BlakeFarenthold

Today, U.S. Congressman Blake Farenthold (TX-27) participated in the annual House Oversight and Government Reform committee hearing highlighting waste in the federal government, and how to stop it.

The hearing’s first panel consisted of United States Senators Tom Carper (D-RI) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.  Senator Coburn publishes an annual “Waste Book” identifying the most egregious government spending from the previous year. 

The second panel was made up of issue experts from CATO Institute, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Citizens Against Government Waste, and National Taxpayers Union. 

Congressman Farenthold began his question by discussing one example of government waste identified in Senator Coburn’s 2013 “Waste Book.”  It was the nearly $700 billion the federal government spent on advertising to promote Obamacare and drive traffic to healthcare.gov. 

“I certainly see the need for advertising for recruiting for our military, but driving people to a website [healthcare.gov] that doesn’t work, or at least wasn’t working when some of these ads were running, seems to be a problem,” said Congressman Farenthold. 

Another issue Congressman Farenthold discussed was the federal government outsourcing work to the private sector where it can be done at a lower cost, saving taxpayer dollars. 

“I’m a big supporter of that, and think that outsourcing to the private sector, with their profit motive and the fact they are unburdened by as many rules and regulations as exist in government organizations, is a good idea.  But, I come back to healthcare.gov.  That was outsourced to a private company and still had huge, excessive cost overruns.  Clearly, you can’t turn [a project] over to the private sector and not have some kind of oversight on the contracting,” concluded the Congressman. 

To watch the Congressman’s full questioning, click here.