Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) speaking on the House floor last Friday. He wants to suspend the DoD's exemption from federal audits. The context is a debate on 2012 Defense spending, to which DeFazio offers an amendment — audit the DoD.
Pretty interesting, since only the first half of this brief clip is DeFazio speaking. Watch (including the vote at the end):
DeFazio:
In 1990, Congress passed a law that required that all — all — federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, must have auditable financial statements every year. Since that time, the Department of Defense has spent $10 trillion ... [a]nd yet, no audit has been conducted. ... In 2005 Congress passed a ban on completing an audit ... Yet we don't know where ... $2.3 trillion dollars went.His amendment will end that exemption.
Notice, if you stayed all the way through, that when the Republican from Florida objects to DeFazio's amendment, Scott Garrett, a Republican from New Jersey, rises in defense. Go Garrett.
And for you comedy fans, notice the voice vote at the end. The amendment passed by what sounded like 6–2. In the House of Representatives. Must have been happy hour in Washington.
$2.3 trillion is not nothing. Deficit freaks, where's your inner confidence fairy? Isn't he or she complaining just a little?
GP
