Working for good government

The Constitution gives Congress the authority to oversee the federal bureaucracy.  Congress doesn’t do enough to fulfill the responsibility.  In fact, every year, more laws are passed giving more authority to the executive branch, without enough follow-up to see how that power is used, or abused.  As a United States Senator, I’ve dedicated a lot of time and resources to congressional oversight.  I’ve got a saying that guides me, and it goes like this:  “Our national motto says, In God we Trust.  For everything else, we conduct oversight.”  Oversight matters.  Every dollar that comes into the Federal Treasury means one less dollar in the taxpayers’ pocket.  The public deserves to have someone make sure executive authority is used properly, and that government programs work as intended.  Taxpayers deserve a full accounting of how their money is spent, whether it’s spent through massive programs or the everyday, singular actions of federal employees.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.  In 2001, my oversight work led me to investigate reported abuse of government charge cards by employees of the Department of Defense.  When the investigation began, I didn’t know what we would find.  I quickly learned that charge card abuse is a systemic problem throughout federal government agencies.  We discovered federal employees purchasing lavish items like sapphire rings and luxury cruises for themselves, and all at the expense of the taxpayer.  The exposure caused a lot of embarrassment.  Some agency heads responded, and others did nothing.  Federal employees are keepers of the public trust, and it shouldn’t require congressional action to straighten out these federal agencies on something this obvious.  But when it was clear that agencies weren’t putting in place common-sense controls to prevent charge card abuse, I introduced legislation that would protect taxpayers against future abuse.

Last week, the Senate passed my Government Credit Card Abuse Prevention Act .  It requires all federal agencies to establish strict internal controls for government charge cards and meaningful penalties for those who defraud the taxpayer.  Some of the common-sense safeguards include cancelling charge cards when employees leave an agency, reconciling charges with receipts (like most Americans do with their own charge cards), and making sure employees can’t approve their own purchases.