what that means other than it's a concern. some dates we talked about earlier, some said to have by now, all states allow some level of absentee balloting. there's leakage is right now. is really, really high. much higher, a lot of concern about residual votes in the 2000 election with voting systems. think about as we go through the challenges that will impact the election, not just in washingt washington. >> you mentioned that there's a lack of online resource for military and overseas voters. did you find a lack of online resources for the voting public as a whole and what kind of recommendation on state websites can put on their websites to make voting more accessible? >> that provide some of the commentary and a field guide in

the appendices about what, how to design and make manageable your local and state election website. these are developed by david, for those who know her. and expert who is develop these field guides, and one is state voter websites. [inaudible] mentioned two states that have gone to all mail voting. is any discussion among the commissioners of the test and received or in the report about the virtue of each state retaining is one option among these other early voting options or things like that, but retaining as one option the voting day, you know, first tuesday after the first monday, at least for federal elections as provided in title ii. retaining that one day for voting just because of the civic virtue value of having that

opportunity to exercise that one day. i know ms. patrick talked about not reducing the resources that are needed for that one day, and i think some of us feel it's very important to have that one day, but going to all mail is a mistake. i was wondering if you discussed that. >> we don't call for the abolition of election day. [laughter] >> take a firm stand. >> debated it but i talked transport out of the. [laughter] the second thing is that we don't critique, we raise all sorts of issues, the vulnerabilities in the postal system and what that says about potential problems with the mail program but we surveyed don't critique mail balloting. we are just again talking about, you have had other --

[inaudible] your comment by the way was very much -- who came to one of our hearings. he said at no intention of ever supporting early voting because he felt the people of new hampshire gained an enormous amount from the collective act of all swing up at same day in the polling place. he was quite strong about that. that cuts against the grain of our recommendation. we will see what happens in new hampshire over time. our own view is much of what we're talking about is not to this administration but in response to what we think voters want. >> we did have one of our hearings in denver, and colorado just recently passed a very interesting legislation which does everything. so because they both center models, that so many voters voting by mail. they moved to the position where everyone is mailed about the yet to can come into the polling place on election day and

surrendered about submitting to any vote center within the county and vote another ballot there because it's all tied in life back to the central office. they can to election day day registration because they are tied right into the centralized database. it's very interesting and exciting what they're doing and colorado. it will be interesting to see how that plays out. their vote center model has motion of in other places around the country so it will be interesting to see what kind of impact this new paradigm that is set out their will do. won't say anything else about the rest of colorado or anything else we are doing these days. >> thank you very much. appreciate you coming. i want to thank again the organization that were helpful to us. i also noticed and i wanted to recognize the bipartisan policy center. really provide a great deal of support for our work. thank you for coming out today and for all of those who helped the commission. [applause] [inaudible

conversations] on. >> politico said some the commission's recognition will likely prove controversial. arlie voting has at times but a political football in the recent battles over election laws. including a short and early voting calendar and the restricted voting law passed last year by north carolina which is part of a federal lawsuit. the role of technology and elections has also been a topic of debate, a store in politico says that a report identified a crisis in voter technology caused in part by decade-old machines that are beginning to break down but have had no new funds allocated for the replacement or upgrade. that from a politico. president obama met with members of the commission today. here is some of that.

>> i just want to say thank you publicly to all the wonderful people here who served on the presidential commission on election administration. i think all of us recall that in the last election in 2012 we had reports around the country a tremendously long lines, people, when they tried to vote. in some cases for hours they were stuck. the day of the election i said that we're going to need to do something about it. and i think all of us share the belief that regardless of party affiliation, that our democracy demands that our citizens can participate in a smooth and effective way. and i called on congress to work with us, but i also thought it was important for us to have a bipartisan, independent panel that could actually dig into the

facts and trying to determine what can we do to improve this situation. and unlike a lot of countries, we've got a pretty complex system. we vote a lot. we have local jurisdictions that run these elections and it makes things a little bit more complicated. but i was confident that if we put some good mind to work, they could come up with some recommendations. as a consequence, we set up this commission. i asked my top attorney during my election campaign, bob bauer, to join with mitt romney is top attorney in 2012, ben ginsberg, to co-chair this commission. i think it's fair to say that they may have voted for different candidates in 2012 -- [laughter] but what they shared with the reputation for integrity, for smarts, and a commitment to making sure that our democracy works the way it is supposed to. and they have now, working with

the rest of this commission, put together an outstanding series of recommendations with an important goal, which is that no american should have to wait more than half an hour to vote. and they should know they should be confident that their vote is being properly counted and is secure. a lot of the recommendations they've made our common sense. they are ones that can be embraced by all of us. importantly, my understanding is a lot of the commission recommendations are directed not simply to congress or the federal government, but rather to the state and local jurisdictions who are largely responsible for our elections. and so we intend to publicize this and to then reach out to stakeholders all across the country to make sure that we can implement this, in part because one of the troubling aspects of

the work that they did was hearing from local officials indicating that we could have even more problems in the future if we don't act now. the good news is, is that the recommendations that are contained in this commission report are eminently doable. i just want to publicly, again, thank both bob and ben for taking office largely thankless job. i do want to thank all of you for being so diligent in maintaining a sense of urgency, using an outstanding report in a relatively short period of time. thank you very much, everybody. >> you can join us later today from columbia, south carolina, where republican governor nikki haley will deliver her state of the state address. that gets underway live at 7 p.m. eastern here on c-span2.

>> i didn't see myself as someone who has a message for my world. i do see myself as a person trying to understand myself. i think the idea, the idea that came to me when i was giving some lectures at the u.s. air force academy in colorado springs, and a very nice, well educated, broad-minded liberal young animal officers who looked after me have lots of chats with me which i found very interesting. he told me, he told me he was little. he said he wanted to the u.s. air force academy, you, full of strange radical, fundamental spirit he tells me he's a liberal and he tells me that he

was for immigration. but, he said, when people come to this country they should learn the native language. and i didn't think he was speaking about comanche. so i said yes, i quite agree, everybody should learn spanish. >> "our america" saturday night at 10 eastern and sunday at nine on "after words." heart of booktv this weekend on c-span2. and online at booktv books club, he still time to weigh in on the liberty and then it. read a book and join the conversation. go to booktv.org and click on book club to enter the chat ro room. >> i would like to add a personal word with regard to an issue that has been of great concern to all americans over the past year. i refer of course to the investigations of the so-called watergate affair.

as you know, i have provided to the special prosecutor, voluntarily, a great deal of material. i believe that i provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigation, and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent. i believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. one year of watergate is enough applaud the. >> five decades of notable state of the union addresses from lbj to george w. bush. sunday at 3 p.m. eastern, part of american history tv this weekend on c-span3. that's holding up to president barack obama's 2014 state of the union address live tuesday january 28 on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org.

>> earlier this month the house oversight and government reform committee looked at bridges and government waste. with this is provide a list of ideas including greater transparency at the pentagon, privatizing the postal service and overhauling the government's information technology purchasing system. this part runs about one hour 50 minutes. >> [inaudible conversations] >> mr. chairman? >> the committee will come to order. >> i ask unanimous consent to insert in the record at this point a copy of a report that my staff and i completed during the recess that shows that we saved somewhere about, in the neighborhood of half a billion

dollars as a result of the committee's work in looking at conference spending, wasteful conference spending. nearly half a billion dollars, it's very significant, maybe you saw some reports about gsa savings, but we estimate again based on hearings that we did, and expanding that governmentwide -- >> the entire report will be placed in the record with no objection. we now go to our second panel of witnesses who have been patiently through, sat through the short no question period with the senators. mr. thomas schatz as president of citizens as president of citizens against government waste. mr. kris edwards is director of tax policy studies at the cato institute. mr. brandon arnold is a vice president of government affairs at the national taxpayers union, and is jaimie woo is tax and budget associate with the u.s. public interest research group.

i want to thank you all for being here. you are the main attraction, notwithstanding the previous period, and i think for all of us the helpfulness is you know you have partners on the senate side were equally interested in what you have to say. pursuant to the committee rules i would ask that you please all rise and take the oath. raise your right hands. [witnesses were sworn in] >> please be seated. let the record indicate that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. this will be a little shorter perhaps in some ways, but like the first round, your entire statement will be placed in the record, without objection. and we would ask that you stay as close to the five minute guideline as possible. and with that, mr. schatz, you are recognized. >> thank you very much michigan and thank you for the opportunity to testify here today.

my name is thomas schatz, i am president of citizens against government waste, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. it is no secret that wasteful spending pervades the federal government, and every agency performs its functions more effectively and efficiently, recommendation to limit waste, fraud, and abuse at i really provided by the government accountability office, congressional budget office, congressional committees, the president's budget and groups like citizens against government waste and others at the table today. since 1993 citizens against government waste has released cuts, a compilation of this year's recommendations-57 it would save taxpayers 580.6 billion in the first year, $1.8 trillion over five years. despite the best intentions of president and legislators to address wasteful spending and improve government efficiency, the size and scope of government continue to grow. one of the main impediments to reducing the mismanagement of

the taxpayers money is congress' tendency to create a program to solve a problem rather than spending the time to determine whether or not an existing program and address the same subject matter. until the beginning of the 113th congress that was no formal requirement that committees even specify whether the reported bill that establishes or reauthorizes a federal program duplicates another federal program. rules of the house were admitted to require both this is misreported in each bill and provide chairman the authority to request a gao review of any legislation referred to the committee to determine if there was duplication. this should help improve transparency but it's not a requirement that congress not approve a new program, simply to lift that they might have a duplication in this legislation. proposals by senator coburn to change the rules of the senate in a similar manner have twice failed to receive the necessary 67 votes. in addition to preventing more

duplication, congress should act to consolidate or eliminate the program identified ngos three annual reports that senator coburn has as good as cost textures about hundred $95 billion annually. when prominent example of the duplication is the 209 science technology, engine and math programs costing $3.1 million spread across 13 agencies since fiscal year 2010. more than a third of these programs -- fiscal years 2005-2010. yet the u.s. does not have enough workers in the steven field biggest students remain behind students in other nations in math and science education and the new programs created by congress were a major factor in creating such complex and inefficient system that has failed to achieve the intended objectives. there are other high priorities in addition to the foregoing recommendations such as the army distributed common ground

system, extended air defense system, stolen identities refund fraud, and mismanagement of information technology. the causes of wasteful spending include inadequate guidance in program management, unclear goals, and last minute project modifications. as a result systems are often subject to significant delays, failed to meet agency needs, failed to launch all, or launched without being fully tested. in other words, for observers of federal i.t. expenditures it was no surprise when healthcare.gov cannot launch as planned on october 1. on the positive side, the government is starting to save money and increase use of cloud computing, even more money could be saved of software asset management tools which would prevent the misuse of existing software licenses and the purchase of unnecessary software. in regard to governmentwide procurement, we urge congress to act on it issued a i was pleased to see a mentioned this morning

and we'll continue to support these efforts because it is the first major procurement reform bill since the clean air act of 1996. unfortunately, in some cases we're eliminating waste and inefficiency. particularly through the suspension by the centers for medicare and medicaid services as some of the recovery audit and help correct more than $4.2 billion in medicare games. regardless of whether the government is in surplus or deficit there is no excuse for mismanaging the taxpayers money. the american people would be well served if everything elected representatives and senators came to work thinking first and foremost about how they can better manage the taxpayers money and solve problems effectively with the resources that are already allocated to the treasury. in other words, each representative and senator should ask questions first and spend money much later, if at all. thank you for the opportunity to testify. i look forward to answering questions. >> thank you for that this time

i'm going to ask them in this consent that the 2012 congressional rating for citizens for governments against government waste be placed in the record. and the february 2013 publication of prime cut summer be placed in the record. without objection, so ordered. we now go to mr. edwards. >> take it very much mr. chairman, and ranking member coburn. the federal government faces a dismal fiscal future with rising spending and debt. if you look at the cbo log range projection, that looks bad enough but for reasons i go through in my written testimony our fiscal future is much worse than the cbo baseline shows. the upshot to me that we need to look at every federal agency and cut and terminate waste and low priority programs. what is waste? is government spending where the cost is higher than the benefit created for citizen. in my view it's also federal

activities that the federal government does a poor job at that could be much better carried out by state, local government and the private sector. as i think congressman duncan mentioned, there are stories in the media, gao report of the week about wasting the federal government. my research shows there was waste and cost overruns and fraught cost overruns and fraud and abuse all the way back to the beginning of the republic in the 19 century full of examples of wasteful spending. what a kick out of it is there is a basic structural problem with the federal government and how it operates. waste is endemic and chronic. there's a lot of reasons for that. the federal government -- the federal auditors and oversight committees just can't keep track of all the spending. the are 2200 separate subsidy and benefit programs in the federal government today. they are also susceptible to fraud, waste, and abuse. unlike the private sector, agencies have a banker. they're not subject to takeover bids. there is no built-in mechanism to provide for efficiency in the

federal government like there is in the private sector. federal managers faced no profit incentive giving them little reason to proactively reduce waste and fraud. the only real solution 10 from my point is we need to downsize the federal government. how do we do that? one thing we need to do is revise federalism. we spent 560 billion a year on federal aid to the states. in my research the aid system is rife with waste and inefficiency. senator coburn's waste book as many, many examples and many of the examples were -- there's really bad incentives built into the federal aid system. state and local governments simply do not spend federal money as frugally and as efficiently as they spend federal money. coburn's report, for example, goes into a goldplated million dollar bus stop in arlington, virginia, where i live. 80% of the money came from higher levels of government.

arlington county has no incentive to spend the money efficiently. that happens throughout the federal aid system. i think the three layers of government and the united states should be sort of like a layer cake with each layer funding its own program. the citizens would know who's responsible for those programs. the aid system makes american governments would like a giant confuse marble cake. citizens have no idea who was responsible for various programs like bus stops that go over costs. so i think cutting aid programs would be a great way to reduce waste. my other recommendations i go into, privatization. private sector companies have built-in incentives to minimize wasted many governments around the world have figured that out. there's been a privatization revolution that's gone on around the world in recent decades, over $2 trillion of electric utility of railroads and airports and post office have been privatize all around the world. that revolution is bypasse bypae federal government and the united states for some reason.

many things the federal government does today has been privatize in other countries, committeemen of germany, the netherlands and britain have privatized their post offices to canada and britain have privatized their air traffic control system to most european countries use private airport screens as i think congressman mike is certainly familiar with. passenger rail's has been privatize in britain but if you look at a system like air traffic control, our system is really falling behind. it's got massive cost overruns but it can't handle technology. we are running our air traffic control which is a high-tech business, running it like a bureaucracy. it makes no sense. the solution is privatization like britain and canada have done. the canadian system set up as a nonprofit corporation, not subsidized and works extremely well. it's one of the safest systems in the world. it is a leader in i.t. that's where the united states needs to go with air traffic control. similarly with the postal service, as i'm sure you're familiar with, mr. chairman, the

royal mail, 500 year old government company was privatized of humans ago in britain. raise $3 billion. the british government did that for the same reasons we've got problems with our usps. so if britain has been i so -- i see no reason why this country can't privatize its postal system. so in some i think we are reviving federalism and privatization would go a long way in cutting waste. thank you very much. >> thank you. mr. arnold. >> yes. minus brandon arnold. i'm vice president of governmental affairs for the national taxpayer union's. thank you for having me today. i would like to first of all say senator coburn is a phenomenal job with his waste book as has cd -- with the prime cuts and chris edwards at the cato institute with downsizing government.org. we approached our guide to reducing wasteful spending slightly carefully.

we ported with the group, united state public interest research group and jayme to my left, to find areas of the federal budget most of wasteful in nature, any fish, an associate programs that both the left and right could agree upon. we publish this report toward common ground reaching the political divide with deficit reduction recommendation for congress just last month. it contains 65 specific recommendations again for the left and right can agree on and that would save well over $500 billion over a 10 year window. let's be honest, if i'm writing this report by myself i would include a heckuva lot more. but when you're cooperating, there's a lot of talk about bipartisan cooperation, we are very pleased to work with others and finds that they both agreed upon. i don't have time to go through all 65 recommendations in this brief treated by the report is included in its entirety in the binder and i hope you guys speak

without objection the entire binder would be placed in the record. >> thank you. i hope you will look at it, share it and use it as best you can. let me just touch on a couple quick highlights if i may. included in a $500 billion figure is up to $152 billion of savings from eliminating wasteful subsidies to agribusiness and other corporations but this was things like cutting $2 billion by eliminating the market access program for large corporations to market their products overseas, reducing funding by $1 billion for the economic development administration. also there's $197.2 billion of savings from in a low priority or unnecessary military programs, included in the $197 billion figure is reducing $1.9 billion expenditures on military bands. there's as much a $42.3 billion from improvements to program

execution and government operations. that includes 140 -- $140 million in savings from eliminating duplicative catfish inspection program which has been cited numerous times by many groups on the left, right, i many outlets of media as being an absolutely wasteful, duplicative program that is duplicated in the usd. concert, at the fda as well as at noaa. often a tricky are to root out waste and fraud that we found $1.8 billion by stopping improper medicare patients in noncovered chiropractic services and $7.6 billion from a line medicare levies with those in the private sector. so of the 65 recommendations i'm pleased to say that one has been enacted into law already, and the budget to the congress passed last month. there was a $59 savings that came from the altar deepwater

natural gas and petroleum research program -- a bit of a mouthful -- please easy that was included in the budget deal. again that was a $50 million. that's one down and 64 to go. there's a lot of work to be done. ..

i believe congressman duncan alluded to those in his earlier remarks about reestablishing the anti-appropriations committee, creating a sunset commission or committee to acquire the periodic review of programs to longer needed, i've been a pentagon mentioned several times today. limiting spending, reduce spending, keeping spending caps in place, requiring agencies and departments to prioritize when you start to trim away at their budgets can be reducing and cutting ways. entitled the programs, critically important. the prime minister was senator carper and spoke of earlier certainly involving the executive branch, legislative branch can't do it a lot. the executive branch is to be part of the solution as well. i see i'm just about out of time, so i will end my remarks here. >> thank you cute that you get a tube or, if you will continue. >> good morning, chairman

tranter ranking member comments, members of the committee for inviting me to testify on behalf of the public interest research group. my name is jamie woo for the state based consumer advocacy groups. we are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates improvement and fiscal policy to stop special-interest giveaways come increased budget transparent accountability, eliminate ways commensurate subsidies serve the public and make tax fairer. as congress works to pass the budget for the next year, the taxpayers union have come together to offer deficit reduction recommendations with more than half a trillion dollars. this has appealed across the political spectrum. december 2013 joint report towards common ground recommendations for congress to which i am a co-author detailed 65 specific spending cuts over 10 years. nt and u.s. do not agree on

policy approaches developing our nations problems. however, we are not in the believer spent far too much money on ineffective programs that do not serve the best interest of the people. in this report we identify low-hanging fruit of waste and inefficiency that both republican and democratic lawmakers should recognize as productive use of taxpayer dollars. u.s. approach spending cuts is guided by four basic principles. number one, oppose subsidies that provide incentives to companies that do harm to the public interest or do more harm than good. the example is sending for biomass research and development. large scare our culture production of corn or other crops used for biomass often involve massive amounts of fertilizer, water and land. that drastically changes the landscapes of our country, deforestation and compete with reproduction, raising the prices globally. number two, post-subsidies which are profitable industries that

don't need these incentives. these companies engage in activities across the taxpayer support. for example, congress should eliminate the insurance premiums to large agribusiness and coverage they could purchase on their own. number three comes for reforms to make government. the office of management and budget and federal government on tens of thousands of unused or underutilized ludington structures for senator carper mentioned earlier. the public should not have to pick up the tab four maintaining buildings not used appeared reducing inventory with its nearly $15 billion over 10 years. number four, post-programs for this authoritative consensus to do so. when there is a strong independent agreement across the political spectrum that a that a program is faithful or an agent in department receiving funding argued against it. the army, pentagon and white house have all said the army know and couldn't additional

droves. report recommendations are specific, targeted the name programs for elimination. each recommendation is backed up by authorities versus edge of the congressional budget office and the government accountability office. a long time for general references in rhetorical calls for attacking nameless, faceless reference that contains waste, fraud and abuse. this is the precise reason the u.s. did not support the recent across-the-board cut. such policies fail to differentiate between true public priorities and generally waste or inefficiencies in system. our organization is argued in favor of programs to aid access to higher education and the safety of our nation's food supply. across the board cut equate those programs with the wasteful spending we highlighted in a report. while not in the report, weird committee members to reduce special-interest car busser tax expenditures in the polls. these are the same bottom-line effect on our nation that the

district line item spending. regardless whether spending takes place through tax code or through the appropriations process, ordinary taxpayers and small businesses pick up the tab in the form of cuts to worthwhile programs, higher taxes and more data. we recognize many items on our list challenge long-standing subsidies to now yet powerful interests. despite these expenditures serve little or no continuing public service and the public would likely support elimination, there'll no doubt be intense lobbying efforts to preserve the cns. we strongly urge you to resist those efforts and take important steps toward addressing our federal budget problems and ensuring any public expenditures for the public interest. thank you and i'd be happy to answer questions. >> thank you. i now recognize myself for serving of questioning. mr. edwards, as you know, i am a fan of your organization. let me get into a question in

the jurisdiction of this committee. privatization of the post office. even for free today. >> great britain ipo for their post office and they sold 52%. they raise -- >> i understand that. the post office is currently losing 15.2 or so billion dollars about paying tax. if you look at the deferrals, et cetera if you account away with a a public company, to $60 billion of gross revenue is not a win. so very briefly, can effeminate, but very briefly, isn't it true we would have to do a dramatic reorganization come exactly the one stalled for years before the post office would in fact be privatized double quick >> you could do it either way. in britain under thatcher they

made nature changes before they sold them off. the way notch partner with ink about it is you can take government assets, make them more efficient to the post office in germany, britain and austria became a lot more efficient and they went from campuses have surpluses. the government can't make money -- >> in a bipartisan basis, we've been trying to get the post office fixed. i want to make sure i use this opportunity to make one thing i think clear, but i want to use you if you agree. we would have to throw $100 billion or more into the deficits that exist against an existing current and retired workforce if we were to transfer to the public sector as it is today. even if it has the ability to make a profit to maliciously to make a $5 billion profit coming to the 10 captive 50 billion.

no one is going to absorb our current obligations to our legacy employees based on that, are they? >> that may well be true. the british government took over the unfunded liability. the >> so we've been looking at the british system, we would have to take tens of millions or hundreds of billions of dollars of legacy liability. the american people have a very expensive decision even if we were sue, as i said, give away the post office. >> that's probably true. your looking for economic growth and efficiency, which to my mind this kind of a small and narrow ratio. if you can have a more efficient health distance for decades in the future, it's worth taking a hit now. >> i completely agree with your last statement and that's why we are trying to reform the post office of money future group look at at least break even or there's opportunities to be a

little more private than they currently are. mr. arnold, i am not trying to be the adversary. you guys are my heroes, but i served for 10 years in the military often on active duty and then in the race errors. when we look at the state and dod, wouldn't we be better off transferring 65 to $69 billion of non-core military duties out of the department of defense as a first that rather than looking at the millions of dollars spent in total on, for example, by marine band? i might know they are medal of honor recipients who are marine band people in korea. or in vans also were infantry trade in a fight. >> well, the expenditures we list with regard to marine band or routing these individuals out of the military. at the same time, we spend a

tremendous amount on a service person of the military that is probably not directly related to national security, which should be the primary function of the defense department. that was the kind of framework were operating with when we look at the defense department holistically is what is necessary for national security and what can we trim away given the fact we are running 600, $700 billion annual deficits. >> i appreciate that, although we pay for cost of the medal of honor when authority. it is part of what the military is. i want to make cuts to the military. i really do. what i want to make the cuts that leave us with a military that is effective. i often see those cut -- i push back pretty hard as you can imagine because i believe we can trim, but i can tell you this, the department of defense pentagon building is completely filled and has overflowed annexes. the military is a fraction of the size it was in world war ii

when we didn't have computers and yet not a single office is empty and the pentagon. so i would hope that the committees of jurisdiction with look and asked the question of why are there more civilians working for the department of defense then there are uniformed now? why is there not an empty room at the pentagon when in fact the military has been reduced in size by its so that's a little bit of maybe my pushback. i do appreciate the other areas that you proposed and i recognize the authority runover my time on just two subjects. mr. cummings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. this is your report, is that right? i was just looking here on page 36 i guess it is and it talks about eliminating legal services corporation and there's so many

people who do not have access to legal services. can you talk about that briefly? >> yes, sir. as a retired attorney, i know that attorneys to provide pro bono services. they are essentially required to win certainly are informed to renew your life a sense are you providing services? would think a lot of services provided to legal services corporation could be provided through the years through nonprofit and not necessarily by the federal government before 1974 there was no legal services corporation. i don't know that any evidence as representation better or worse prior to that time. >> i just think that our society is getting to a point where i said earlier practicing many years, i saw a lot of people coming to court and they were at

a decided disadvantage. although we have a legal system, the constitution they cowrites and people don't have counsel, and they are of out of luck. i understand what you're saying. a lot of people leave it to the pro bono. in maryland, you really have to do quite a bit of pro bono. even that i don't think captures so many people that i used to see. this is a very interesting.name. i want to really go through it. how did you welcome up at these items? >> citizens against government waste has been producing since 1993. resources, some of which are unfortunately still not implemented. chw grew out of the great commission. we also look at the congressional budget office with this report every year, gao report, president's budget, but just put up by congress such as

the republican study committee and others. this always ties back to something. the database chasseur came from. >> well, mr. and four, the establishment of the do not pay list is one of the most recent tools that resulted from chairman carper and ranking member's recent legislation on environmental payments. the list permits all agencies to link databases such as the general service administration's excluded parties list system to check the eligibility to receive government funds. what else would your organization propose to help decrease the level of improper payments? you can imagine in the american public hears about improper payments and then you see a situation where we're trying to come up with $6.4 billion should give the neighbors the relative relative -- relatives and

friends the opportunity to get unemployment and we are loosing money for improper payments, billions, that is something that is very alarming. i'm just wondering, what would you propose? >> thank you, mr. cummings. in terms of income that reforms come including improper payments, mr. arnold had mentioned that is an area that i could actually follow up with the one in terms of getting back to our health care advocates and health care team. i could provide you a better answer at a later time. the mac already. do any of you all have an interest in not? the improper payment issue? let's go on to dod. when you look at dod and the situation where you can't even provide an audit, i mean come

on, is it too big to control? what do you all recommend with regard to dod? chairman issa made some suggestions, basically the transferring of certain funds out of there. they have all kinds of unsavory things like medical research and things of that nature. do you have any other suggestions on that? >> it helps to know what an agency is spending, what a department of spending. >> you got a problem. >> we agree with you. citizens against government topics as the $436 hammer and closely we don't see as much anymore. things like other reforms on procurement will help reduce wasteful spending threat the government come including dod. >> i would say to general things about the pentagon. i like spending caps combined

with executive branch flexibility. i like current spending caps. i'm disappointed with the recent spending deal. the pentagon, forgive them more flexibility to make decisions that they don't want and they don't mean them to put caps on them, they would themselves find more efficient heat. i also think one of the problems with the federal government because it is so huge, many members spend their time on little like to be filtering should be in the realm of dave and local government. we trim some extraneous functions of the federal government, more members would focus more on some of the core functions that pentagon waste. >> mr. chairman? mr. chairman? i couldn't quite hear mr. schatz. did i understand mr. schatz to say that terra would save money?

[inaudible] >> i never know if it's going to be good or bad when i hear that. >> thank you on mr. connolly and mr. cummings. i guess i recognize myself next time he assumed the chair for mr. issa here. one of the things that is frustrating to me and these are great groups. you've got citizens against government waste, cato, national taxpayers union, all of you working sorted in the same vein. sometimes the voices are a little bit like congress. they are not unified. is there an attempt to come together with any of these groups? do you all, with a common policy? i mean, we of the groups here and there's many others out there looking at saving taxpayer

dollars. is there some association and do you meet and decide on some priorities? >> yes, mr. mica, sometimes there's too many e-mails. certainly we work very closely, kind of a joke around the office if it is signed, with we'll assign it as well as really true. over the years as an a lot of coordination. for example, the alternate engine for the joint strike fighter. over time, other groups joined with those. >> joint policy? >> more coalition minors. >> i think that would be helpful. >> there's so many people that want to spend money we have to work together. >> i said earlier, you know, you just have to be persistent in this business and then hit a good luck. a good example and i should have submitted this earlier. i didn't put this in the record,

but this is the oversight on conference spending report that i alluded to. while i gave credit to the committee because we did follow up. it wasn't just gsa. i have to get the most credit to the guy in the hot tub, the gsa guy. he made it go viral. i remember we did a hearing on the subject. nobody attended. no one paid any attention until that guy became viral. from that, we did irs, dea come to dod. this is about a half a billion dollars a year in reduced spending on conferences. my point is i don't see a lot of these groups joining in. it's not that you want to become kersey with congress, but when we are on a roll, it does help. the history of public domain

from all the different bills and people who have attempted that, i remember we were in the minority. it's great to be in the minority, but not for too long. i'm sorry, mr. cummings to bring that out. when you're there you can do productive things. we produced a federal report the government to stop sitting on its asset. we outline all the public, amtrak, incredible asset to the federal government has. the problem is you don't get unified support from out they are with some of these groups to go after these targeted things. why you heard a lot of how we need to court mate with the senate, pick priorities, it would be good for your groups to coalesce and get behind some of these items. it would again enhance our efforts. when we do things like

consolidating program, the transportation bill consolidated between 20 and 30 programs. another bureaucrat or running around trying to justify their existence. we eliminated or consolidated, but nobody is focusing on the bureaucrats who are trying to justify their existence. they have nothing to do because you eliminate the program, but they come up, not the rules come into your god, they've come up with rules to justify their system. anybody want to comment on this administered by regulation? it is a new phenomenon. mr. schatz, mr. edwards, ms. woo? >> mr. issa, we'd be happy to meet with any one interested in consolidating? >> we party doneness. it's a new phenomenon. it is rule by edict fiat

regulation. again, you do not have a focus -- we don't have a focus on what is going on. look, there is some oversight. the administration has been clever and rolling and fiat and executive order to pack the district court of appeals. that has been the only recourse. you can pass a bill from the house and there's nothing done in the senate and the edict and executive order prevails. are you while paying any attention to that? >> i will give you a general comment. the groups represented here are frankly pretty small compared to the huge fire power and stamping power of the gao and cbo. >> but they just do report and they have to be politically correct. >> i agree with you. we have to pick and choose.

for example, i've written extensively about tsa reform in the last half-year. that is something you've been supportive of and a leader on. it is difficult for outside groups because most of the experts on federal programs are in the executive ranch in our staffers in congress in the gao. you know, outside groups we need to pick and choose our battles. because our funding is limited, we would love to work for review. >> combined fire power may be some exceeded effort. i've exceeded my time. i yield to the gentlelady from new york, ms. maloney. >> -- for your excellent presentation and your hard work in ajman this important area. the prior panel had a consensus that one of the most mismanaged agencies as the pentagon and they were united in their belief that the treasury should be paying their books are paying

their checks, writing the checks as opposed to the pentagon. they pointed out the pentagon was the only agency in the entire government that themselves pays the check. i would just like to go down the aisle. do you believe the pentagon should be able to pay their checks? or should they be just like every other regency and have treasury pay them? just a yes or no answer. mr. schatz? >> they should turn it over to another agency. a >> mr. edwards. >> i agree with that. one thing the congress could do is give a pentagon a fixed amount of cuts. they want to see from efficiency, but then give the pentagon flexibility to find those cuts and opposed them to congress. >> mr. arnold. >> yes, i agree. >> ms. woo. >> i would say in a number of different reports that we have written in conjunction about the common ground, we have also worked for senator coburn's office to help write this

report. on that matter, i would say that u.s. burke is not an expert on defense policy and defense bending it so forth. and so, i will give a yes or no way at her on that. we do take the authoritative consensus on various experts in the pentagon and white house. >> well, ms. woo, you were very strong on the as 35 joint strike fighter debacle. this is one of the key programs that nypirg and ntu and joint recommendation is cutting it, the joint strike fighter, which is the largest weapon system in history and largest contract in history for the pentagon. so far, and the dod has spent 12 years developing it. by all consensus, their own consensus is deeply flawed and has escalated with cost overruns to over $400.

not only are the older months now 400 billion, they are estimating that a cost of a trillion dollars to maintain these planes. the price tag is not the only frightening thing about this acquisition. dod entered into the contract to purchase these planes for critical testing is ongoing, a practice called concurrency. at the end of 2012, the dod had procured 121 aircraft at a cost of 28 billion. as of 2012, only 22% of the testing they want to do has been completed. i would say this is an area we should work on. we can't be handing out contracts before he tested them. i will put a bill to that effect. according to the pentagon's own office of operational test and evaluation in 2013, the plane has quote, no night capacity. my question, ms. woo, which you

think that a fighter plane should be about to fly and then i? >> i do believe that. >> okay. and it do you agree that dod's own statements from acquisition, and i quote, from the chief of acquisition, kind of startling. because that, quote, acquisition malpractice. now, would you agree with the head of the chief acquisition undersecretary frank kendall, would you agree it is acquisition is, which is dod talking about their own procurement system? >> yes. >> what i don't understand and we can get into a longer conversation on the a's, you know, how does an acquisition of a fighter plane become such a debacle that the own acquisition officers are calling it a disaster? but my main question is why

steps does dod need to take in order to eliminate the wasteful and unnecessary f-35 program. and it is noted in other reports, maybe in yours, ms. woo, that it doesn't address the way we are moving militarily. it can't land an aircraft. the navy has these big does the planes land on. the navy boats cannot land on their own aircraft. so how do you move it around? we seem to be having smaller strike force is as opposed to a huge plane that can fly at night and can't land. so what are the steps dod would need to take to eliminate what by their own acquisition leadership mr. kendall is calling an acquisition disaster? what are the steps? how do you get rid of the wasteful item in the budget?

how would you do that? >> well, one of the recommendations as to reduce the cost growth in major defense acquisition portfolio by 20% over five years. gao has done a lot of work on this. simply changing the way procurement is achieved at dod and has been an ongoing problem for many years. the big operation we are happy to work with this committee and others to reform it in the future. >> any other comment? i do get rid rid of the wasteful acquisition? you've identified it. how do you get rid of that? >> i don't know if it is fair to put it solely on dod. it will require action as well. you talk about massive weapon systems. you're talking about a lot of parochial interests involved. it's extraordinarily difficult. we have a significant numbers of weapons and other things done by dod that they do not need and do not want, yet they are obligated to continue to contract,

produce, maintain. overseas to step in at some point. there's a lot of options in our paper in the publications that coburn and others have put out the congress can introduce legislation and pass in and stop these things from taking place. >> i think the gentlelady and the witness, mr. blackford. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. edwards, i want to ask you a question about incentivizing agencies and agency individuals. right now the incentive is to add more staff and chase down more dollars and spend as much as you can at the end of the year. how do we split that incentive? you mentioned spending caps. sequestration cats and other caps aren't ever program. some programs are run more efficiently than others. a catholic sequestration had followed them with equal amount of fury. if i hand to an agency the authority to say i need you to cut 7% of their budget or 27% from your budget, there's very

little oversight of which programs they are going to cut. but keep the ones they like the best and cut the ones i like the best. talk about the options using for incentivizing incentivizing agencies and reduction. >> i mean, ultimately for reasons that go into in my testimony i listed the reasons the public sector will never be as efficient as the private sector. the profit motive is hugely powerful and the government doesn't have the. there's been lots of talk for pay-for-performance in the federal government for decades. but it never really happens and i don't think it can. the government has more rules because of basic structural reasons to prevent corruption and because they have no clear motive like lowering costs and maximizing revenue. so i think the focus should be on fully eliminating programs and also capping spending giving

agencies more flexibility. i think the executive ranch agency should and can do more to evaluate their own programs, perhaps agencies should be required to do detailed analyses and rank order there must efficient our highest priority programs and make the information public so congress can see a new set for decision-making. more information is always better. one thing i find striking is yuko to the website. it's all good news, all essentially propaganda, but i don't think it is fair to taxpayers. federal agencies should be required to provide more balanced information about programs, feelings and what low priority activities they do art. the ultimate decision of the congress and agencies can do more to provide information about where they fail.

>> i would agree. the taxpayers right to know we talk about this committee has passed. we had a partisan input into that bill and is passed to the full house will pass it on to the senate. just the basics of whatever program is, how much we spend, how many people we serve would be a tremendous asset to congress to make those decisions because right now there is no description of those programs. but dr. coburn mentioned earlier about the duplicate of programs, it is very difficult to go through the tedious work of identifying programs because they had different descriptions and programs. you had mentioned earlier about the rule change in the house. proud to say was rule change that went through to identify duplicate of programs. we have a long way to go. there's not enough teeth and i appreciate you bringing it out because that is something i hope in the years ahead we can add

more teeth to it. it's more than identifying guess this is duplicated, but a prohibition to that as well. are there other rule changes you have seen that would be an asset in the days ahead to function in the house? >> it reminds me of the improper payments back to the person identifies improper payments in the next to put teeth into it. i hope the rule that's been adopted would improve over the years because if you're prohibited from enact any duplicate of an overlapping program, that helps solve that problem to start. i know rules change at the beginning of each congress. i hope there's a change in leadership will continue as because it is critical. it's amazing it took this long to have a rule like that. one would think any agency would want to create duplicate of program. we appreciate your leadership. i was happy to see that one was better. when we started research at the testimony, we didn't even know it was there. that is something else that

perhaps needs to be emphasized to the committee that this is a rule and they should be using it because citizens of the government ways and the rest of the public probably doesn't know either. i encourage more information about what you've been doing. >> it's new and it's a step process. one more question, mr. arnold in mystery and four. one of the items you brought up was dod with prescription drugs. this is something i've tracked through as well. you have over $4 billion in ratings. i didn't know if you wanted to mention or add any detail to it. the gao report came out in early 2000 suggesting dod and va jointly purchase prescription drugs. they did it for several years. billions of dollars of savings until 2005 and 2006 by dod changes for malaria may never cooperated and spent. they studied it, looked at it.

add enough you have any additional detail on it. that is one of those bipartisan areas to look and say, why wouldn't we combine the drug purchasing between dod and va. any other comments you have on not? >> i think you articulate it it pretty well. that's something we strongly support. >> just to repeat kind of what you were saying, the collaboration had really declined over the past few years and were really advocating for that to take over again. >> thank you for that. i yield back. >> gentlelady from new york, ms. duckworth, you recognize. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you two other witnesses for being here to share your thoughts. over the past couple weeks we've been debating whether we can afford to extend unemployment insurance for a lifeline for millions of americans and in my home district of illinois, dozens of family who talked about last year cuts to the food snaps program.

yet at the same time, in this very committee, we saw time and again the waste that happens in government and it's infuriating to me to think that i have kids in my district who are going hungry and yet there's $900 million worth of unused stryker part sitting in a warehouse that the military paid for but couldn't use than continue to purchase. i would like to sort of talk a little bit more about the dod and its process. this past year, my first year in congress, two things that have been that really crystallized in my mind the way it happens in dod, especially under the defense just ask agent he appeared one was a hearing in this committee on the supreme food contract and that is corporation supreme food services that provide under a sole contract food in afghanistan for the last decade and in fact has now been found

to have overcharged the dod by $757 million for that food contract. they continue to get extensions to the contract in a noncompetitive award process. this is something the dod's ig itself discovered and brought to light. i talked about the stryker part. again, resulted the dod ig investigation. mr. arnold, could you give me any suggestions you might have asked to how dod can develop some sort of controls? i know we talked about the audit process and i absolutely agree we need to put some teeth into the process of forcing dod to do the audit. what about the tla itself? is the own internal ig is identified these as problems, what is there we can do? >> let me confess first volume is the co-author of the study that didn't work as much on the defense aspects of it.

in terms of the real technical details, i would have to defer to my colleague who did a lot of work or perhaps some folks at perry. i don't know that i have an articulate answer for you. i apologize for that. i'd be happy to get to you after the hearing. >> no problem. ms. woo. >> in terms of the defense department, listed in the report consolidated foreign-language contracts, uniform design for the armed services for support services that are joint bases are consolidating management, these are all smaller things that can add up to a lot of money in the end. in terms of the process of how that would go about, as i mentioned before, we are not defense experts. we don't have anything to say about the process, but these are the things that need to be addressed in consolidated net cut, especially because a senator coburn has said, we have so many programs for other

departments when there's multiple programs for uniforms, that needs to be addressed. >> the uniform thing is i'm actually the individual who got past and this year's nba camouflage pattern though that saved the army allowed $82 million at going back to a single camouflage pattern, which is what we had for my entire time in the military until 2004 when the marines developed their own. so let switch gears and talk about medicare. i recently had an event in my district where we taught our seniors to look into medicare fraud in ways, taught them to read their own medicare statements. one of the things i was quite shocking to me was the regional medicare representative who came to teach the course actually made the statement that they know 10% of their payments are too fraudulent and lethal claims, that they know and

accept and have the 10. they're working to fix it. but that's a billion dollars a week. it is stunning to me that is acceptable. i don't think we would accept it in business and we shouldn't expect it in government. have you talked about medicare, the waste portion of the? not just the fraud and abuse, but the waste. >> yeah, absolutely. that's appalling to me is all that they knowingly, readily accept that 10%. 10% is too fraudulent claims and improper payments. as listed in our report, there's several different entitlement reforms in the health health cae system which advocated for. one of them is better line in medicare payments to teaching hospitals. medicare payment advisory commission are met pak has actually stated that the cause of teaching hospitals is much less than the amount of

government and then we are providing them. so better line, that would save over $10 million in the next 10 years. there's plenty of other things bundling medicaid payments of a single payment goes to a number of different individual episodes in a three-month period that would also advocate for more effect reviews of time or efficient actual service is. these are the types of things we think are really important within the health care system that that we can and should change. >> i think the gentlelady. we will recognize the gentleman from michigan, mr. walberg. >> i thank the chairman. i just arrived back from meeting at a workforce committee and was delighted to hear senator coburn talk about the skills that extensively has been one of our greatest accomplishments, even though it be limited.

i think it wise. downsizing the numbers of redundant programs, 35 and ineffective duplicate of programs including 27 identified in the 2011th government accountability office. i guess i would like to ask any of you would like to weigh in, the fact that this is unfortunately a language in the senate and in fact, what they are even taking about offering includes only one of our proposals in the skills that. could you discuss further proposals to remove arbitrary roadblocks that would help get americans back to work in the jobs that are currently in demand? i know why my old michigan website, and my jobs.gov, listed 2000 unfilled jobs right now.

we know there are many more than not, but that is on one website come in the state government website. the majority of reasons they are not being filled if people don't meet the certification requirements. they haven't been trained for that. if you could speak to that issue, what proposals would you have in mind to remove further arbitrary roadblocks making people employable? mr. schatz, i will start with you if you care to answer. >> thank you, mr. walberg. certainly created a progrowth policy in washington would be helpful and that does not mean duplicative programs as dr. coburn noted. he examined the job training program in oklahoma turned out the state was far more efficient at creating jobs because the training they were conducting was related to jobs and that is something the government should be looking at as well. i know in the house come and

skills act was reported strongly by republicans and not much by democrat and the differences in how it should be done. whether it's through legislation, progrowth policy tax reform and many other ways to create jobs, the government needs to be more out-of-the-way than forceout job should be created because that's not something we ever found, yet members seem to think reading jobs is one of their major functions. >> as opposed to getting out of the race of people who know how to create jobs can do that, including our states. i was one of the best points of the skills act. he did get the flexibility back. >> mr. edwards. >> a broad comments on job training. i looked over the decades and it is astounding the federal job training programs have never worked very well. in fact, half a century to john f. kennedy, every decade or so we change them and fix them, but the gao comes back every time and says you can't show these

things were very well. the federal government not to get out of job training business. if you look at the data, the corporate air, business sector in the united states is a much more massive job training on-the-job training than the federal government 18 or so building is a drop in the bucket that hasn't worked very well. i take the federal government out of that business. in terms of progrowth policies, there is a jerky and take jurisdiction in this committee. there's gigantic reform that is on the plate here. there should be bipartisan support for corporate tax reform. it absolutely makes no sense. you read in the newspaper every month or two about major corporations moving jobs elsewhere, often because of the corporate tax problems with god. president obama is for corporate tax reform, republicans are for it. why we can't do that, i don't understand. our neighbor to the north is

that a 15% corporate income tax. we've got a 35% rate. that is a big thing we can do. lower corporate rates invest more, buy more machines. when you buy more machines, you need workers to run those machines. the corporate tax cut would be a huge job in my view. >> i will concur with both chris and tom, that ad at the state level especially b.c. licensure laws that say strong restrictions on the job growth that can occur with any particular field of expertise. we understand when those are created for surgeons, et cetera. but when created for things like interior decorators, they are protectionism on the part of some of these trade association that again limit the access of people seeking jobs to become employed. >> i am out of time, but could miss woo go ahead and respond?

>> just to add a quick note, in terms of job growth, i am not going to say much just in terms of the confines of our report, but at the same time, the federal government is spending billions each year on subsidizing large agribusinesses, which really put small farmers, small businesses a competitive disadvantages. tax loopholes and tax havens where companies are able to shift their profit off shore and use a 0% tax rate really put it at this competitive advantage is and they have to now pick up the tab through public programs are more debt or higher taxes. that can really put a damper on job growth and being able to pick up the household. i have my statement there. >> thank you, gentlemen. recognize the gentleman from illinois, mr. davis.

>> thank you very much, mr. chairman. you know, i really think all the members of this committee agreed that wasting government and unnecessary ending is unacceptable. it also appears to me that members will probably agree that this committee is well-positioned to investigate and examine issues of waste and conduct legitimate oversight work that hold agencies accountable and help implement necessary reforms. despite the various examples of waste identified in today's hearing, there have been some progress in the fit illustration that agencies and congress should continue to build upon. president obama made a priority to reduce improper payments when he took office and we should be pleased to see that over the past three years, the federal government has made $47 billion

in improper payments and recaptured 4.4 billion in overpayment to contractors. another initiative established by president obama is securing americans value and efficiency award, which taps the knowledge and expertise of front-line federal workers or recommendations to help improve government performance and to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely. in your testimony, you acknowledge and support the same awards, correct? why do you believe that the save awards can be his and identifying government waste? >> i didn't include that innate enkidu something president obama deserves credit for. i believe he's included 80

recommendations, people from this program into his budgets over the past several years. so yeah, along the same lines as whistleblower protections providing in its structure to report on the waste they are seen and devised systematic reforms that will help limit those things that are wasteful makes a lot of sense. you know, we can do the budgets in gao reports and cbo reports all day, but we don't have the same on the ground experience these federal employees do. we need to tap into their expertise as well. >> do you think that we will get from them more of an accurate account and other types of oversight may provide? >> whether it's more accurate or not, i don't know, but certainly a very valuable goods.

>> i've always sensed being a kid, i've always been amazed at the amount of waste, inefficiency that was always pointed out in government. i've also been amazed at the notion that the private sector automatically is going to be more efficient than any public-sector dvd. i guess because of the profit motive, giving the profit motive, does that mean that the level of benefit is going to be greater to the public for the benefit is going to be part of the profit that the private sector earns and there might be a kind of balance in terms of public interest and what benefits the public? i think it is just something to give thought to end

consideration. but i certainly appreciate all of the areas of the benefits you should an suggestion that the government or federal government is making some progress by no means suggests that we are close to where we need to be in terms of figuring out waste and inefficiency. i thank you offer your testimony and the yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. the gentleman from texas, mr. ferran told. >> thank you very much, mr. mica. i have a couple of question. the waste that points out we are potentially spending close to $700 million to promote health care., a website that doesn't work. i know that my colleague from missouri, billy long, as a bailout that would require advertising purchased by the federal government to have a

disclaimer like we have on political ad. you know, this advertisement was paid for with tax dollars. sometimes it is difficult for the public to know someone who worked in broadcasting, we had ran psa's come in many came from government agencies and we ran them for free and available commercial time. in other cases, you've got the federal government paying for advertising. i certainly see a need for advertising for recruiting for military. but driving people to a website that doesn't work or at least wasn't working well when some of these ads were running seems to be a problem. have any of you on the government advertising expenditures as a source of waste? >> we've looked a little more sponsorships, for example, having agencies sponsor nascar among others. we've taken it from a different direction.

in terms of disclosure, it's not something they thought about, the taxpayers deserve that transparency because they should now have the monies being spent. >> i think mr. long's bill would go a long way to raising public awareness. mr. edwards, you talked a lot about moving stuff to the private sector. i'm a big supporter of that. the early day profit motive platenburg by, as many rules and regulations that exist within government organizations is a good idea. but i come back to health care.gov. that was outsourced to a private company and had huge excessive cost overruns. we talked a little bit about procurement reforms, but you can't just turn it over to the private sector and not have some sort of oversight on the contracting. can you talk a little bit about that? >> i absolutely agree with that. to go back to a congressman

david said. it's sort of a two-part partnership. companies want to run profits, but what we want to do is maximize competition in the private sector to peel away any excess profits. other companies want to grab those profits and that's why the private system -- private air. federal contracting is a problem. we should minimize all contracts. the cgi and obamacare. i didn't look in the details of the contract, but for federal contracting we should maximize competition never really where we can, maximize transparency. >> we've also had some hearing with respect to contracting reform, where for dance, and building contracts, designed bill contracts, you are going out and rather than coming to three or four finalists to come up with a detailed opposable after the initial request, you're ending up with 10.

.. >> i think both you and the other gentleman have struck a little bit of a centralizing ip for the federal government. we risking treating another

massive bureaucracy and a government that looks like it cannot compete its way out of a paper bag? i we going to create a bigger problem was also been there? >> adelle dagen mention the word centralizing. we talked about giving agencies cio more authority because it is their job. i will point out that there were no see io's until 1989 which begs the question why we did not have that prior to that. it requires continuous work because it is quite difficult because competition is important, and that think that this legislation is also very important. >> i see my five minutes went by a lot faster than i thought it would. >> thank you. recognized originally from the stick of -- california. >> i want to thank each of you. i wonder to what extent you get a little fatigued coming here every congress making recommendations to us.

you seem interested coming dates to demand and what happens? maybe you could help us by providing me which i would be happy to provide you a list of all the things that we have actually done as a result of the work you have provided to us. you have given us tangible, easy to effectuate recommendations, and i frankly think that very few of them have been embraced. let me get to the one that we have agreed is something the republicans and democrats can agree on. excuse me. that is spare parts and obsolete parts. this is a plumbing elbow. but at the hardware store for dollar $0.41. defense contractor judge does, the taxpayers of this country from $80 for this. this is a package of washers.

the dollar 22 of the local art restorer. defense contractor one under $96.50. we have a defense logistics agency in our store parts that will be there and can be used for the next hundred years and look to these various apartments to cut these operations within the fence, they got to a defense contractor to get. hmm so you have identified something. and i hope to god we do something about this. this is real money. >> yes.

i'm interested in whether or not yet looked at that issue and justice but to me separately on that. >> that may be addressed by medicare bundling which is something that we do include airport. yet a single payment going up to a provider. >> of bundling issue. it is a self referral is you. >> let me move on the crop subsidies. the gao has indicated that we have seen a gross increase in crop subsidies in 2000, 2006.

of 3 billion each year. now is looking at $9 billion per year. the report argues that we could save more than $84 billion over ten years by eliminating this program. what is most telling is that the gao reported that the biggest recipient of the subsidy is a cooperation, not the family farmer, but a corporation received over $2 million in premium subsidies. 75 percent of the subsidies are going to 4% of farmers. my question to you is, who is in this 4%? >> yes. that is absolutely correct. 75 percent of the subsidies in the insurance program are only going to 4 percent of the recipients. >> give us some names. >> so i, i actually don't have that information. >> ted turner, for example.

>> ted turner as an example, rockefeller, john von's of the, the rocker as foreign subsidies. >> members of congress? >> members of congress. right. >> i am willing to go after anyone regardless of political affiliation, but who are the 4%? lets get a list. >> the think tank does a very good job of identifying the particular farmers who are being the direct payments. the statistic that i think is remarkable is that the average farm households in the united states balance income 25% higher than the average household in the united states. foreign subsidies are a reverse robin hood program, taking from average taxpaying families, giving to higher-income people. think it is completely unfair. >> 80% of the farmers get about $5,000 on average. so we're talking about a very small percentage that is him share of this money. if we know who they are in the corporations that should not be

getting it, we should not be offering it. the gao is recommended a cap of no more than $40,000 of a foreign subsidy. do you will support that? >> absolutely. one thing i would point out about foreign subsidies, people who don't really get, with the direct payment of the landowner is the subsidy. that is what people like the rockefellers and ted turner own massive amounts of land. the largest landowner in the country. he is the subsidies cannot tenant farmers the hires. >> quickly, cooperating with each other, the farm bill is an area where we have cooperated very well over the years in have a good ride left coalition on that issue. unfortunately, a lot of what we want to deny it into a farm bill >> thank originally. the witnesses to the zone from arizona, you're recognized. >> sent you. some of the previous comments have led right into my aspect. competition is one aspect, but also accuracy in writing

contracts is another. we do not agree. >> is, do. >> mr. edwards. >> absolutely. >> yes. >> could you repeat that one more time. >> competition is one aspect to ensure fair competition, but also accuracy in contracts and calculations are another part of this. >> i agree with that. >> are you familiar with the prevailing wage? >> absolutely. it should be repealed. >> yes. >> well, i mean, i am of that mind set to, but i was taken aback by the gao cal last year. what it shows for us is that we have a problem. do you believe that their wage for a fair job. >> yes. we also support repealing. >> job but you. >> absolutely. >> says arnold. >> well, it came to my attention , i agree. we could stairstep this.

there is no benefit. maybe a one time there was, but i don't see much of an aspect now. would you be surprised that are under percent of the audit calculations were fraudulent? >> that does not happen. >> how but you, mr. edwards. >> i guess it would unsurprisingly. >> 100%? a little surprising. >> it is, isn't it. how about you? was prepared for 56%. we actually contacted a calculation for the prevailing wage. the department of wages, which is crappy. you heard it from me, crappie, what if we were to exchange debt and to say, let's give up on the prevailing wage and recalculated so that is properly done for a fair wage for a fair job that is fair to the taxpayer and move it to the bureau of statistics. you know much maneuvered seven that calculation per year? estimate between 15 and $25 billion per year.

would you before that? >> that would be helpful. >> i am a scientist, a dentist, beauty is in my detail. i like facts. the lawyer doing it right now, we have no facts to base it on. some people being overpaid and some people are being underpaid and we don't have a calibration upon which to base our judgment. would you think that would be something that you would support committee accuracy back. >> it is that just the prevailing wage but everything that the congress receives. that would be a good place to start. >> absolutely. how about you, mr. edwards. >> and the losers are the citizens because they get less maintenance because wages inflated. citizens in more quality services and more investment that helps them with the particular -- >> i will come back to you. that's a great question. >> i think that the amount of money they would be getting an of that definitely helps the

federal government in streamlining processes in terms of the wage or howard is supposed to be calculated given us something as in the purview of the expertise in that position. >> that would be a good thing, getting back to back. >> getting back to facts, absolutely. >> mr. edwards, you're exactly right. the prevailing wages an average of 22% additionally added to federal contracts just for the right. that means if you were to have better accuracy would get five bridges for the cost of four. interesting application to our air for structure problem. so i actually have a bill that this change is those six words. h.r. 448 others of civilian federal contractors enact. we would like to see that. a down-to-earth, simple thing that think everybody can agree with. i got one more thing that i would like to ask you. what do you think the influence of having the sunset clause on every bill so that uc bills coming in front of congress mandated to show their work. what you think about that.

>> we include that recommendation in our testimony. we support with congressman gray has been doing. we have long testified in support of the sunset commission at the federal level. >> very much in favor of that. as you may know, the state of texas has long had a sunset law. >> ariz., to. >> to support that and iran and @booktv that included in my testimony. >> and not too familiar with that. >> it makes accountability the answer out. but i would really love to see the calculations based upon facts. and that thing about the size of the gile could benefit from that soaker our infrastructure and so could are contracting. the savings it and include homeland security or the department of defense. the savings could be much more magnified. i yield back. >> recognize that john from massachusetts.

>> thank you mr. chairman. i do want to thank the panel for artwork and your willingness to come before the committee and helpless. one of the strongest and most effective tools that we have on this committee and in federal government for making the government more efficient is the inspector general community. we have for 70 inspectors general -- and much of it involves rooting out kirk -- fraud and abuse, and in each of the last two years the chairman of this committee and the ranking member of this committee and our members have signed a letter to the inspector general, just asking them how many recommendations they have made within various departments and

how many of those recommendations have either been left open which means they have been addressed or are actually adopted. and the information that our committee has received in response to the request of the inspector general is really staggering. there are nearly 17 doesn't open recommendations across the government with the potential savings of more than 67 billion. this is where our inspector general's have gone out and looked at some of the things you have talked about and some of the members on both sides of the allen talked about. we have to make these changes demanded in 17 dozen instances the department is basically refuse and as been no change. and filling these and implemented recommendations is really probably a good place to start for many of the things that we are talking about here. do you agree on that? >> we not only agree, but we have also noted that funding has not been up to what it should

be. we have written on that extensively of the last few years. it is a good place to start. the chilly hundreds of billions of dollars a year could be saved >> generally i agree with you entirely. they do a superb job. i would increase the federal spending. >> i agree as well. oftentimes the problem -- they do a great job of pointing out the waste. but there is not enough incentive structure for the managers of the federal level actually implement them. let's certainly applaud the work of the inspectors general. >> i would say agree with more collaboration within the federal government to root out the fraud and waste and abuse. if that is did the inspector general i would agree with that which many think will redo a white now with sequestration, which is, you know, indiscriminate, across the board we are giving good programs in her, as well as programs that should be completely eliminated. it would seem to me rather than

doing this indiscriminate cutting to try to reduce the size of government and the amount of spending. we should probably target these programs that we have and all agree in the inspector general's of identified as being completely wasteful. one of those things that i have been working on and some of the members on inside is a lack of transparency in the department of defense contracting and our inspector general there have -- the the special inspector generals and the more general 17 identified billions of dollars in savings, but we have had a very difficult time in getting transparency for the inspector general and also an ability to actually go in and make the changes. one of their -- one of the ancillary issues is prescription drugs that dissolve and from obama earlier brought up this. and while the department of

veterans affairs and that the department of defense each have the ability to negotiate a drug prices, because of the -- i don't know how to describe it, just nonfunctioning nature of their system, you have the department of veterans affairs on some drug paying 100% higher prices for the same drug as compared to the department of defense. mostly -- and that is the area brand name drugs. in many cases it is 239% higher than what the problem of defense is spending. and then in other cases on generic drugs you have the opposite situation where department of defense spending 200 percent what their department of veterans affairs is giving. if they were all paying the lowest price there would be

billions and billions of dollars in savings year to year. and what i am hoping for is, we also have 8 billion -- excuse me, 8 million to federal employees and right now they don't have the ability to negotiate lower drug prices. imagine if we were to add -- first of all, the dod in the viejo down to the lowest reasonable price and then add in the 8 million employees that are working for the federal government and have them being the same price, it would be tens of billions of dollars per year in terms of what our pharmaceutical cost would be across the government. would be incredible. and these days when we are facing -- well, maybe not tens of billions, but several billion dollars a year for prescription drugs that are being purchased by the federal government's.

i am just -- i am just beside myself with the inability of the federal government to really get at this. there may have been a time -- ee so, but there may have been its time on the cover look things like this. now that we are facing sequestration, trying to cut over 1 trillion of the budget and you have unacceptable costs across the board like this, i just up to you continue to work with us in terms of, you know, trying to get some of this stuff the prescription drug issue is one that i have been working on a long time. unfortunately there are probably to and from lobbyists for every member of congress. it is an uphill fight, but i think the fight is worth it, and it is more attainable, i think, because of the good work that you like doing and the people who support you. so i think you for that. >> i think the gentleman.

my time has expired, and i would like to recognize mr. waddell, benjamin from georgia. >> said you very much. i appreciate your being here and letting me stand between you and lunch. abcaten to work with some of you on other projects and other venues and really do appreciate all lower to you do. up your work in a category of the things that the government could be doing. i want to come back to something mr. edwards said in his testimony because it has been fascinating to listen to the the back and forth. it really implies for me was the work that the two of you are doing together, why is collaborative efforts are so important. i heard the talk about waste and fraud and abuse in the defense apartment, and we ought to be able to agree to get that out. we have this davis-bacon issue.

mr. edwards, you kind of frame what we're talking about. you have three categories of spending. he had what you called silly projects, just as absolutely horrendous things that we can all agree have no place on the taxpayers time or perhaps on anyone's. you have those projects for which the benefit does not outweigh the cost and then you have projects that the federal army should not be doing anyway. listen to mr. lynch stuck with the prescription drugs and he is absolutely right with the federal government is picking of two-thirds of all health care bills american effuse the monopoly power you can absolutely job on the cost the persian drugs. they're using the government monopoly power to manipulate the market place, would argue it is not the role of government is.

mr. cummings is talking about the legal services corporation and see a gw identifying. i appreciate your answer because what you said was not folks who can't afford legal services should not give legal services. what you said is, there are other opportunities to get his legal services. can't we utilize those nongovernmental channels. dr. cockburn sitting in mr. arnold's chair was talking about the army. they have these software problems because they buy software and try to mold it to the army's model instead of buying good off the shelf software and molding the army's walter that, legal services exactly that example. what happened to a justice system if i cannot walk in the court as a citizen and avail myself of the protection. should we be changing the government to adapt to a very complicated legal system, or should be changing a complicated legal system to make it

accessible to those of us as individuals. i don't know how we get started without the projects that folks put together comfortably. that me ask you, you all have sales in your list, the u.s. forest service manages our timber land. they're now in the conservation business. there in the management business one of your of attendees for savings is just to say, the forest service is losing more money on timber sales and they're gaining in timber sales. is that an example of something that should go away because it is a bad use of government resources or is that an example of something that still needs to be done in many to manage. is the solution to era of federal lands and that we we don't have to manage them, or is the solution to farm that up to the private sector. when we identify wasteful spending we then have to do the and so what's next. do we do to fill the void.

in that example in particular do you happen to have of what's next vision? >> i think in an example your suggestion of moving that to the private industry is one that we support. taxpayers should not be subsidizing for things it can be done by the private industry, especially when the government is very obviously losing money in this case. so i think that were taxpayers should be subsidizing profit-making ventures for private companies in the timber industry, that would apply to the situation. >> that becomes the question. market access program for farmers is an era of low. providing markets overseas for our farmers, is that in the category of things up the government should not be doing to what folks should fend for themselves, or is it in the category of things and we're doing, but we're not getting an extra dollar a benefit for our dollar of taxpayer burden, and

so it is just an efficient. would you characterize the things in your book as things the government should not be involved in or the things that, perhaps, we should be involved in barges not doing well. >> i think it would be the first one. in this case especially. also really does depend upon the type of benefit it is providing. a little bit of a combination of both. in this case the market access program is funding trade associations to have winetasting events in europe or to have a reality tv show in india to showcase different designs. does that really benefit the taxpayer who is paying a $20 million a year forever reality show? antics of. i do think that is partially not the government's responsibility to do that, but there is no benefit that comes out of the for the average taxpayer. >> i hope you will all keep giving with the same fervor they have always done.

i see a real opportunity this year. i appreciate the chairman's commitment to moving bills soared, and i hope it will take it upon it. thank you. >> thank you. and now waiting those patiently, believe the last member of our committee, the gentle lady from in mexico. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the panel for being here today and for your work prior to your testimony today. i don't think you are hearing from any member that we disagree that this is a fundamental responsibility of this committee. in some fundamental responsibility of congress. it's a fundamental responsibility of any administration. and is the -- if that trickles down to investment in the private sector or the bodies of government, those are also fundamental response abilities. i also agree that regardless of the climate, whether we have resources that we can do

anything we desire or in a climate that we have today where we know that we have a fiscal crisis in this country that we have to address that we should be mindful about making sure there we are not wasting any of our resources. i hope that having this hearing and starting again that this committee will return to a partnership with you and others looking at ways to make sure at we are not wasteful and that we are getting the bang for the block that we deserve and that our taxpayers and citizens deserve where their investments. and i am clear about that and know that we -- you know, you touch upon this in your written testimony, but there is not anyone -- i cannot imagine anyone would disagree it paying $900 for a hammer is a get idea. and know that my eyebrows raised and worse every time i look at health care spending and know

that anywhere, any where i could buy a band-aid or an aspirin for one one-hundredth of the cost that i am going to get in a. it does not make any sense whatsoever, and there are so many areas i want to focus on it that low lane for it because i think that many of these program issues are in the eyes of the beholder and create, i think, interesting debates that prevent us all too often from dealing with these decisions and deasy responsibilities by congress and the administration and listening to recommendations. i would give you an example. some may think that tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires are necessary. as clearly feel that extend emergency unemployment insurance is wasteful. we will continue to debate those programs. i can give you another example based upon some of the testimony today. i come from a state where we don't have a sunset clause but

have done some on some legislation. because of the political climate, that particular issue or program base to be reauthorize, does not command the spend wasteful money on a special session trying to get addressed. so it depends on what is happening. it is a case by case basis, but we are not doing anything on that low hanging fruit. i need you to grade s on congress. i have been here only a year on adopting sensible, good government reforms, outlining your reports every year. how are we doing a picking up on that line anchored? a to f. >> not so low. >> that's about half. >> that will be enough. although, as i mentioned, the bill which has come out of this committee would be very helpful to improving procurement. so that would be a positive step. unfortunately the senate so far has not agree to it. >> that the congress is doing poorly and cutting waste.

one of the big problems, as you know, the government is so vast that there could be 80 percent agreement of bipartisan on a lot of these issues, but members simply don't have time to dig in and let them. think there could be a lot more agreement if restructured, restructure the way congress works and how so that members can actually focus on some of these issues. there could be more agreement is often times members reflexively don't want to get involved in certain issues. i don't know how to overcome that problem, but there could be more agreement if there is more understanding. >> i would say congress is doing poorly as well. the problem with eliminating waste has just been touched on a little bit. no matter how wasteful, ridiculous, unnecessary, duplicative a program is come and we can all agree upon that here, there is somebody is benefiting from that. navy engineer in terms are disingenuous terms, but some was benefiting from it.

and as people will vote -- their will fight tooth and nail to keep the program on the books which makes it tougher for congress. >> i agree with mr. arnold's statement. ..