00:00Jeff for five minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair. And first, I'd like to acknowledge our colleague,
00:04Mr. Lynch, for his hard-fought campaign. And I'd like to, at the same time, spend a little bit of
00:09my time today working with Mr. Dickerson and Mr. Burton. First, Mr. Dickerson, I want to
00:14congratulate you and Epic for all that you've accomplished. I worked with both Paul and Zoe
00:19at the White House and the President's first term and commend you all for your work. Mr. Burton,
00:25if you could, I was reading through your testimony, would love for you just to walk this committee
00:29through the history of impoundment and recessions, or rescissions, I should say. It started,
00:34as I understand, in Thomas Jefferson's administration. Would love for you to walk us through the history.
00:39The earliest impoundment that I know of was by Thomas Jefferson. The Congress appropriated
00:47money to build some gumboats. Peace broke out, and he chose not to build the gumboats. So he,
00:54in effect, impounded the money and sent it back to Congress. That's been going on for a very long
01:02time. In older appropriations bills, particularly in the 19th century, generally read not to exceed
01:09X dollars. So presidents often didn't, because they didn't think you needed to spend that much money.
01:15And President Roosevelt impounded money, and so did President Nixon. And at that point,
01:22there was serious objection by the Congress, and the Impoundment Control Act was enacted,
01:30which establishes an expedited procedure for rescissions, but has very broad prohibitions on
01:38impoundment. There are certain reprogramming permitted and things of that sort. Obviously,
01:44if the, as with improper payments, if you can't spend the money, that's fine. The president should do
01:52that. So the rescissions process, however, is somewhat cumbersome, as you probably just discovered.
01:59It could be streamlined and made better, but nonetheless, that's the general requirement today.
02:05And, you know, one thing that stood out to me in your opening testimony, in your testimony throughout
02:10this hearing, is you mentioned the work that Speaker Gingrich and President Clinton undertook.
02:14Yes. So, in your estimation, is our committee's work an extension of what was successfully done in the
02:2190s to rein in spending? Yes and no. I mean, the effort in the 90s was very broad. The Clinton administration
02:29was serious about improving government administration. They resisted some of what the Gingrich Congress
02:36wanted to do, but ultimately, there were serious, very hard negotiations, and they reached an agreement.
02:43President Clinton signed legislation that substantially reduced federal spending. And there was tremendous
02:52amount of legislating going on throughout the Congress, not just in one committee, but committee
02:58by committee, by committee, by committee. There was a lot of legislating done, a lot of markups, a lot of
03:06investigations, a lot of hearings. It wasn't just one hearing like here. There was systematic throughout the
03:13Congress and in government in the executive branch. Thank you. Mr. Dickerson, if we could spend a little
03:19bit of time in the remaining time we have left talking about improper payments. The first hearing our
03:24chairwoman convened was on the troublesome improper payments we discovered over the last four years of
03:31the Biden administration. We'd love for you to touch on some of the challenges we face with respect to
03:35verifying identity, with respect to payments that are going out the door. Would love for you to comment on
03:41that. Absolutely. Improper payments is a huge issue. In one program alone, Medicaid, for example,
03:46spent $1.1 trillion over the last decade on improper payments. And that is incredibly harmful because
03:53it's a waste of taxpayer money, but it's also funds that aren't going to people who are truly vulnerable
03:57and truly needy. And so this waste, fraud, and abuse is rampant throughout the federal government. And so
04:05one of the major sources of that is the lack of ability to identify the people who are claiming money and checks are going out the door to who are actually eligible. For example, the
04:16do not pay registry is supposed to be a database of accounts that the federal government's not supposed to write checks to. But in many cases, those checks go out the door and then they ping the registry. And in many cases, that registry doesn't have access to all the databases that it's supposed to. So it's a huge problem and you really should be fixing it.
04:37And I recall in our first hearing, we talked about the amount of payments going out the door that are still done by hand, not by computer or electronically. Is that something you all have uncovered in your work?
04:46Yeah, I think it's something that we should be using new technology, using AI to actually look at what we have across the government to ensure that only people who are actually eligible for benefits are receiving it, nobody else.
05:01Thank you. Madam Chair, in my closing, just a point of clarification. The poll behind you, behind our ranking member, it adds up to 110%. Just wanted to clarify, is it meant to add up to 110% or is that an error?
05:12Do you yield?
05:13Do you yield?
05:14Yeah, I do.
05:15This is from a Quinnipiac poll that was held two weeks ago and this is the data that was provided. There's a wealth of information, including information about Donald Trump's falling poll numbers, so you should take a look. Thanks.
05:27I yield back.
05:29The gentleman yields and it still adds up to 110%. That's a fake poll right there.
