and efforts to block congressional inquiry will only intensify.
Ironically, it was the Democratic leadership in Washington that promised a new era of transparency and accountability, but so far those promises have proved empty. No subpoenas have been issued. No hearings have been scheduled, and the Justice Department appears to have shelved its criminal investigation.
The only reason the American people are not learning the whole truth about Countrywide, it seems, is that Angelo Mozilo still has a few friends left on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Darrell Issa of California is the ranking Republican of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
ACORN, lies and videotape
A dark cloud, years in the making, has fallen over ACORN. This left-leaning syndicate of labor unions and political agitators is fighting efforts to shine light on its structure, finances and political activities. Public outrage has reached fever pitch, and last week both the House of Representatives and the Senate voted in overwhelming bipartisan majorities to cut ACORN's funding altogether.
ACORN officials want you to think they are the victims of a vast right-wing conspiracy or, at least, the innocent target of two college-aged pranksters armed with a chinchilla coat, a halter top and a secret video camera. But suspicion about ACORN didn't start when its representatives began offering advice about the illegal smuggling of underage Salvadoran prostitutes.
Rather, allegations of ACORN's systematic fraud have been piling up. From concealing a million-dollar embezzlement by a top ACORN official, to voter registration fraud and the illegal use of taxpayer dollars, the problems with ACORN have been growing deeper and the calls for Congress to investigate, louder.
This past weekend, President Barack Obama — himself a former counsel for ACORN — called for an investigation, and the inspector general for the Department of Justice is scratching the surface of ACORN's funding. ACORN has also announced an internal investigation and has procured the services of former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to lead the effort. Most of these developments, however, run the risk of forestalling a truly bipartisan congressional inquiry.
Over the past year, my staff has amassed a substantial body of evidence detailing ACORN's misdeeds. Senior congressional investigators met with key ACORN whistle blowers and poured over thousands of pages of internal ACORN documents. In July, staff members of the House Oversight Committee produced a comprehensive report titled “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured as a Criminal Enterprise?” that details a purposefully complex network of blurred administrative structures and shoddy financial controls.
Until now, however, every attempt at ensuring transparency has been labeled by ACORN's political allies as an orchestrated hatchet job led by partisan extremists. Even today, some congressional Democrats are trying to stave off a public hearing by requesting a study by the Congressional Research Service — a move tantamount to the Central Intelligence Agency's using Google to prepare a brief for the president about uranium enrichment in Iran.
Stalling tactics, however, will only serve to further reduce the confidence American taxpayers have in the honest oversight of their government.
If ACORN has engaged in unlawful activities, then the American people deserve to hear about it. If ACORN aids and abets money laundering, illegal immigration, fraudulent voter registration and other criminal misdeeds, then the time has come for ACORN to answer for it.
This past week, I appeared on Fox News Sunday with ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis and I asked her point blank to appear before the Congress and answer questions about the way ACORN manages federal dollars it receives and to address the lack of firewalls between its charitable activities and its activities on behalf of Democratic candidates. Ms. Lewis would not give a direct answer to my question. Naturally, Bertha Lewis is suspicious of congressional oversight, and it's worth noting that ACORN has operated for 40 years without any serious transparency. Ms. Lewis' suspicions notwithstanding, the American people are due an accounting of $53 million in tax dollars that have gone to fund ACORN over the years.
Congressional investigations have a long and complicated history. At times, the power of Congress to issue subpoenas and examine witnesses has been used to mete out political retribution. Two realities, however, inform our pursuit of the truth about ACORN. First, the Constitution does not assign to Congress the powers of indictment, prosecution and conviction. The Founding Fathers rightly reserved that responsibility to the courts, justices and citizen juries. Already, more than 70 ACORN employees have been convicted of criminal conduct. Two weeks ago, the state attorney of Miami-Dade County issued arrest warrants for 11 more ACORN workers. Slowly but surely, the criminal case against ACORN is building.
The second reality is that Congress has reached a point of bipartisan opposition to ACORN's receipt of additional tax dollars. Unlike some previous investigations, we now have the chance to do something that all members of Congress — Republicans and Democrats — should be concerned about: making sure that tax dollars are not improperly or illegally spent.
Issa, a Republican, represents the 49th District Congressional District, which includes Oceanside, Vista, Fallbrook, a portion of San Diego and a portion of Riverside County. He is the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
TARP and the Demands of Democracy
The concern among the American people about the size and cost of government continues to grow, and the Obama administration is beginning to experience a crisis of confidence doubtlessly owed to its aggressive expansion of the federal bureaucracy and deepening of the national debt. Members of Congress -- who have the power of the purse in our constitutional democracy -- know that we answer, ultimately, to the voters for the way that taxpayer dollars are spent. That's why Congress created the Office of Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) to monitor the way Treasury spends the $700 billion bailout program.
Back in April, Congress learned that Treasury pursued a formal opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice in an effort to limit SIGTARP Neil Barofsky's independence and bring him under the direct supervision of Secretary Geithner. In July, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard testimony from SIGTARP Barofsky that highlighted the Treasury Department's failures to protect taxpayers from the kind of fraud that undermines the American people's faith in their government.
Americans instinctively love their country, but they don't really like their government. Indeed, James Madison's classic line from Federalist 51 -- "if men were angels, there would be no need for government" -- presupposes the impossibility of a perfect government and leaves the people with, at best, the hope of a good government.
By good government, Americans mean a government limited in size and honest in action. Without independent oversight of the administration, the taxpaying public would have no guarantee that their hard-earned money -- reluctantly forfeited in the form of taxes to support the work of government -- is well spent. Americans have no patience for wasteful government, and they are acutely aware that the less transparent the government, the worse it will be.
When President Obama came to office, he promised an administration with "the highest degree of accountability and transparency possible." As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama railed against the Bush Administration's "failure to track how the money has been spent."
Yet Americans are learning from SIGTARP Barofsky that they will not be told what TARP recipients are doing with bailout money, how much their substantial investments are worth, or how their money is being invested. The shroud of secrecy that the Obama administration has attempted to place over its bailout efforts is a brazen act of executive usurpation and political doublespeak. It is also an affront to democracy itself.
For democracy is the expression of popular sovereignty, namely, that the only good governments are those that reflect the will of the people and the rule of law. Exit polls from last year's election demonstrated that the people elected Barack Obama, in part, because they wanted more accountability and transparency in Washington. They wanted a change from secret deals to spend billions of tax dollars without any thought of a crushing national debt. They wanted the windows of government thrown open so that liberty's fresh air could reinvigorate the nation, economically and politically.
On too many fronts the Obama administration has broken its promise of change. Attempts to limit the autonomy and authority of SIGTARP are but another instance of the brass-knuckled politics that the Senator from Chicago brought with him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Neil Barofsky has done a great service to his country by refusing to roll.
IG firing undermines Obama promise, warrants investigation
President Obama’s dismissal of Gerald Walpin, former Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), has caused many in Congress to question the White House’s methods and motives. It also raises substantive questions about the Administration’s transparency and respect for the law, as well as the degree to which every Inspector General is protected from political retribution on the part of this administration.
Inspectors General are appointed to serve as unbiased agents of oversight that are crucial to preventing government waste, fraud and abuse. At a time when the federal government is spending record amounts of taxpayer money, the essential functions performed by Inspectors General all over the country couldn’t be more important.
Ensuring that taxpayer money is used for its intended purpose and not wastefully spent is of utmost importance to preserve the integrity of our government. Investigating the misuse of taxpayer money is imperative -- especially in this case – where there is credible evidence that Walpin’s investigation unearthed criminal activity on the part of an administration ally.
The way in which President Obama and the Administration have handled the firing of Walpin is also a concern for it reflects a lack of transparency within the White House. The law – which then-Senator Obama co-sponsored – requires the President to notify Congress 30 days prior to terminating an Inspector General. Once it became apparent that the Administration had neglected their legal responsibility, the President instead launched a media blitz to discredit the fired IG as “confused and disoriented.”
During his campaign and throughout the early days of his term, the President has pledged the American people an unprecedented level of transparency and openness. The firing of Walpin, however, is anything but transparent. It is, apparently, another act of Chicago-style politics.
The American people want answers, and I intend to pursue them.
More spending, less transparency means deep trouble for U.S. taxpayers
In those last moments before the R.M.S. Titanic gutted its hull on a jagged iceberg 400 miles south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, her captain ordered a full reverse of all engines and a hard starboard turn. It was - as history records - too little, too late.
Contrast that with President Obama's announcement today that his administration will ramp up federal spending in the next three months. As the government chugs into uncharted waters of record fiscal irresponsibility, it seems our captain is shouting from the bridge, "Damn the deficits, men. Full steam ahead."
Or in his own words, "We're going to keep moving forward. We will not grow complacent or rest. Surely and steadily, we will turn this economy around."
Cue the music, Mr. President. Women and children first.
Today's announcement was troubling, not only for the shell game the President is playing with jobs creation, but for his redundant and hollow promises about transparency.
The President claims that his $787 billion stimulus has already "created or saved" 150,000 jobs in the first 100 days of the administration, compared with the 345,000 jobs that were lost in May 2009 alone. Moreover, the Labor Department reported last week that unemployment has spiked to 9.4%, higher than any point since 1983.
Among the new jobs that Obama hopes to create are 125,000 youth summer jobs, 135,000 education jobs, and rehabilitation and improvement projects at 107 parks and 98 airports nationwide.
Vice President Biden, the man charged with monitoring the stimulus, promised to "get more dollars out the door, more shovels into the ground and more money into the pockets of workers and families who need it most." Of course, this also comes on a day that the reports have leaked that the administration is contemplating a new tax on healthcare benefits and international travel.
You might call it "spreading the wealth around." Just Democrat politics as usual - spending money the government doesn't have to create a job that doesn't last by incurring debt that doesn't end. And in the process, raise a tax here and there.
Overburdened taxpayers are getting tired of waiting for the promised accountability too. When the President took office, he guaranteed "unprecedented transparency," and his administration launched a website, Recovery.gov, in early March 2009 to make good on the pledge.
Now in its third month, the site is a major disappointment. Reports are lagging behind, and taxpayers cannot track recovery funds from beginning to end as the Obama administration promised.
So today the administration announced the creation of a new website, www.whitehouse.gov/recovery. How we're supposed to expect anything different from the new site when the old site never provided real transparency is uncertain.
The new site does feature a nice YouTube video of Vice President Biden and a new "Roadmap to Recovery." Any ordinary traveler would have plotted his course before it began. A man who makes a roadmap after 100 days of wandering is seldom called a leader. More commonly, we say the man is lost.
And lost is where the nation is -- so long as President Obama pushes deficit spending to incalculable heights, encumbers the federal budget with more entitlement spending and repeatedly fails to provide the genuine transparency that he promised.
Man the bilge, boys. It's going to be a long night.
Rep. Darrell Issa is a California Republican and the Ranking Minority Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government. A Tale of Two Treasuries
In his debut as the nation's 75th treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner has been a smashing success -- if success is measured by more federal debt and less accountability to American taxpayers. It was never supposed to be this way.
When our first treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, sought to establish the nation's first bank in 1791, he faced challenges from those who condemned the move as an unconstitutional power grab to control the flow of credit and direct the national economy. Against these criticisms, Hamilton drafted numerous provisions to ensure solvency, transparency and fiscal restraint on the part of the federal government. "No government,” Hamilton argued, "has a right to do merely what it pleases.”
But when it comes to the government's managing of the AIG bailout, that's exactly what is happening. An unprecedented power-grab by the Paulson/Geithner Treasury has spent an unparalleled amount of money to purchase a failing financial giant with no accountability, no return on the investment and no end in sight.
A bit of history. Before Timothy Geithner assumed his cabinet post at Treasury this year, he served as the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he was the chief negotiator for many of the government's bailout proposals last year. One such bailout involved AIG, a whale of a multi-national corporation beached sideways on a mound of credit default swaps and other high-risk financial products.
In September 2008, Geithner engineered the government's purchase of an 80% share in AIG for the handsome sum of $85 billion, the amount necessary to prevent the company from entering bankruptcy. Losses continued to mount, however, and more federal dollars were needed.
Total cost of AIG's bailout to date? A staggering $185 billion -- or roughly $1400 per U.S. taxpayer. Yet today, according to AIG's own numbers, the company is worth less than $6 billion, and this after posting the largest quarterly loss in corporate history. Nevertheless, the problems at AIG extend beyond the balance sheets.
In March of this year, we learned what the Obama administration already knew -- that after receiving bailout funds, AIG paid $165 million in executive bonuses to employees of its troubled financial products division. Additionally, more than $30 billion in counterparty payments were made to Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Wachovia -- all of which received separate bailout funds directly from the government -- and foreign banks like Deutsche Bank, Société Générale and UBS, who received counterparty payments in excess of $50 billion.
The public was beyond outrage. They were sold something they didn't want for more than it was worth in a midnight fire sale of busted corporations over-leveraged in troubled, toxic assets. And yet, taxpayers are still kept in the dark about the management of their controlling interest in AIG.
In a legal sleight of hand, the New York Federal Reserve -- under Geithner's supervision and in corroboration with then-Secretary Hank Paulson -- established the AIG trust, an ill-conceived and likely unconstitutional arrangement. According to Geithner's scheme, three handpicked government trustees represent taxpayer interests with indemnity from lawsuits and exemptions that allow them to take advantage of business opportunities for personal profit that would otherwise benefit AIG.
A sweetheart deal to be sure. And while it's easy to see how the trust was structured to protect the trustees -- and perhaps the Treasury, in whose interests they are legally compelled to act -- there is almost no protection for the taxpayers who fronted the cash that's keeping AIG afloat.
In fact, provisions of the AIG trust threaten U.S. taxpayers. By tying the trustees' fiduciary duty to the Treasury -- now run by Secretary Geithner -- the risk that short-term political interests will trump long-term financial soundness is intensified.
Moreover, where ordinary trustees are generally prohibited from exploiting investment opportunities that they learn about as a direct result of their responsibilities, the AIG trustees are free to secretly invest their own capital without disclosure.
Finally, Secretary Geithner has ensured the broadest possible indemnity protections for AIG trustees. Ostensibly, the trustees could initiate a clandestine investment plan to pad their own portfolios, appoint directors complicit in the fraudulent scheme, run AIG into the ground while making dollar-for-dollar counterparty payments and leave U.S. taxpayers holding a paper company with no market capitalization and drowning in debt -- all without any legal recourse.
In the end, the bailout of AIG has made U.S. taxpayers more vulnerable, not less. It has established a dangerous precedent for impulsive federal control of private corporations, siphoned off billions of taxpayer dollars and aggravated our economic pain rather than heal it.
Astoundingly, Secretary Geithner recently announced the possibility of structuring a similar bailout trust for Citigroup. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, I'm afraid the inmates are running the asylum over at the Department of Treasury.
And somewhere in the Trinity Church Cemetery in downtown Manhattan, Alexander Hamilton must be spinning.
Boost to federal workforce in weak economy: bad bill
Added to the growing list of bird-brained schemes to increase the size of the federal government in the midst of a struggling economy is H.R. 626, the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, introduced earlier this year to guarantee four weeks of paid parental leave exclusively to government employees.
The justification behind the bill — according to its Democratic sponsor — is to make federal employment more appealing in the job market and to increase employee retention. Questionable timing when you consider that the latest monthly economic snapshot showed the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 8.9 percent in April with 539,000 jobs lost. Is this the time for Congress to create a new and costly benefit for the federal workforce?
It’s not that federal employees shouldn’t receive paid leave for hospitalization, recovery and adjustment time following the birth of a new child. Already federal workers are allowed to designate up to one month of accrued sick and vacation leave for this important time in a family’s life.
What we don’t need, however, is for Congress to tell nearly 14 million unemployed Americans that 2.7 million gainfully employed federal workers will receive additional benefits at a projected cost close to $1 billion to taxpayers.
Already we’re seeing record increases in the federal payroll — 37,000 new jobs in the last year alone — at a time of record unemployment in the private sector — 2 million jobs lost since President Obama took office.
H.R. 626 sends the wrong message at the wrong time to American taxpayers and job-hunters reeling from a disastrous economic freefall. Nevertheless, the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress seem content to push ahead in spite of glaring hypocrisy.
Demonstrating once again a propensity for political doublespeak, the Democrats are trying to create a smokescreen of feigned fiscal discipline to obscure a never-ending stream of deficit-spending programs.
Uncle Sam is a pretty good employer, and he takes good care of his employees. A recent analysis by the Office of Personnel Management found that existing federal government leave policies and programs compare favorably with benefits offered by most private sector companies.
And when it comes to paid time off, federal employees already receive five more paid vacation days per year than the average American worker.
Americans have the right to expect Washington to tighten its belt in these tough economic times, not start looking for new ways to spend their money on expensive legislation, however well intended.
Congress should focus its energies more on helping 14 million unemployed Americans find good-paying jobs with benefits before they give 2.7 million employed Americans a sweeter deal.
Toss the Abacus, Uncle Sam
The time has long since passed for the federal government to report how taxpayers’ money is spent as quickly as it actually spends it. On his first full day in office, President Obama promised to create “an unprecedented level of openness in Government” that would “disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.” I intend to help him.
That’s why I proposed legislation last week to create real transparency that would allow government officials and the public to track the use of TARP funds and unlock the value of toxic mortgage assets. H.R. 2392, the Government Information Transparency Act, is a real step towards implementing the kind of change and transparency that Americans expect from Washington.
If passed, this act would greatly simplify and standardize the collection, analysis and dissemination of business information collected by federal agencies with the implementation of a 21st century technology known as Extensive Business Reporting Language (XBRL). In fact, XBRL is fast becoming the standard means of communicating business information quickly and accurately. There is no good reason why the United States government should lag behind.
XBRL is already used as a reporting standard in approximately 40 countries around the world, and all U.S. banks are currently required to disclose information to the FDIC in this format. Moreover, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently approved a final rule mandating the use of XBRL for all public companies, with some required to comply starting in June of 2009.
But as it now stands, Uncle Sam is using an abacus to balance his books in a calculator age.
Since President Obama took office and announced that his administration would launch a new era of government transparency, an astounding $787 billion “spendulous” package and a record budget proposal of $3.53 trillion have passed through Congress. Yet to date, there has been no real accountability for how the taxpayers’ money is being spent.
By implementing the XBRL format for financial information that is already required to be disclosed across the federal bureaucracy, the general public will finally have access to accurate and up-to-date information on how their money is being used by bailed-out financial institutions. Essentially, H.R. 2392 is a desperately needed shot of WD-40 to the corroded cogs of accountability to taxpayers.
Now that’s change we can believe in.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) represents the 49th District of California and is the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Census Should Be Fair, Independent and Free from Politics
The Obama Administration’s recent actions regarding the Census are outrageous and unprecedented. Commanding the Census Director to report directly to the White House is a naked political power grab and transparently partisan. There is only one possible reason for it – political interference in the 2010 Census and partisan manipulation of the results. This ill-conceived proposal undermines a constitutionally-obligated process that speaks to the very heart of our democracy.
While there are unanswered questions about the legality of such a move, there is no question as to the motives. Under this plan, the President would grant his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel the authority to manage the census. Consider that in a 2006 article in USA Today highlighted his thoughts on the 2010 Census and subsequent redistricting, Mr. Emanuel stated, “If you think redistricting is always partisan and political, which it is…it’s going to be on steroids this time.” Surely, President Obama recognizes the need to leave the census in the hands of those who understand its importance beyond political gerrymandering.
The need for an independent Census Bureau is recognized by Republicans and Democrats alike – and every living former Census Director is on record supporting an independent Census Bureau. President Obama’s calls for bipartisanship are severely damaged when reports indicate he is maneuvering to stab Republicans in the back through a national gerrymander orchestrated directly by the White House. In short, this power grab completely jeopardizes and undermines the President’s mandate of “post-partisanship.”
The 2010 Census is a huge undertaking – the largest peacetime mobilization the country has ever seen – and its results will determine the Congressional makeup for the next decade. Both governments and businesses rely on accurate census data to make critical decisions about how to spend resources.
Already, troubling signs of a politicized census are emerging. We were disappointed to see that there are some on the other side of the aisle who are resorting to inflammatory and counterproductive rhetoric. We all share the goal of ensuring that every individual in America, regardless of race or socioeconomic status or any other characteristic, will be counted. Fully, fairly counted.
However, we were greatly encouraged by Census Subcommittee Chairman William Lacy Clay’s statement that his objective is “to count every American.” Partisanship has motivated others in his party to suggest that some form of statistical “adjustment” or extrapolation should be used. This would open the door to the political manipulation of census data. If your objective for the census is accuracy, then you want to count. If your objective is a redistricting advantage, then you want to employ statistical sampling models. Anyone familiar with public opinion polling can tell you that statistical sampling carries a margin of error. And error is the enemy of a full and accurate census.
The manipulation of census data is prohibited by federal law. In a case stemming from the 2000 Decennial Census, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the adjustment of census data violates the 1980 Census Act. If the Obama Administration or Congressional Democrats were to seek the authority to use statistical sampling for census data, they would undoubtedly encounter a long, bruising, and ultimately losing legal battle.
Working with our Democrat counterparts, we will develop a comprehensive strategy that leaves no justification for unconstitutional tactics. A component of that strategy must be to dramatically improve the engagement of local community organizations and church groups. We will offer approaches that increase the frequency and effectiveness of traditional outreach efforts such as phone calls, direct mail, and door-to-door. All ideas brought before the Subcommittee will be fully considered. We are confident that together we can formulate a plan that ensures a full and accurate count.
The only thing that threatens this effort is the injection of Chicago-style politics into the Census process. Last year, seven former Directors of the U.S. Census Bureau, appointed by Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush, wrote, “…it is vitally important that the American public have confidence that the census results have been produced by an independent, non-partisan, apolitical, and scientific Census Bureau.”
We urge President Obama to heed their advice and keep the census process fair, independent and free from politics.
GAO At-Risk List Underscores Importance of Oversight in 2009
In his first weekly radio address, President Barack Obama promised “unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government…” The fact that President Obama has chosen his very first weekly radio address to underscore the need to address waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in our government is an encouraging first step in what I hope will be an ongoing commitment and partnership to bring accountability and oversight back to government.
President Obama has recognized that oversight and reform can be the true catalyst in his effort to change Washington. This past week, the GAO released its high-risk list for 2009. The high-risk list identifies 30 programs that are highly susceptible to waste, fraud, or mismanagement and can serve as a blueprint for Congressional oversight of troubled federal programs in the 111th Congress.
Twelve of the thirty programs on this 2009 High-Risk List have spanned both the Clinton and first Bush Administrations. The new additions to the High-Risk List center on the outdated U.S. financial regulatory system, FDA oversight of medical products and EPA’s processes for assessing and controlling toxic chemicals. Particularly at a time when our financial solvency is being threatened by a deep economic recession, we must take immediate action to address the shortcomings identified in our financial system. The report also calls for more oversight of the now trillions of dollars that the federal government has committed to the financial sector. “In the near term, oversight is needed to ensure that the government’s responses to the crisis achieve their goals effectively,” the report says. “In the longer term, modernizing the U.S. financial regulatory system will be a critical step to ensuring that the challenges of the 21st century can be met.” That is why I have re-introduced the Financial Oversight Commission Act, H.R. 74, which would create an independent and bipartisan panel to study and issue a report on the causes, handling, and way forward from the current financial crisis. For the second time in less than six months, the American people are being asked to foot a $350 billion bill without being told where their money went or what it is going to be used for.
The “Financial Oversight Commission Act of 2009” establishes a national commission on the financial crisis to determine the causes of the breakdown of our financial system and make recommendations to Congress and the President. Modeled after the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, the Financial Oversight Commission will examine and report on the facts and causes relating to the financial crisis of 2008.
Oversight and accountability needs to be more than just an afterthought when it comes to taxpayer dollars. The ongoing policy of asking for money first and promising reform second is resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars of losses being transferred onto the balance sheet of America’s taxpayers. We need an active, independent oversight body to insure these losses aren’t further amplified by political or bureaucratic bungling.
The catalyst for the kind of change President Obama has called for should begin with a commitment to weed out the waste, fraud and abuse that has overrun the federal government. The GAO’s at-risk list underscores the reality that federal waste and troubled programs don’t leave office with an outgoing President. If President Obama takes 30 minutes to review this report, he won’t read about the failures of his three predecessors, but about the continuing failure of a non-partisan Federal bureaucracy that is resistant to reform.
There is no question that both executive and congressional leadership will be crucial if we are to successfully reform the federal government. “Perseverance by the executive branch is needed in implementing our recommended solutions for addressing these high-risk areas. Continued congressional oversight and, in some cases, additional legislative action will also be key to achieving progress, particularly in addressing challenges in broad-based transformations.” the report reads.
By making oversight and government reform the centerpiece of his agenda, President Obama can demonstrate from action that his call for change on the campaign trail was more than just a slogan, but rather a new covenant with the American people to rebuild a government that works for and is accountable to them. Working with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Ed Towns (D-NY) and President Obama, we can ensure that oversight and accountability is more than just an afterthought, but rather a permanent fixture in our government. |
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