because we don't have a permanent director. now we don't have a permanent ig, well, that's fine. i have a difficult time looking at it both ways especially with areas with the usaid forward program that's transitioning dollars even farther away from us. one other quick thought on it. i had a real concern on the transition of the department of the interior ig. >> yes. >> that a month into the administration that goes vacant. we'll dealing with the bp oil spill, we're dealing with brand-new riggss on fracking. we're dealing with bureau of land management. we're dealing with some very controversial issues on how we handle the future of energy with the department of interior, and we have no permanent ig there. do you know when there's going to be a proposal for a watchdog in an organization that much of our energy future is dependant on what's in this entity? >> again, i'm not involved in that process, so i have no details. >> okay. with that, i'd like to yield.

>> thank you, mr. werfel, and i yield myself. the remainder of the time here for some questions. how long have you been in your position? >> i was confirmed by the senate on october 13, 2009, to be the controller at omb. >> so you've been there since the beginning of the obama administration? >> yes. and prior to that i served as a civil servant within omb as the deputy and acting controller. and i started my career at omb in 1997. >> and who do you report to? >> jeff zients.

>> what is his position? >> he is the deputy position and currently the acting director. >> but he is in an acting position? >> that is correct. >> very frustrated with this administration in particular. we had former chairman burton just a few minutes ago, and led this committee. i've been on it since i came to congress. now, i guess, 19 going on 20 years. been through all kinds of administrations. republican and democrat. i do have to say this is the most difficult one we've ever had to deal with. the stonewalling is a great new art form with these folks. i chair the transportation infrastructure committee, and we have six subcommittees with broad jurisdiction. d.o.t., faa, gsa, which has been

on the news day and night. tsa isn't under our jurisdiction, but, legislatively, but we conduct oversight there, too. the other thing, too, is, with the czars and these, some of these positions that aren't approved, it's made it doubly difficult to -- to obtain information. we, you know, our side is -- the founding fathers wanted it this way. they wanted oversight. actually, the founding fathers back in 1808 created this committee, the predecessor to this committee. it's an interesting history, because they didn't trust the appropriators and didn't trust the authorizers who created the programs. they wanted someone else to investigate, make certain that things were right. you have an important role, too, in making certain that there's proper financial management. is that correct? >> yes that is my role. i coordinate financial

management policy across the country. >> and since they don't cooperate and they stonewall us, it's been almost um possible to get information. the only recourse we've had is going to the inspector generals, and now i see when we have ten vacancies and some of them, i guess there's four of them that might make some progress, i see why you wouldn't want to have permanent people in place who are getting information that could possibly be passed on to congress. doesn't that sound like a pattern of further impediment to the process? because i -- i've got two investigators here that i've sent out trying to get information. i've only been chairman for 14 months. i've never -- i mean, mr. burton and i, we did whitewater. we did waco. we did travelgate, we did every hearing you could possibly think of on this committee, because this is an important investigative committee of

congress, but never before have i ever seen an administration that not only will not give you the information -- we have demanded time and time -- i could give you copies in the last 14 months trying to get information. the gsa fiasco we did the very first hearing in an empty building that sat empty two blocks from the white house, asked for information about their administrative expenditures. mr. denham, my subcommittee chairman and i demanded it at every public hearing and in writing, information. then when -- the only way these people got caught was through the ig, and of course, we had mr. miller, the ig, and i wonder a little bit about that, because when they held this outrageous gsa held the outrageous lavish

taxpayer funded fiasco in las vegas, it was reported by a former staffer of our committee that this was going on. the ig began an investigation. this occurred in october of 2010. it was reported to the ig in november. mr. miller are went to work in may. he finished the report. he briefed gsa. and other administration officials. in june he briefed kimberly harris, counsel with the white house. do you know kimberly harris? >> i know kimberly harris but i'm not aware of the particular communication. >> that's another thing. i'm wondering in this flow. your job is financial management and proving this. and did the igs report back to you? are you informed when there's waste, inefficiency, corruption, or any of the above? >> as a general manner, i review

ig reports. >> did you review the ig report for gsa? >> i have read the ig report. >> did you -- did mr. miller bring it to you, also, in may or in june of last year? >> no, he did not. >> he did not. so it went to kimberly harris, is what the information we got. then nothing was done with it. we didn't see it. it was never given to us. now i know why they only wanted to give us one line. they gave us one line that was their total administrative cost. now, of course, we're not the brightest people in the world, but we figured out, if you are spending 300% more in 2 1/2 years, now that would be a financial management issue. wouldn't it be, mr. werfel, if you saw that, increase in administrative expenditures? >> i would -- >> it would light up a few lights. if it doesn't, then there's something wrong. >> no, no, absolutely.

>> somebody doesn't have their lights on up here. but we're supposed to be protecting the taxpayers. you are and omb and your position of financial management. so one there is something wrong if you know this person and you're not getting the information. there's something wrong here. if first of all -- thank god we had miller there. now, miller never turned anything over to us. it took the whistle-blower, our former employee, to go to him to miller again. did it not? are you aware that she went back to miller and asked, when -- after the guy snubbed his nose, held a convention, the investigation was done. plenty of time to do an investigation from -- we had from november to may. adequate time to do an investigation on the funny business in las vegas. i think that was enough time. they informed the gsa administrator at the time and other officials. they never let us know. we kept asking questions. show us what's going on, to warrant these expenses.

then only because of this is outrageous actor, a senior executive employee, thumbs his nose at everybody. he decides to do what is it, a 17-day south pacific vacation, napa valley. he picked the best locales. so he's off there, and she blows the whistle again. and so miller does his investigation. this is with an ig in place. i'm not talking about how many agencies that don't have an ig in place. folks, can you imagine what it's like out there when there's nobody minding the store? this is a very, very serious business. and, you know i think we need to even look at the law in making certain -- >> would the gentleman yield? >> no. not right now. i'm on a roll. but a little later. >> well, mr. chairman, i know you're on a roll, but -- >> no. >> we're still operating under the five-minute rule here.

are we not? >> no. not right now. did i say -- suddenly set the clock? i'm not sure. >> you're clocking in at 8:50. mr. chairman. >> i'm on a second round. i just granted a second round. i'll grant you the same, sir. >> i don't mean to interrupt. but i wanted to make a point. >> i'm trying to make some points here and i could get members to yield time. we can go through that routine and i'll be glad to extend the courtesy to you or any democrat members, because i think it's fair. and i'm not trying to harass him, but i'm just trying to make a point here. again, this is very difficult for us to get information, even when there is an ig is my whole point, and mr. miller was then asked again to investigate more of this funny business was reported, and the only way we found out about it was, what, about a month ago when that report did become public, but i think -- don't you think, mr. werfel that you should, or

somebody at omb should have their lights turned on when these reports are done? if you're in charge of financial management, which you are, and i don't care whether the president obama, president bush, republican or democrat, that's not the issue here. the issue is, something's not working. and i just sent these guys down to texas. stonewalled again by tsa, and the only way we found out was through a whistle-blower. the agencies give us information, and i sent the igs down there and if it wasn't for some of those guys intervening, and then this committee intervening, they told us they had 2800 pieces of equipment. turned out they had 5,700. they told us they were taking care of the situation. yeah, as our investigators are going in the front door, they're moving stuff out the back door, giving us a bogus report. so the inspector general in every administration in this

committee play an important role, and i would -- i think -- i want you to report back to the committee or omb and let us know. would it be helpful? should we put in the law that obviously, we're not clicking here. i go back and people say, how can you let this go on? well, it's very hard for me to explain. i'm trying to get the information. i can't get the information. there's no igs in place to even help us. so you see the frustration and we've got to do a better job. we've got to restore faith in this whole system. i mean, just in the last few weeks, my goodness, people just have to, have lost faith in government. do you see my point, mr. werfel? again, i hope we can make something positive out of this hearing. if you need additional help to move these along, anything we can do, i'll be glad to do.

>> mr. connolly did you seek recognition? mr. connolly's recognized for 11 minutes. >> i promise, mr. chairman, i won't take that long and i thank you. i simply -- well, first of all, let me ask you, mr. werfel, you're in omb. did the administration increase the budget for inspector generals? >> what's gone on -- in some cases yes. for example i mentioned earlier the state department inspector general budget has gone from roughly $59 million in 2011 to $66 million in 2013. >> just looking at the global figure? >> well, globally, it has increased. it certainly hasn't decreased in any meaningful way. we're at $2.6 billion for igs in 2011. $2.7 billion for igs in 2012 and roughly $2.7 billion is in the president's budget for 2015.

i think that's notable given that in just about every other area we're seeing significant cuts in discretionary programs. and there is clearly evidence of ensuring that the cuts are not hitting the igs. >> i would simply point out and then my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about government costing too much, but there are some investments that have a return on them. for example we know that the additional resources being proposed for ig offices have a return on them. do they not? >> absolutely. absolutely. >> recoverable funds in lost -- i mean, in increased efficiency and in certainly uncovering waste, fraud and abuse? >> yeah. and we saw statistics earlier in the hearing that pointed to particular savings and accomplishments. >> would that not also be true, for example, of the general accounting office? >> yes. the government accountability

office certainly has that type of impact in terms of having a positive -- >> this committee received testimony that as a matter of fact the ratio goes as high as $91 for every new $1 invested in gao in terms of recoverable amounts of money, and yet we had gao testify here that in terms of overall size, gao is down to a level that we haven't seen since 1935. and then a third agency i could cite, irs. there's something like $400 billion of owed taxes on the table, not new taxes. not slashing investments. money that's ours. that's owed the american people, that is simply not collected for want of resources. we know that every dollar we invest in a new irs agent has a direct return. is that not true, mr. werfel? >> we have evidence of particular activities within the irs who have a clear, positive return on investment.

>> so it puzzles me sometimes that despite our rhetoric about wanting to reduce the debt, wanting to make sure that we get government right-sized we're not willing to make the investments sometimes in proven entities that can recover either lost revenue or avoid inefficiencies and improper payments. you've testified before us many times, for example, on the improper payment issue. very little pain associated with that, huge payoff. final point i want to make is, and then i will yield back, mr. chairman, but the chairman talked about gsa. i do not share the clarity of the chairman about some of the conversations he cited with respect to the white house. mr. miller, passing reference have you seen an ig report or the ig report, hardly means or is to be construed as recognition that full knowledge

was made available, but i will point out, we had the ig from gsa here. we had the outgoing administrator who resigned as a matter of honor after firing two deputies and putting a lot of other people on probation. and -- but the testimony we heard from the ig of gsa was that he didn't uncover this -- this excess. susan brita, the deputy to the administrator martha johnson uncovered it. she's the one who referred it to the ig. and i asked in questioning here. the ig has been there since 2005, in place. heard no evil, saw no evil, smelled no evil, found no evil, even though we know that this excessive celebration event preceded this administration and continued in this administration. but it wasn't the ig, with 300

personnel at his command, he didn't find this at all. only when the administrative staff referred it to him and then it took him nine months to come up with a report that frankly, i think almost anyone even on this panel could have written in half the time. so, yeah. having an ig is important, but i don't know that the ig is entirely the heroic figure, as is sometimes painted in this particular case. i think this -- if he was doing his job he could have uncovered this years before and maybe avoided the embarrassment of the situation. in any event, it was the appointed administrator and her staff that uncovered that excess, referred it properly to him, and he was able to investigate that. is that your understanding of that as well, mr. werfel? >> i wouldn't call myself an expert on all the moving pieces, but it is my understanding that

in this particular case, the deputy administrator referred the issue for fur ig investigation. if i could, i just want to make a broader comment about omb's role in inspector general reports in response to your questions and congress mica's. we take ig findings and their reports extremely seriously. in particular, those that affect financial management. we work with other federal agencies. part of our role is to bring for example, chief financial officers and other members of the community together to understand what is going on in ig reports across government. what we can learn from them. the gsa report is no different. we need to understand better what happened so we can prevent it from happening again, and we need to explore with the broader community what steps we can take to fix the issue and make government better going forward. that's the basic role that omb has with respect to ig reports and i think it's a very critical one and one we have fostered a very strong relationship with

ms. fong and other igs around that shared mission of better government. >> thank you very much, and mr. chairman, i thank you for the time. >> well, thank you, and i do want to try to conclude the hearing today, but i did, again, have this information that was provided on our witness, that says danny werfel is the controller of the office of federal financial management. within the office of management budget he is responsible for coordinating omb's efforts to initiate government-wide improvements in all areas of financial management. when -- and again i use the gsa example, and we did, in fact, have a former staffer who works at gsa, blow the whistle. a, an investigation was conducted, and properly so.

a report -- that started in november after the -- well, after the october incident in 2010. in may, gsa and others were informed. administrators. we had the witnesses here. nothing was done. in june, the white house was advised. you said you knew the counsel, but didn't know the incident or didn't read the report. my whole point is here, was, this -- these were very serious allegations of abusive use of taxpayer dollars. okay. so it's reported, nothing's done. the guy takes off and launches another wasteful scenario. and susan brita again blows the

whistle, and the inspector general begins an investigation. but somehow all of the cylinders don't seem to be clicking, and you say -- you just got through testifying to the gentleman from virginia that you get these reports, and they're taken seriously. my questioning was, do we require -- is this required? maybe we should require that this goes to omb and to you all. i guess you're just doing this as a matter of course? what i'm trying to do is get things to click so that some action is taken. that had the potential i think even at that stage for some criminal referrals. i don't know all the details on it, but, please, when it comes to financial initiating government-wide improvements of all areas of financial management, you've got an agency spending money like that, it raises question. and that, my point was with, and then inspector general in place.

but here we've got other agencies. at least a half a dozen, and we have some with 1,000 days. that's three years, nearly three, four years, four years, the state department, huge operations without somebody in charge on a permanent basis. i deal with acting administrators, and i'm telling you, it's difficult. i've got one right now on faa. i've got a tough situation there. so my point is not to give you a hard time. maybe a little bit. but -- but to see how we can improve this whole process. make certain you have the tools. i have no problem with giving you additional funds, and it was testified you're going from $26 billion to $27 billion. that's fine. you have a good rate of return when you're doing your job.

it's an $18 return on $1 spent, i believe. so i could double the money if i could get more benefits back and better management, cut the debt and spending for the taxpayer. so that's my point today, and this we do have an important responsibility here, because sometimes the authorizers don't get it right. sometimes the appropriators just spend money and don't get it right. where that third entity that the founding fathers to make certain -- you look at other governments. they have somewhat of a similar structure, but none have, again, this filter like our committee that keeps going after waste, fraud, and abuse, which is so important in keeping the system straight and making it work better and more efficiently.

so with that commentary, i thank you for your participation. i would like you to also provide the committee with additional information. we'll be sending you writ questions and i wish you would respond. are we leaving the record open here? okay. so the record will be left open for additional comments and response. with that being said, and i see no further members here, the house government reform and oversight committee will stand adjourned, and i thank our witnesses for taking time to appear before us today. this committee stands adjourned.

coming up in a moment on c-span 3, we'll hear from richard mourdock. he defeated dick luger in tuesday's gop primary. after that political advisers karl rove and joe tripi. and later paul volcker testifies about financial regulations. you know, i had my ambition to walk where john smith and pocahontas walked. i got to pocahontas. this makes a rectangular space that would be the chancel. pocahantas marries john rolf in this church in 1614. so i guarantee you i'm standing exactly a little deeper than she was, but this is where pocahantas stood when she got married. thinking saturday on american history tv, tour the jamestown colony dig with project director william kelso. since 1964, the discovery of the colony has yielded more than 1.5

million unique artifacts. visit the rediscovery lab at 2:00 with the senior curator. and join in the conversation answering your questions. live saturday at 2:30 p.m. eastern. part of american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. these men go through things and have scars that no one can understand expect each other. >> the first thing that startled us was the relationship between harry truman and herbert hoover who were two such personally and politically different men, and who ended up forming this alliance that neither of them would have anticipated, and ended up being enormously productive and formed the foundation of what became a very deep friendship. the letters between them later in their lives about how important they had become to one another are really extraordinary. >> it may be the most exclusive club in the world. co-authors michael duffy and nancy gibbs on the private and

public relationships of the the american presidents. from truman and hoover to george h.b. bush and bill clinton. sunday at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. six-term senator richard lugar of indiana was defeated in the gop state primary on tuesday. mr. mourdock joined us on c-span's washington journal for 30 minutes. >> well joining us on the panel is richard mourdock, who knocked off richard lugar in the primary on tuesday. mr. mourdock, thank you for being with us. if we could, let's start with what we were talking about with our audience a little earlier this morning. and that's president obama's statement endorsing gay marriage yesterday. i want to get your reaction to that. >> i was surprised me made it. as i traveled the state of indiana in the last 15 months,

i've not heard the issue come up i don't think more than twice. and clearly in a state like indiana that is very conservative, that the president won in 2008. it will certainly work to his disadvantage here, and i see that happening in the other so-called critical swing states. i think that's going to be more of a negative than a plus for the president. >> what about your personal view? if it comes before the senate, what would your personal view be? >> well, i am one who believes that marriage should be one man, one woman. i have watched here in indiana as i think. i think 36 other states have passed the so-called gay marriage ban amendments. it's happened here in indiana. i appreciate that a lot of states are picking this up as a statewide issue. to me it's a fascinating issue in so many states are trying to preemptively act ahead of what