Saving Taxpayer Dollars

Statement

Dear Neighbors,

Taxpayers who work hard and play by the rules should have confidence their government is doing the same. It's important to me that our country spends taxpayer dollars wisely and effectively, which includes cutting waste and fraud in government spending. This is a top priority of mine as a member of the House Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform committees.

Although it's hard to believe, in recent years the number of camouflage patterns used by the four combat services -- Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines -- increased to ten. There is no need to have taxpayer dollars wasted developing new and unnecessary camouflage patterns when one can do the job in a given environment.

To remedy this, I offered an amendment to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that requires the Department of Defense to establish a joint combat uniform pattern by 2018. I'm proud that a Government Accountability Office Report on duplication in government spending found that my amendment to the 2014 NDAA will save taxpayers approximately $4.2 billion dollars over 5 years. The GAO report also states that my amendment contributed to the Army's recent decision not to introduce a new family of camouflage uniforms in the immediate future saving significant taxpayer dollars.

These are the kinds of common sense reforms we need to stop waste in government spending and effectively allocate taxpayer dollars. We have to carefully review our spending and do everything we can to reduce costs so that we can preserve programs that actually help working families make ends meet.

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