U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) testified Thursday morning before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
He discussed his annual oversight report during the "Waste in Government: What's Being Done?" hearing chaired by California Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)
"I'm embarrassed that we, as members of Congress, have allowed this list, with the multitude of programs that are on there, with the duplicity that's in it, that we haven't fixed it,” Coburn said. “And we don't have an excuse. We're guilty of not doing our jobs."
Coburn says the report contains 100 examples of what he calls wasteful and low-priority spending worth about $30 billion.
"The government's grown so massive that there's only one department in the entire federal government that actually knows all of its programs, and that's the Department of Education,” Coburn said.
He suggested consolidating more than 650 renewable energy programs into just a handful, and said doing that throughout federal government programs could be a way to get to a balanced budget without raising taxes.
U.S. Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.) is a member of the House committee. In a Facebook post, the Fifth District congressman said Issa plans to work with Coburn as often as weekly to move certain Wastebook items through the committee process.
--------------------------------
KGOU produces journalism in the public interest, essential to an informed electorate. Help support informative, in-depth journalism with a donation online, or contact our Membership department.
