>> well, i'm not exactly sure what led to the discrepancy in the data between us and opm. >> reporter: a gsa spokeswoman blamed it on the office of personnel management. opm said it purposely redacted some bonuses because of privacy policies. >> what i'm interested in, what's the right number? what are the policies that we have? and how do we fix the problems? that's what we've been trying to do for the last five months and i think we've been making progress. >> he's got more to say. tonight at 11:00 we're airing his response to mystery illnesses and sick and dead workers that we uncovered at a gsa building and his reaction to the quarter million dollars gsa pr campaign launched in response to one of my investigations there. he's a leader that has a lot of street cred here in washington and you can see why in that interview. i was expecting a confrontational interview with this leader who i've been trying to get for so many months, but this is an intelligent man who has charm on his sleeve and, you know, he's wanting to get that message across that, he's there to fix problems. >> we c

and the answer was that opm did not.when we further examined this, it looked like gsa circumvented the rule by giving multiple awards smaller than $10,000 rather than one-time awards that were $10,000 or more. so my first question is, do you believe that giving multiple awards that eventually totaled $10,000 for the fiscal year circumvents the opm approval process? >> i certainly don't believe it's in the spirit of what was intended by the opm approval process and i would want to point out there's one exception that is a significant one. ses performance award in excess of $10,000 to not require opm approval so putting aside that

we went to opm and we asked, did opm receive any requests from gsa to approve for any of these one or 59 employees the awards totaled $10,000 or more? and the answer was that opm did not. when we further examined this, it looked like gsa circumvent the rule -- circumvented the rule by giving multiple of towards smaller than $10,000, rather than one time awards that were $10,000 or more. so my first question is, do you believe that giving multiple towards that eventually totaled $10,000 in fiscal year circumvents the opm approval process? >> i certainly don't believe it's in the spirit of what was intended by the opm approval process. i would want to point out there is one exception, a pretty significant one. ses performance awards in excess of $10,000 do not require opm approval. so putting aside that, which is a pretty sizable group of that number, but also another area that we have identified as being in need of some substantial review and that's why we cut the scs bonus budget eyed 85%. but in our top to bottom review we also identified that there are 15 different award categories

get the opm, other people's money. >> you can throw it out there on social media. nothing gained, nothing lost. >> twitter may not be the right place to go. understanding the context of where his customers or partners are, go to them. twitter, facebook, are great sources but not the only thing. think about that before laying out the cash. >> old school. he needs to hang around engineers, home builders and other folkings in construction. there's lots of chapters, the architects, engineers, they have local chapters. >> networking, like you said before. let's move on to the next question. this is about networking. >> when you enter the room at an event, how do you present yourself, what brand do you present? how do you present your company? how do you describe what you do for for company? >> how do you get yourself to be likable? >> think about what the brand is. it's nothing but what you put on a cow. it's where the word came from. it's more, it's a promise delivered. have the elevator pitch down so you can speak to it. how do you look? the way you represent yourself

get other people's money, opm, other people's money working for you. >> dave?> i think you did a fantastic job, as well. i know my wife is going to be watching and want me to bring home the tunic. in addition to what jeffrey said in terms of marketing, what i would have loved to hear more about is distribution. how you get beyond 40 stores and what the plans are to take it out. whether it's going to be something that you wanted to stay in boutiques, whether you want to spread it out to mass production. >> would you take another meeting? >> absolutely. >> jeffrey? >> i'd take another meeting but want to know more about how you'll use the money. >> great. shirn, good luck. carmen, you were a great model. >> thank you. >> and thank you guys for everything. >>> and if any of you out there is a product or service and you want feedback fromur "elevator pitch" panel on your chances of getting interested investors, send us an e-mail. >>> time answer some of your business questions. jeffrey and david are with us again. the first one is a question about the best way to m

opm has a process that says each agency may authorize up to $10,000. it then says awards over $10,000 are quite rare, and that if an employee's performance is significant enough to warrant a cash reward of over $10,000, the agency must submit a request to opm. opm to ask if it was approved for any be a police the award -- the employees that total $10,000 or more. the answer was they did not. when we further examined this, it looked like gsa circumvented rules by giving the multiple awards problem than $10,000, rather than one time awards that were $10,000 or more. my first question is do you believe giving multiple awards that eventually total $10,000 in the fiscal year circumvents the opm approval process? >> i do not believe it was in the spirit of the approval process. there is one exception. performance awards in excess of $10,000 did not require approval. putting aside that, which is a pretty sizable group of that number, but also another area we have identified as being in need of substantial review, and that is why we cut the ses bonus budget by

the answer is that opm did not. would may further examine this.l looks like tsa circumvented the rules by giving multiple awards smaller than 10,000 rather than one time awards the average 10,000 are more. do believe that giving multiple words that eventually totaled 10,000 circumvent the opm approval process? >> gettelfinger that was in the spirit. one exception is that awards do not require that approval. that is the pretty sizable group but another area we have identified in need of substantial review is cutting the budget by 85%. we also identified 16 different award categories. because we did not have the accountability list difficult for people to get these awards at some level. i will not tried to explain or defend but we're building structures preventing that from happening because we're reminding folks the initial compensation is to pay them for doing the work and rewards should be reserved for exemplary service that is completely each justifiable. >> you are correct there is the exemption but our initial analysis is the 159 employees is

, roflfamo. >> it's opm. >> other people's money. >> michelle caruso-cabrera you've been listening onwhat's been interesting is a lot of inflation is due to what's coming from oil as well, talked about rates. >> michelle said wtf, winning the future. >> i did say that inflation is expected to stay above 2% in part because of the energy situation. i would just add to what steve was saying, what we're going to look for, for clarity, he said fully backed stopped. what does that mean? how much money does that mean and also if they're going to start purchasing government debt again, where are they going to be in terms of seniority? remember the greek investors who bought greek debt lost money, but the ecb did not, and that could become problematic, and self-defeating if suddenly they start buying a lot of debt and people think wait a minute if spain does ultimately restructure and i'm below the ecb i'll lose even more so it could be disincentive to buy. i'll sure we'll get questions about that. >> part of the expectation leading into this, michelle, part of the reports leading into this is

occupy the government ever since then did the point is, you have to stop the opm mindset.y. you ought to see where your money goes. they ought to pass a budget. that is the first line of accountability when it comes to a taxpayer dollars. [applause] >> congratulations on accepting the nomination. i have a question concerning the federal reserve. but can mitt romney do and what can paul ryan do to stop qe1, qe 2, and devaluing our dollars? [applause] >> i hate to say it but -- quantitative easing, the federal government creating money and buying our own bonds with debt -- which dilutes our currency at the end of the day. what it is is our central bank tried to make up for a failed fiscal policy. they are trying to bailout the fact the president has been led -- and may have horrible economic policy coming from our regulations and tax policy. the are trying to bail it out and that is not the job of the federal reserve. today and tomorrow, the cost the federal open market committee. they are going to be discussing whether they do more of this money creation. what it is is the

investment, the agencies, for example the civil service retirement and disability funds, would be -- opmld be sending in what they were requesting to have happened with those investments, even though they will not invested. that way the treasury can track what would have happened and reimburse the fund. host: another extraordinary actions taken by the treasury department was disinvestment of security in the postal benefits fund. we are talking with the gao opera who did the study about the 2011 debt ceiling fight, costing the treasury being $1 billion. a preview of what's to come as congress will again debate whether or not to raise the debt ceiling this fall. on the democratic line, marcus is calling from new york. caller: yes. my statement really is not to the debt ceiling button and taxes. taxes -- i don't know how to -- taxes are designed to help the public. we give billions of dollars to oil companies who pump poisons in our air, but they are making trillions of dollars. then they lobby washington with even more our money. -- taxes don't help the people. host: tie this to our story.

is in excess of $25,000, which many of these awards were that we've reviewed, that the directer of opm reviews the nomination, and the president's approval is actually required. my point is that it's not as if there are not systems in place to try to put a check on excessive awards to individuals who have not warranted that kind of recognition, but it sure looks to me like, gsa ignored those checks and circumvented safeguards in order to give extruer their awards to many, many employees, and in many, not all, and i want to be clear on that, but in many cases, the awards do not seem to have been justified. would you agree with that based on your review so far? >> based on our review, i think our actions speak to the p analysis, the fact that we caught the budgets of the awards by 85%, and said back to our folks that, listen, this is going to be something you get for really special exemplary justifiable acts that, frankly, the test is going to be, can i explain it at a senate hearing? >> that's always a good test. [laughter] thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator collins. senator