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Mr. COATS. Mr. President, the last 6 months of this Senate I have been coming down here every week to talk about the ``Waste of the Week''--examples of waste, fraud, and abuse within the Federal Government. I can't believe this is No. 17. We are continuing to rack up significant savings to the taxpayer. We can eliminate these documented and certified wastes that have been determined through the various government agencies, inspectors general, and others.
Today we turn to a rather serious topic regarding the receipt of taxpayer dollars by criminals who are avoiding felony arrest but are still receiving benefits at taxpayers' expense.
Here is a little history. The Social Security Act currently prohibits those fleeing justice from receiving Social Security and other Federal benefits. Congress first addressed this issue in 1996, when it banned fugitive felons from receiving Social Security benefits. It then expanded this prohibition in 2004 to also apply this ban to Social Security disability insurance and World War II benefits.
Unfortunately this law has run into some conflicting opinions by court challenges, which have weakened the effects of the law and led to a lack of clarity in terms of what the original language and original intent by Congress was supposed to be. To address this problem--because it is a problem, and there is lack of clarity--I have this week introduced legislation to amend the Social Security Act to clearly state--to clarify--the intent of the law that prohibits fugitive felons from receiving Social Security retirement and disability benefits. My bill would clarify this law and return the implementation of the policy to its original intent.
Now, let me be clear. The government should not be providing benefits to those avoiding prosecution, custody or confinement for a crime or attempt to commit a crime that is considered a felony. But we are not talking about individuals who get speeding tickets or make a mistake on their taxes. This legislation applies only to those with an arrest order for felony charges.
The crime must be of enough serious magnitude to carry with it a minimum sentence of 1 or more years in prison.
So we want to be careful here that we are not imposing this restriction of receipt of benefits on someone who doesn't qualify under the law, and that is another clarification that we want to make.
Furthermore, the bill retains the ability of the Social Security Administration to continue or restore benefits if the individual can show good cause--such as that they were exonerated of the crime or perhaps were victim of an identity theft or other legitimate reasons to not lose benefits.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, this commonsense fix could save taxpayers $4.8 billion over the next 10 years alone.
So the bottom line is this: We pull out our chart with our ever-growing gauge of money that has been wasted through fraud and abuse within the Federal Government. We are climbing very quickly to $100 billion. I thought it would take a year to get there if I did one a week. We are going to have to make a major extension to this chart or redo this because we are closing in on $100 billion of wasted taxpayer money documented by Federal Government agencies in investigations. So passage of this bill would add $4.8 billion to our chart.
We have come across so many instances of bloat, waste, fraud, and abuse. I could be down here every day the Senate is in session. I could be down here every hour the Senate is in session--such is the staggering amount of dysfunction occurring through this bloated bureaucracy called the Federal Government.
Here we are, trying to protect taxpayers of our States who are stretched to the gills in terms of what they have to pay not only in Federal but State or sales--you name it--or real estate taxes that roll up and consume so much of everybody's weekly pay.
The least we can do--while we need to make major fixes to our fiscal problems here--is take those that have been identified by legitimate neutral organizations--inspectors general of the United States, various agencies--bring those to light, and then do something about it and not just come down here and make a chart and add some red ink, but actually introduce legislation, which I am trying to do on some of these pieces so that we can remedy this problem.
So meanwhile we have an administration here that has refused over and over to sit down and work out a long-term fiscal debt reduction program, which this country desperately needs because the debt clock is still ticking away like crazy.
If you want to see it, go to my Web site at coats.senate.gov. We have the clock right there. We haven't talked about it much down here lately. We made a big push earlier. Too many people have thrown up their hands and said that under this administration it is not going to happen. That probably is right. But the least we can do then, until we get new management in the White House, is to find these issues of waste, fraud, and abuse, and do something about it now. So that is what we are trying to do.
I look forward to being back here next week with the latest edition of ``Waste of the Week.''
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