mr. connolly. mr. connolly: mr. evans, chairman mica talked about the $783 million as if you were just sitting around watching soap operas and allowing this money to accumulate. isn't there a difference between obligated funds and expended funds? mr. evans: yes, sir. what the chairman was referring to was obligated funds. mr. connolly: how much of that is for the purchase and delivery for new 7000 series cars? mr. evans: i don't have those dollar figures off the top of my head. a lot of those are tied to big purchases. some of the issues we've had is when the tsunami hit japan that affected kawasaki which is the provider of that. the company went out of business. that slowed those dollars up. we are in the range of where one day. mr. connolly: irish you to help help dispelu to this myth that you are sitting on a lot of capital even what to do with. it is actually good and prudent not to pay your bills until the product or service is been delivered and has met your specifications for the expected quality. especially

mr. connolly. mica. evans, chairman talked about 783 million as if you are just sitting around watching soap operas and allowing that to accumulate, and you have plenty of money. isn't there a difference between obligated funds and expended funds? >> yes, there is. what the chairman was referring to are obligated funds. forow much of the 783 is the purchase and delivery and ultimate expenditures for new cars? >> i don't have those dollar figures on the top of my head. the point you are making is a lot of those are tied to big purchases, whether a bus purchase, or some of the issues we have had with the cash flow of that. withsunol me -- sy the major bus purchase, the company went out of business. the fta can attest to that. we are in the range -- >> i would urge you quickly to that youel the myth are sitting on a lot of capital you don't know what to do with it. it is good and prudent management to not pay your bills until the product or service has been delivered and has met your specifications with res

mr. connolly. >> mr. chairman, i didn't know it was that easy to exhaust the republicans. >> i'm still here, jerry. >> you got this one even with all my italian emergency. go ahead. >> thank you, mr. chairman. after seeing a little bit of the back and forth here, one of the things i'd like to recommend to all of my colleagues here is to focus on our new general manager here who has really set out some good things that we all can agree on. so there will be time later for some the food fights and some of the things we have seen here but i think where we need to focus right now is on what mr. wiedefeld has focused on, and i think a lot of our colleagues on a bipartisan basis agree on that. so i would encourage everybody as we go forward on this, let's work on all the things we agree on first before we start any of these of these fights. in that effort, i wanted to ask mr. -- i appreciate what mr. evans said about you. it's capable of anyone who has ever been here. you certainly have demonstrated that from th

mr. connolly was saying with regards to jurisdiction. miss flowers, i don't know that you were necessarily the best group, and i really care a lot about secretary fox. in fact, i consider him a personal friend. i don't know that it was necessarily the right decision. but here is my whole point on this. mr. hart, miss flowers, we have to get this system in a place where you're not at a hearing, talking about the safety of this system, you know. so, while it may be germane today, i'm hopeful that in the very near future it will not be a discussion that even comes -- we talk about uber a little bit. i've got staff members now taking uber and other forms of transportation to get to work who used to take the metro. just base they can't count on it anymore. we got to stop that. i mean, just pure and simple, we have to stop that. mr. evans, you started out your testimony by talking, acknowledging the service that many of us have provided, whether it's attending the state of the district meeting as you mentioned with me. i want to acknowledge yo

mr. connolly: they do. and it's leaning to superintendent of schools eeling he needs to provide counsel and reassurance based on the actions of i.c.e. maybe you want to talk to the superintendent. ms. saldana: i'm happy to. if i could brag a minute. e have set up a network of community relations officers, people who meet with law enforcement, with school superintendents, with rotary clubs, whoever will listen to us so we can lay out for them exactly how we go about our business. the taxpayer is entitled to know hat. mr. connolly: supreme court has ruled irrespective of status, if you are a student and show up, you are entitled to a public education, correct? ms. saldana: i take your word for it. mr. connolly: matter of case law. that was the supreme court ruling, i'm not making that up and that's why local governments have to educate children irrespective of status. so whether they are documented or not is immaterial to a local i.c.e. chool and is targeting children on their way to a constitutionally protec

mr. connolly. >> thank you, mr. chairman and just picking up on your last point. my colleague from iowa, gene, i don't want to you miss the opportunity, yes, of course we ought to implement your recommendations, but every dollar we invest in gao has what return on it? >> $134 back for every dollar invested. >> so to your point, i know it's not always a great idea, the conservative side of the aisle, but this one has a return and so investing in gao is very smart investment. >> and i join the gentleman in supporting his notion there that we need to invest more in gao. >> i thank the chair. hear that, gene? run with it. for god's sake, it's a special moment here. any rate, by the way, to mr. blum's questioning, too, this committee in the past has done i think some very thoughtful hearings on both the issue of improper payments, the largest single chunk of which identifiable chunk is medicare fraud. and the second is money left on the table that irs could not collect, did not collect but is owed. those two categories, if we actually could bring it down theoretically

mr. connolly. >> if i could do a unanimous consent before my time starts, mr. chairman, i have a statement to be entered in the record i ask unanimous consent. on behalf of our colleague kristen holland in maryland that's been a long time supporter and sometime critic of metro and been a great partner. >> without objection so ordered. >> i thank the chair. mr. chairman, i appreciate the opportunity to revisit the safety challenges faced by the washington metro system. i spent 21 years of my life working on metro-related issues, first as a member of the fair tax county board of supervisors, then as chairman and now as member in this body. no one is more disheartened than i with the current unacceptable state of affairs. in the wake of the january 2015 tragedy we held two hearings which i said metro was facing multiple crises, a crisis in leadership and a crisis in safety, a crisis in commuter and stakeholder confidence and a crisis in funding. let me start with the most significant improvement which is the november hiring of general manager paul wiedefeld. this

mr. connolly from texas. >> i have a cpa and my license is still current. i spent a lot of years auditing. when it comes to circumstance like this, it absolutely makes no sense in hindsight. did you have access to the documents that were prepared and put in place in the decision-making process to come to these conclusions. wouldn't you have something that makes no sense we typically don't have all of the facts available to figure out how the decision-makers, who unless you project on them were working to do the right thing, did you look at how they got there what the rationale was? >> to be honest with you congressman, we did not have full access of the record. >> so billion dollars spent, always wasted, is that your conclusion? >> no, not. >> no, not all of it. we did build a gas station. >> that's a waste. >> but how well is it functioning today. >> i'm just trying to figure out did you find any successes whatsoever in the deal? >> we found a few successes but the problem is, we measure inputs, outputs and outcomes. the output is that you got a gas statio

mr. connolly the gentleman from virginia. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr.burbank i just heard that last statistic and that's misleading. if you want to go down that road with her center jeff black american men as part of the total population but percentage do they constitute in terms of the course rated builds? >> a much higher rate. >> what do we conclude from that? >> i would suggest respectfully tread very lightly on that. the fact that a fair percentage of people who are undocumented or arrested in the community that has a lot of undocumented people i don't know what to conclude from that. there could be good and bad things you could conclude from that including about policing. i can tell you this is my police chief were at this table he would testify that we don't want to essentially federalized our police forces and make them equivalent of immigration police because we want the corporation of immigrant community including undocumented in terms of law enforcement. it might committee across the river it was because of undocumented individuals we were ab

mr. connolly. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and just picking up on your last point, my colleague from iowa, gene, i don't want to you miss the opportunity, yes, of course we ought to implement your recommendations, but every dollar we invest in gao has what return on it? >> $134 back for every dollar invested. >> to your point i know it's not always a great idea, the conservative side of the aisle. but this one has a return. and so investing in gao is a very smart investment. >> and i join the gentleman in supporting his notion there that we need to invest more in gao. >> i thank the chair. hear that, gene? run with it. for god's sake, it's a special moment here. at any rate, by the way, to mr. blum's questioning, too, this committee in the past has done i think some very thoughtful hearings on both the issue of improper payments, the largest single chunk of which identified, identifiable chunk is medicare fraud. and the second is money left on the table that irs could not collect, did not collect, but is owed. those two catego

mr. connolly. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just picking up on your last point, my colleague from iowa, gene, i don't want you to miss the opportunity. yes, of course, we ought to implement your recommendations but every dollar we invest in gao has what return on it? >> 134 back for every dollar. >> so to your point, i know it's not always a great idea on the conservative side of the aisle but this has a return on it so investing in gao is a very smart investment. >> i join the gentleman in supporting his notion we need to invest more in gao. >> i thank the chair. hear that, gene? run with it. [ laughter ] for god's sake, it's a special moment here. and by the way, this committee in the past has done some very thoughtful hearings on both the issue of improper payments as the largest single chunk of which is medicare fraud. and the second is money left on the table that irs could not collect, did not collect, but is owed. those two categories which we could bring down and theoretically to zero would be an enormous dent on the de

mr. connolly is the ranking member. would like to call the meeting to order and without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. i would also like to announce the order of business. we'll first hear from the chairs and ranking members and then we will go to questions and first i will introduce the witnesses and swear them in and we welcome them today. in just a few minutes, we'll get to them. so that's the order of business for the joint subcommittee hearing today and i also would like to note the presence of our colleagues. we have congresswoman comstock of virginia. we may -- i'm not sure if he's going to be here but we would certainly welcome congressman steny hoyer of maryland, congressman sid beyer of virginia, and congressman delaney of maryland. i'm not sure if congressman delaney is here. but i'll ask unanimous consent that they also be allowed to participate and without objection, so ordered. so while they're not members of the committee, we appreciate their participation. the order of

mr. connolly. we're going to move to mr. shabut of ohio. >> thank you. let me begin with taiwan, mr. blinken. taiwan is going to be swearing in a new president in may. the dpp will be coming back into power. taiwan is i believe a very important u.s. ally. and i would also expect the prc and in all likelihood to act up, to try to throw its weight around, they are after all a classic bully, they'll want to show their displeasure in this election. they still have 1600 missiles pointed at taiwan. as mr. rohrbacker had mentioned, they're in the process of building islands, to the great dismay of all their neighbors they're militarizing those islands now. occurring at a time when this administration, unfortunately, that is reducing or trying to reduce the size of our military, or navy, which i think is a terrible idea. i think clearly, first of all make sure that taiwan has a sufficient military and modernize that they are able to to keep china from acting out. i think that china ever acts is if they think taiwan is weak and that the united states lacks the resolve to defend taiwan. what w

mr. connolly you recognize. >>. >> thanks to my friends. who ought to pony up is if the metro shuts down the federal government shuts down. we had evidence of that recently so just try getting along. but i want to clarify but with that liability because the federal government didn't give us control over jurisdiction and they had to pay that they gave not one dime because the district is the only city that has responsibility. i want to focus on the fact for the first time in history as i understand it it, to do short-term borrowing for operating funds isn't that true? >> end you have a rollover of half a million dollars at this point? >> i want everybody to understand if you are borrowing to keep the system running in we have to face that fast. it was put under to get any of the federal money to turn in. i don't have any its problems with that in terms of control in the beginning because it looks like we are through this process until we have validation. it looks like you have done due diligence but in the process you have sold away getting

mr. connolly, the gentleman from virginia. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. burbank, i just heard that last statistic. and that is awfully misleading. if you want to go down that road, what percentage of black american men as a total population, a part of the u.s. population and what percentage do they constitute in terms of incarcerated adults. >> they are incarcerated at much higher rate. >> what are we to conclude of that? don't answer. i would tread very lightly what you would conclude about that the fact you have higher percentage of people undocumented, who are arrested in a community that has a lot of undocumented people, i don't know what to conclude from that. there could be good and bad things to conclude about that, including policing. i have can tell you this, if my police chief were at this table he would testify that we want, we don't, we don't want to essentially federalize our police forces and make them the equivalent of immigration police. because we want the cooperation of the immigrant community including undocumented immigrant community i

mr. connolly, ms. duckworth, robin kelly, ted lieu, all of whom are excited and support this piece of legislation. again, this is a totally nonpartisan bill looking for government efficiency and safety and transparency for the american people. i hope that my friends on both sides of the aisle who care deeply about making government as effective and transparent as possible as well as eliminating fraud and inefficiencies will partner with us by co-sponsoring this bill and helping to bring it to the floor as a bipartisan measure overwhelmingly supported by this house. i'm proud of the bipartisan work we've done together already to encourage innovation and the use of technology in congress, particularly the hack-a-thon i hosted with leader mccarthy and his predecessor, mr. cantor. let's work together. let me say that again. let's work together to expand that effort to the executive branch and make sure that the federal government can and is serving the american people effectively and transpartly. and i yie

mr. connolly. so she is now recognized for her opening statement. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. good morning to you. thank you so much for being here with us. i first want to thank ms. olson, mr. buttonow, for the work they do and for being here today. i sincerely believe that the work that you both do on behalf of taxpayers and congress is vitally important. especially this time of year when millions are filing their taxes and you know, frustrating. i personally, i think i have little stomach extra this time of year. what about you? i care for my constituents and i know ms. olson, here from people all over the country who find themselves this time of year frustrated as stress but i appreciate the forum's given even holding around the country listening to stakeholders and taxpayers alike so they can learn what their concerns are and how they can look for solutions. that's fantook for solutions. that's fantastic. many of these frustrations temperament a difficult time getting through to a person after i read. whether it's a long wait time for calls or not having a tight answer at

mr. connolly: tomorrow is the deadline by which congress is supposed to have enacted its annual budget resolution. as a former member of the budget committee i take that responsibility seriously and i know the chairman of the committee does as well. it saddens me that the majority is abdicating that responsibility. i come from local government where we had to work on a bipartisan basis to adopt and balance budgets every year. yet rather than work with democrats to advance a budget resolution that reflects the spending levels of the hard-fought two-year bipartisan budget agreement adopted just five months ago, house republicans have decided not to pass a resolution at all because some in their caucus want to undo that bipartisan agreement. budgets are values-based documents, but they don't have to represent just one set of values. they can be inclusive and should represent the broad diversity of the interests of the people we represent, working together -- we represent. working together we can demonstrate the power of goth to spur economic growth, provide financial security, and meet the needs of

mr. connolly: he has distorted that virginia has to step up to the plate.ant to remind my friend that he doesn't want to burden his people. i don't want to burden mine. in virginia, we pay our subsidy. when you say a bailout, my constituents here something quite different. i hope you will keep that in mind. ,s you care about your people mr. byron mr. comstock and i care about ours. we split the bills in virginia, not the state gave we already have one of the highest recovery rates in the country because we don't have a dedicated source of revenue and the federal government does not provide operating subsidies. not a penny. not one penny. it is the only compact member that doesn't provide a penny. do you want me to yield, mr. chairman? rep. mica: just two things. i will put in the percentage for capital. most of their problems are capital. representative connolly: clearly problems that are operational. you thea: i will give fact that some other jurisdictions we found have as much as 6%. but they take certain money and put it into operations that we have a lo

mr. connolly. so she is now recognized for her opening statement. tatement. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. good morning to you. thank you so much for being here with us. i first want to thank ms. olson, mr. buttonow, for the work they do and for being here today. i sincerely believe that the work that you both do on behalf of taxpayers and congress is vitally important. especially this time of year when millions are filing their taxes and you know, frustrating. i personally, i think i have little stomach extra this time of year. what about you? i care for my constituents and i know ms. olson, here from people all over the country who find themselves this time of year frustrated as stress but i appreciate the forum's given evn holding around the country listening to stakeholders and taxpayers alike so they can learn what their concerns are and how they can look for solutions. that's fantook for solutions. that's fantastic. many of these frustrations temperament a difficult time getting through to a person after i read. whether it's a long wait time for calls or not having a tight

mr. connolly: republicans say the now reforms are intended to restore local control by returning responsibility for accountability and school improvements to state and local leaders. why doesn't that apply here? another ideological carve out, mr. speaker. congress has no business imposing its will on the schools and families of the district of columbia in this fashion. they are not guinea pigs for our ideological favorites. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from the district of columbia reserves. the gentleman from utah is recognized. mr. chaffetz: thank you, mr. speaker. i'd like to yield three minutes to the chairman of the education and work force committee, the gentleman from minnesota, mr. kleine. -- mr. klein. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from minnesota is recognized for three minutes. mr. kline: thank you, mr. speaker and chairman chaffetz for yielding the time. mr. speaker, i rise today in very strong support of the soar re-authorization act. which will renew our vital investment in the children who live in the district of columbia. in passing the every st