there's a lot going on from the gao perspective.it needs to be better organized and better focused. we cannot spite all of them all the time so that's very important and then assessments will yield also additional actions that may be required, i think mister alexander mentioned the presidents budget request outlining i think 17 or so programs or activities that would certainly come into the next. but a comprehensive forward-looking strategy is imperative to make sure that fraud risks are identified and managed at the most effective level possible. >> are you describing what i would like to call bad apples? engaging in something in georgia , legal to florida or some other state and are we doing the same thing? >> yes congressman, we are and only the eight or so weeks that we've run this new coordination process, we are seeing emerging risks that are both geographically disparate and tied together so we are seeing through what we call link analysis that behavior over your problematic is also showing itself here and through this proces

host: is the power in the tell an to, can gao stop spending money a certain way? guest: i wish we had enforcement authority, but we do not have direct enforcement authority, but fortunately for us the power of what we have, over time, close to 80% of our recommendations are implemented, so the authority we have is through the quality of the work that we do and in the gao we were closely with congress and getting action on our recommendations, whether they be actions for those agencies or legislative actions that need to take place. ofend up saving tens billions of dollars each year in the american people, thousands of other benefits like management improvements within agencies, so we are a good return on investment. host: if you want to join the conversation, lines for democrats, republicans and independents. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. christopher mihm will be with us until the bottom of the hour. this chart shows the three biggest drivers of long-term fiscal spending, health care, social security, interest on t

in 1998, one of its students, gao yan, committed suicide. her friends and family said she took her life because she had been raped by her professor. he got off with a warning and was allowed to go on teaching. inspired by china's fledgling #metoo movement, a student posted an open letter calling for the e university to discloe details of its investigation into gao's suicide. she was promptly put under house arrest and told she was risking her university degree. manyny other studentnts expred solilidarity. the notice was quickly removed. a stain on the image of china's most famous university. also in beijing, #metoo in action. feminists have brought attention to renee's case. her ex-boyfriend tried to rape her in the underground garage of another university. she went to the police, but they were unwillingng to launch an investigation. the university even put pressure on renee's parents, so she wouldn't go public. renee: my father said to me, come home and listen to your university, otherwise they'll expel you. i asked him, why should they exp

i know i think we're going to do some more gao related subjects but often we would go let's get the gao to do this, because they were of course an arm of congress, and the ig's were in the executive branch. i think that clarity of that is really, really important as congress looks at things that need to be investigated. i would just end by saying i'm a big advocate of article one is the congress, not the executive branch. the founding fathers were very clear on that. so congress isn't doing its oversight work carefully and thoughtfully, it is not doing the job the founding fathers wanted them to do. >> i was, and a true the other panelists feel similarly, incredibly impressed by the congressional staffers we had come in and talk to us about their understanding of the kinds of things that dan just mentioned, the interface between ig's, gao, et cetera. my experience is that while you absolutely have particular congressional staff who are expert plus in these kinds of activities, and i think the report indicates there is a need to more broadly educate the congressional staff. so they can h

snap is subject to many audits and gao oversight reports, but it is one of the most effective federal programs we have with one of the lowest fraud and error rates. compare that to the pentagon and all the waste and abuse and the cost overruns in the pentagon. the fact of the matter is snap works. by the way, the average benefit is about $1.40 per person per meal. people can't live on that. that is why food banks will tell you in the middle of the month they are inundated with people because they have run out of money to buy groceries for their families. this is an effectively run program. it is constantly being reviewed. it has a very low error rate. even this administration will concede that. it is quite frankly underfunded. -- i't know how people can think the benefits are too low. we should be talking about expanding the program and making it better. this is the united states of america. we are the richest country in the history of the world. we have over 40 million people who were food insecure or hungry. i am ashamed of that fact. we ought to be able to do better. i wish we woul

you talked but the gao, i think the ftc, i don't know whatnot, the ig. the -- so, have you referred these violations to a law enforcement agency? that's what i'd like to know, yes or no. >> we have consulted -- >> no, no no. referred, to referred to? for examination, asking for an examination of it. >> it's not our role toes a mr. title 18. >>> that's the department of justice issue. >> i don't think you want to answer the question. don't want to let gait it with you. just want aey or no. >> it's simple to to the end at the wave jurisdiction we have worked with-the-of inspector general -- >> i think i know what you're, quote, answer is. i want to get to something and i don't have much time, and probably is going to be more of a statement than anything else. it's been said that we have 24 million americans that either have no broadband service or very slow broadband service in the country. shame on all of us. is there a five-year plan at the fcc on this? some of it may belong in the private seconder, some of it you need authority from the congress and our

that's why i, along with my good friend peter roscum, chairman of the health subcommittee, have asked gao to look at how these reports are developed and why they are almost always late. since we do not have public trustees, gaos' work can be looked into what changes need to be made to improve the process. congress must be able to count on these reports and have them available so it can do what it takes to fix social security. previously i introduced my plan to fix social security permanently. my good friend from connecticut, mr. larson, also has a plan that would fix social security permanently. our plans are very different, but we both agree that we need to act and act now to fix social security for good. workers and their families deserve the certainty that we've gotten social security on the right track. i know that fixing social security will require more tough choices that will affect the lives of millions of americans. congress has a responsibility to the american people to make these choices. and the longer we wait, the harder it gets. if we wait until the trust funds are exhausted

so i asked our gao at the time, the general accounting office, what do you estimate the amount of money that we save by actually investing in prevention of soft power and they came back with a number that for every dollar you spend on prevention which i would consider hiv/aids pepfar money as a prevention of the instability issue, every dollar you spend on prevention you save $10 in response, in other words, for every dollar you spend on prevention you save $10 in military spending. now, we should have more of those stories because that's exactly what's happening to us. even if you are the most heartless person in the world and don't care about human kind or other people -- by the way, if you -- >>> we will leave this here and go live to the south lawn of the white house where president trump is about to make remarks on the economy. live coverage on c-span 3. >>> good morning. moments ago the numbers for america's economic growth on gdp were just released. and i am thrilled to announce that in the second quarter of this year the united states economy grew at the amazing rate of 4.1%. we

to question now the gao? >> well, but what i will say is that, you know, we are continuing to provide significant capital for nisha. >> zero capital. you requested zero capital. you cannot have it both ways. >> the time -- time of the lady has sxierd. the chair now recognizes chairman of our capital market subcommittee. >> dr. carson, good to see you. i'm up over here. so we've got -- i have a lot of ground i want to cover here quickly. first and foremost, i know that you were in michigan recently in your home town of detroit. >> yes. >> and i wanted you to maybe touch on the envision centers that you had discussed and, in fact, there was a great quote from mayor duggen from detroit who said "envision centers are about bringing services to people and neighborhoods and i'm thankful that our partners at hud chose to open the first one this the country. the center will make the first of these services and facility to serve the community". so i would love to hear a little bit about the envision centers and the tr

now the gao? >> well, what i will say is that we are continuing to provide significant capital for the dish. >> zero capital, sir. you requested zero capitol. now cannot have it both ways. >> time talk doing. >> time of the gentle lady has expired. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from michigan, chairman of our capital market subcommittee. >> -- good to see you up over here. so, we have -- i a lot of ground i want to cover here quickly. first and for most, i know that you were in michigan recently you home town of detroit, and wanted to you to maybe touch on the envision centers that you had discussed and in fact there was a great quote from mayor duggan from do it who added, said, quote, envision centers are about bringing services to people in neighborhood and i am thankful or partners at hud choice detroit to open the fir one. these centers with mailing the most of facilities to serve the community. love to hear about the envision centers and the trip and then maybe if you can touch on op

host: is the power in the tell an to, can gao stop spending money a certain way?i wish we had enforcement authority, but we do not have direct enforcement authority, but fortunately for us the power of what we have, over time, close to 80% of our recommendations are implemented, so the authority we have is through the quality of the work that we do and in the gao we were closely with congress and getting action on our recommendations, whether they be actions for those agencies or legislative actions that need to take place. ofend up saving tens billions of dollars each year in the american people, thousands of other benefits like management improvements within agencies, so we are a good return on investment. host: if you want to join the conversation, lines for democrats, republicans and independents. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. christopher mihm will be with us until the bottom of the hour. this chart shows the three biggest drivers of long-term fiscal spending, health care, social security, interest on the debt.

've called for two studies one from gao to try to look at the size of this work force. that study indicated there was frankly not much growth in this field. i'll accept that data. i don't think it was fully omplete enough but i've seen estimates from government and that is mental sources receiving some income from contingent work. how do we think about tax think about on and contractpt of a social we've to the to have flexibility side tax administration as well. good faith effort, ended up those have no negative publicity and upgrades. it's been on patches of legacy systems and we can bet into questions of how could we create a technology enabled modern tax system and say, we need to jump our legacy systems have that stucks. proud to call myself part of the administration nerd caucus as well >> you've always been a member of that caucus and your points and talk about is economy where people and that is conduit for the irs. it.re going to get into nelson, mr. john staff, current chair of the advisory committee advising of the irs and there is rebecca theson, project dire

the troops are said to have been attacked by a car bomb while on patrol in the city of gao.are stationed in the sahel to help in the fight against islamist extremists. police in india say more than 30 people have been killed when their bus fell into a gorge. the accident happened in the himalayan state of uttarakhand. at least three people have been taken to hospital with injuries. a suicide bomb attack in the eastern afghan city of jalalabad has killed at least 19 people. most of them were members of the country's sikh minority — including the only sikh candidate in the parliamentary elections due in october. they'd all turned out to welcome the afghan president, ashraf ghani, who had visited the city hours earlier. reports suggest that german chancellor angela merkel‘s interior minister — whose opposition to her migration policy threatens to destroy her coalition government — is not willing to accept the eu plan she and other european leaders proposed this week. horst seehofer, who leads mrs merkel‘s bavarian sister party, is meeting senior members of the csu to discuss th

>> we have been working with the office of inspector general and gao and also to announce recently thatthey would be changing the process to ensure the issues that arose last time like 7.5 million comments supporting tile to like fake meal generator or those from a single address have happened and we are exploring the use of other solutions assuming we get authorization from committees to reprogram those. >> i'm still waiting for a response on the comments to request memoranda from the comment system requesting these documents and hope that you will provide them sometime soon. >> to follow up on my response earlier we are working with inspector general was doing a fantastic job so stay to be will be issuing information we also have consultation with general counsel and guarding those certain types of information you are seeking. >> there are steps you are taking now to prevent comments from being filed to impact your proceedings? >> yes we are exploring in consultation with career staff and the directorate others the solution that is a very similar mechanism to ensure the integrity of o

>> the gao report is due out the morning of nixon's renomination. >> sit down. only responsible to congress, there's no way the white house can control the investigation. >> there's a source at general accounting that tells us there's a whole rat's nefts of illegal -- going on over at creep. >> like what? >> like a slush fund. >> hundreds of thousands of dollars of unaccounted for cash. >> hundreds of thousands? >> yes. >> unavailable for comment. they're not talking. >> besides the money, where's the story? >> the money is the key to whatever this is. >> says who? >> deep throat. >> who? >> oh, that's woodward's garage freak. his source in the executive. >> garage freak? what kind of a crazy story is this? who did you say? >> he's on deep background. i call him deep throat. >> look, mcgovern's dropped to nothing. nixon's guaranteed the renomination. the post is stuck with the story no one else wants. it will sink the paper. everyone says get off it, ben, and i come on very sage and say, well, you'll see. wait until this bottoms out. but the truth is, i can't fi

but i wanted to go behind funds, like aspect ventures that is run gao, and womenresa who are lookingportunities and they have a thesis around, my gosh, there are so many opportunities there. if we go towards funding some of these women's businesses. emily: you mentioned that you care about returns. you are not doing this to have an impact. or it is not a handout , certainly. some lp's have said to me, all we care about is returns. some of the best investors may not be the best people, but they have the best returns. what do you have to say to those people? melinda: i have to say you are investing in what you know. you need to look at what trends are coming in the nation and how you're going to address them. women are 85% of consumer dollar spent. women control 70% of financial decisions in the house. if you are not investing in products that go towards females or women-led companies, you are missing an opportunity. because you just don't see it. and i would say the same thing about underrepresented minorities. because after about 2044, this country, what we think of minorities today,

but i wanted to go behind funds, like aspect ventures that is run by teresa gao, and women who are lookingportunities and they have a thesis around, my gosh, there are so many opportunities there. if we go towards funding some of these women's businesses. emily: you mentioned that you care about returns. you are not doing this to have an impact. or it is not a handout, certainly. some lp's have said to me, all we care about is returns. some of the best investors may not be the best people, but they have the best returns. what do you have to say to those people? melinda: i have to say you are investing in what you know. you need to look at what trends are coming in the nation and how you're going to address them. women are 85% of consumer dollar spent. women control 70% of financial decisions in the house. if you are not investing in products that go towards females or women-led companies, you are missing an opportunity. because you just don't see it. and i would say the same thing about underrepresented minorities. because after about 2044, this country, what we think of minorities today,

gao get back onrack.ur wayne rooneyostingto instagram. >>> similar story for o's they took on the phillieser phils got early lead kept it on going and the o's loss four to one. >>> perhaps both teams players can relate toampa bay player carlos visibly upset and said if i can't hit the ball t me hit the cooler a few times >> that was me saturday. >> you hit a cooler. perhaps the fac he'st hittingte. .195 on the inning minnesota versus the hs one its gon gone. except keyon braxton has beautiful. celebrate and i love tcks,oo.soj uly. that's a great play.& >> ♪ >>> speakingh f the fourt july i he did it again, close friend to fox5, joey chestnut he did it again. >> veins popping inad his fo and everything. >> joey s been here half a dozen times. scarfed down 74 hot dogs in 10 minutes, 24,000 calories consumed in 10 minutes. beat his own record last year when he ate 72. marks his 11th win at the annual contest. he is g unbeatable. prross. >> sadly. i like how in that gomez, is that the player, how nobods paying atten to him when he's doing w that. >> do yout to get involved? he'sat got in his h

i've called for two studies, one from the gao, one from the treasury department to try to look at the size of this workforce. i frankly believe that blf recent study indicated there was not much growth in this field, i'll accept that data, i don't think it was fully complete enough because i just think i've seen estimates from government and nongovernmental sources that literally show close to a third of the american workforce is receiving some of their income from contingent work. so how we think about tax administration, how we think about almost even to the concept of a social contract. i would argue that means we need to move to a portable benefit system, if we move to a portable benefit system we have to have security on the tax administration side as well. other item that i think is an ongoing challenge is technology updates. we've all seen the irs make good faith efforts. sometimes those good faith efforts have ended up with perhaps more negative publicity than upgrades. something is wrong in our overall federal government when we spend $88 billion a year on i.t. services and 7

speaker, i rise today in support of my bill, h.r. 5415, the gao-ig act. the government accountability office and inspectors general are two of the best sources for recommendations to improve the operations of the federal government. their efforts help fight waste, fraud and abuse. promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness within the executive branch. and save taxpayer dollars. g.a.o. and inspector general audits and investigations often end with corrective recommendations to the agency. as of may, 2018, the g.a.o. has issued more than 1,500 products with about 4,800 open recommendations. since 2014, i.g.'s have issued over 8 st 900 reports with -- 8,900 reports with ley 40,300 total rentalations. during that same period, i.g. identified over d 99 billion in potential savings -- $99 billion in potential savings. but all of these recommendations are only as valuable as the agencies' commitment to implement them. i introduced the gao-ig act to ensure every agency evaluates and implements recommendations by g.a.o. and the inspector general. the bill requi

gao's estimate, not mine, are 500 didn't to ten thousand dollars to get an expense for time. who does that ben it? sew emphasis is drill, drill, drill on things they will never use to look slightly better to a college admissions officer. what a horrible message. is that the message you want to gem the in mid school and high school, stop -- you need to do s.a.t. test prep? really? and kids listen. they pay typings that and it saints they're values. when we tell ohm over and again do stuff that you don't believe in that does including but make you look likely entitier on a college application, you hollow out their sense of purpose. >> you mixed, what can learn from the state of nevada, the land on casinos where you say you point to the relevance of some mag, math that matters, probable which we ya all the time in our lives, making lifestyle decisions, versus allege, during algebra and trigonometry -- >> some use it. people studied this. about 15% of adults in the u.s. use any mag beyond basic elementary middle school math. 15%. half in high school blew collar jobs and white col

and i also understand that there will be legislation following gao and the government audit and oversight and this is a long time issue i'm happy to see there was a settlement. colleagues, any questions, comments? ok. seeing none, can we get a motion on items 4 and 5? >> so moved. >> supervisor tang: we'll send this out as committee report to the full board, and we'll do that without objection. thank you very much. colleagues, i apologize, we need to go back to item 3 because -- well item 3 should not be sent out as a committee report, first of all. >> i noted it. it was recorded not as a committee report. >> supervisor tang: great, thank you. can we resume the vote for item 2, because we need to duplicate the file and keep the building code portion in land use for follow-up amendments, specifically as it relates to the pre-application meeting requirements? motion. and item 2, if we can glen again, like to duplicate the file and we'll send out the other one as amended to the full order of recommendation. >> second. >> supervisor tang: thank you. without objection. items 6 through 8. >> or

so i asked our gao at the time, the general accounting office, what do you estimate the amount of money that we save by actually investing in prevention of soft power and they came back with a number that for every dollar you spend on prevention which i would consider hiv/aids pepfar money as a prevention of the instability issue, every dollar you spend on prevention you save $10 in response, in other words, for every dollar you spend on prevention you save $10 in military spending. now, we should have more of those stories because that's exactly what's happening to us. even if you are the most heartless person in the world and don't care about human kind

we had separate hearings on it at gao on the claims on election campaigning. there was public hearing taken on it. >> maybe it is line 20? >> yeah. neighborhood clean and green. is that also your priority? i'm not sure where that came from also. >> i don't believe so. >> i haven't heard anyone talk about it. >> neighborhood clean and green? >> i was a little surprise it was in their. >> city wide street cleaning priorities including pitstop expansion programs. so that was resolution file number 18. >> is this for just cleaning street's at dbh? is it greening?

we do have a motion to continue this to the next gao committee. i would suggest that we continue it to the call of the chair because we have only one scheduled committee meeting in july, and we have a number of items for that meeting as well. >> you are the chair. i just want to make one point about the core employee issue, which is -- there was actually very good negotiations around that where i think the contractor community, the city departments all came together. so part of the reason to have these hearings and not make a vote today is to people can actually sink their teeth into it. i heard comments from a woman-owned business who was worried. the way it's written is at at least two. i actually think that the building trades and the contractors, both of whom are signatories, understood that this would actually get hammered out in the p.l.a. itself. i just want to put that on the table. it's not as onerous as it looks. >> it is my understanding that it's a minimum of two workers that's been reached an agreement by now, which will later get neg

she has been with the gao since 1984 and been involved in a wide range of activities that have improved operations as well as generated excellent savings for the american taxpayer. lori has her degrees from west virginia university and georgetown university. thank you very much for coming. >> good afternoon everyone. i appreciate the opportunity to be here today. many of you know gao has a body of work where we have identified for many years that the financial position of the postal service is a high-risk issue. we identify programs across the government that we think are subject to fraud, waste, abuse or mismanagement and as we continued to watch the unfunded liabilities grow every year, continued inaction on postal reform, we've continued to say that urgent reform is needed. i often joke with folks that i'm a chicken little in the room or we've been saying this is urgent since 2009 we got to congress and we see now we really mean it. i'm thrilled there's a lot of discussion and dialogue today and i'm thrilled that legislators and the president is trying to move the ball forward. i'm n

gao the spreadsheet in front of you. we can start with supervisor fewer >> supervisor fewer: thank you. what i see -- thank you supervisor cohen for taking a stab at this. who i see missing here, we heard lot about this in public testimony. workforce development for homeless people. i actually think that getting them a job is a step out of homelessness and actually into the san francisco workforce is also an entrance san francisco general society. i think it's a good thing. i think that wasn't mentioned here in these priorities but i think it's pretty important. i also think that the housing subsidies for seniors and people with disability, in my district i'm seeing seniors displaced as a rapid rate and it's because they can't keep up with the housing cost because their income is flat. these are people retired 25 years ago or 30 years ago and now find themselves in a housing market they are priced out of. i bring your attention to those two topics. this is something that ewould like to see an investment in. >> supervisor

the gao report last year, when it came to official time, this time when employees were working, doing union duties on the va payroll, they found that is supposed to be reported. we are supposed to know how much that time is, they go through a process, but we find that un reliable. you have faith in that? is that system going to give us real data? >> yes, sir, we're going to start fully recording everybody's time, that will put about 472 employees back to work. 11 of those being psychologists and 62 being physicians. >> yeah. >> so this will actually be able to help us manage, not just giving folks credit for the official time they need to use, but also putting folks. >> when will that system be rolled out? >> i'm sorry? >> we are on the hook this month for deployment. . . . . mr. chairman, and thank you mr. rourke for coming to new hampshire to manchester and i appreciate that our meeting and our conversation, i was left hopeful at the time but unfortunately my staff is yet to receive the final ports from either the office of medical inspector or the office of accountability and whist

authorized and use radio frequencies -- they will notify consumers that malware or the risk -- >> the gao has committed to investigating -- i understand the new york attorney general is investigating, as well. at least 2 million of these -- are coming from russian email addresses. does the fcc -- is it your view that the fcc has been cooperating? >> we do not believe they have been cooperating with law enforcement agencies. 2 million people's identities were stolen, that is a federal crime. we should be referring these to the state attorney general. >> chairman pai, the fcc -- >> we have been investing -- we have been cooperating. in addition, i proactively have announced -- we would be changing our process to ensure that some of these issues -- 7.5 million comments, email generated -- those things don't happen. other potential solutions have been offered. >> i am still waiting for response -- reports about reports and memoranda and what you will provide. we hope you will provide that soon. >> we have been working with the inspector general with this. they will be issuing information. we

according to the gao, nearly half the states do not track problems in assisted living facilities. more than a dozen states don't make this health and safety information available to the public. ask you, i let me understand you recently lost your father to alzheimer's. i'm very sorry for your loss. you spoke about how you work with your sister to manage your father's care, and how you chose to place him in a assisted living facility. in choosing facility options for your father, wasn't it important that his options were high-quality and safe? >> absolutely. we wanted to make sure the facility was clean, that it was well staffed. at the time we did not understand what well stefan was. was.at well staffing he was not going to learn anything new, but we also wanted his brain challenged some part of the day. we did not want him sitting in a chair all day waiting from one meal to the next. the facility we found we were by, because blessed it was clean. the biggest challenge we saw was the staff is not trained to deal with alzheimer's patients. they would be fine in assisted living. they

according to the gao, over half the states don't adequately track the number of serious health and safety problems in assisted living facilities. more than a dozen states don't make this health and safety information available to the public. so if i could, let me ask you, i understand you recently lost her father to alzheimer's. i'm very sorry for your loss. you spoke about how you worked with your sister to manage your father's care and how you chose to place them in an assisted living facility and considering us facility options for your father, was it important to you that the services he received were high quality and safe? >> it absolutely was. we visited probably six different facilities we were looking for things that we wanted to make sure the facility was clean and well staffed. at that time we did not understand what well staffing is and i'd like to say little bit more about that and that included activities, social and otherwise so that his quality of life would be as good as it could be. we knew he was not going to learn anything new but we also knew that we wanted his brain c

health blog post, a letter to the fcc on tcp a letter from anthem and its affiliated health plans, a gao report on lifeline. without objection, so ordered. mr. doyle. i would like to make unanimous consent to add to the wreck of the letter from wireless isps to the fcc regarding the cd rvrs ban. letter. >> without objection, so ordered. pursuant to committee rules, members have 10 business days in which to submit additional questions. and we remind you that you have 10 business days in which to respond. seeing no further business to come before the committee, the committee is adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] --[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] an illinois house debate. --the event was held in chicago and airs tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. right after that, a virginia senate debate between tim kaine and corey stewart. the event courtesy of the virginia bar association and moderated by pb

according to the gao, over half the states object adequate lat tra -- track the number of problems. more than a dozen states don't make this information available to the public. i know you lost your father to alzheimer's, i'm sorry for your loss, but you spoke about how you worked with your cyst tore manage your father's care and how you chose to place him in an assisted living facility. in considering options for your father, was it important to you that the services he received were high quality and safe? >> absolutely. we visited probably six different facilities, and we were looking for things, we wanted to make sure the facility was clean and well staffed. at that time we didn't understand what well staffing is. and that included activities. social, otherwise, so that his quality of life would be as good as it could be. we knew that he was not going to learn anything knew, but we wanted his brain challenged some part of the day, that we didn't want him sitting in a chair all day waiting between meals, waiting for one meal to the next. what we found -- the facility we found, it

we report in these are not by numbers, but the gao, that some kids get exemptions for the time. that is not even communicated. the cost is $500 to $10,000 to get an exemption for time. it really says to kids, drill, drill, drill on a bunch of things that they're never going to use the mic to look slightly better to a college admissions officer. what a horrible message. is that the message you want to give them in middle-school, high school? stop creative interesting things to pay attention to that. they shape their values. they do stuff you don't believe in but does nothing slightly better on a college application and you hollow out the sense of purpose. >> you mentioned what can we learn from the state of nevada, where you point out the relevance of the map that really matters come or probability which we use all the time in our lives in all these lifestyle decisions versus algebra, trigonometry and geometry, which we never used. >> a lot of that we never use in some people would use, but they all told me people are studying this. about 15% use any math beyond elementary school

the way, if anyone wants the comments from nrc on this process so far and as well as citations to the gao report on the adequacy of surety and must've been put aside for decommissioning or the lack thereof, that will be a significant issue with this rule. will the nrc require enough to make sure they will be enough to pay on the back and for this extraordinary cleanup. and then of course, there are emergency preparedness issues. he heard a host of reasons today why those are necessary. going forward. especially while we have fuel sitting in pools. and also radiological issues. all of these issues will be significantly -- we don't know what's going to happen. but the draft rule, as we have seen thus far does not look likely to solve any of these issues and we think that means when the agency has not done it, it is likely to come back to congress. and the duckworth bill, duckworth and schneider bill about that compensation actually is one of those we think few constructive efforts that really gets at compensating the communities. that by any measure are going to have spent fuel in their com

gao, issues of personal management. morale, retention. you talked about removing employees. my question to you is what have we done to retain employees? in this committee we've talked about the fact that salaries aren't competitive in many places. so what are we doing -- what do we need to do to make sure that we hold on to those valued employees at the va? >> absolutely. in the context of the accountability and whistle blower protection law, it is that accountability of peace. when employees don't feel safe, when when they want to blow the whistle and can't or don't feel like they can, if they blow the whistle and don't see anything happen. maybe they just talked tlo suo supervisor, saying there is a problem here and don't see a response in that's an accountability issue. before where we could have a culture, well, if i don't do something this time it won't make a difference, an inconsistency in an application of standards, you develop those problems over time. this law at least provided some tools, some more tools, for us to be able to address that. but it is going to be t

. >> i ask unanimous consent, according to a 2017 report are the gao, third-party merchants collected taxes on a less of one third of all sales in 2017, is that an accurate estimate? >> that is heavily accurate, yes. >> are you other -- aware of places that do not collect taxes following the decision >> i am sure they are waiting to make a determination about when they will start collecting on behalf of marketplace participants. >> i would ask unanimous consent to enter in -- into the record in article entitled amazon tax ruling, disrupting the disruptors? consent that the letters from the streamlined sales tax governing board and the coalition of local governments, national associations of counties, the u.s. congress of mayors, the international city and county management association and government finance officers association be part of the record. >> without objection. >> we are about wrapping up. you have more questions? that concludes today's hearing. thanks to each of our distinguished members. without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional w

controller general for the gao said we have a huge problem here. senator wyden has introduced legislation with my support and others on the committee to better ensure that folks that are preparing tax returns know what they are doing and can reduce the number of errors that flow from that. i'd like to ask if i could that your views on this, please. >> i believe that people prepare tax returns on behalf of others should be capable, competent, and understand the tax laws for the returns they are preparing. i think that the training that accompanies a typical regulation or involvement, licensing or whatnot of most preparers is critical. >> good. earlier one of the things we talked about yesterday was the it programs for the irs which as we've heard earlier here just old, tired. and i heard as much as 400 million dollars upgrade. is that something you would be inclined to support? >> i'm not on the inside so i don't know the particulars of it, but from the press on the outside and from what we see on the outside, i think that the american taxpayers des