McCaskill's Washington Wonderland

Sen. Claire McCaskill sent out a column today about her initial days in Congress. She's titled it "Auditor in Wasteland."

The following is the column in its entirety:

I have to admit, it’s my second week on the job and I’m still learning a lot of new things, like where the elevators lead to and what is so famous about the cafeteria’s bean soup. Sometimes I feel a little like Alice in Wonderland.

In Washington, I’m meeting interesting people. There are those I can trust and those I cannot. Things are not always what they seem. Often times I’m humbled and am reminded that I’m still very small. And then there are times when reality seems no where to be found in Washington. This week I had one of those days.

Balancing a budget at home takes practical, common sense. The goal is to get the most bang for your buck. Buying toilet paper in bulk for a month as opposed to the corner store for the week simply makes sense. You look for places to stretch your money: cutting coupons, comparing prices, and using less. And at the end of the day, if you have some left over, you can put it away for a more secure future. As a former auditor, I can say with some confidence that I believe the same should apply to government spending.

After eight years of scrubbing through financial books and administrative policies in Missouri, I’ve encountered waste and abuse of public money hundreds of times. With tough audits and aggressive follow-up, we saved millions and millions of taxpayer dollars. As sure as the sun coming up, I knew I would find waste in Washington. But even after all my experience as auditor I was shocked at what I learned this week.

In a subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, I listened in amazement as the Inspector General for the Department of Defense and a federal auditor outlined billions of dollars in misspent taxpayer dollars. No competitive bids, money misspent with no contract in place, cost plus contracts, hiding money so it can be spent in later years instead of it going back to the Treasury were just a few examples of waste and abuse. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The most amazing part of all this is the complete lack of accountability for this abuse of your money. Even after specific warnings from the Inspector General that these expenditures violated the law, the very same conduct continued. Unbelievable.

I have written letters to the Acquisition Director for the Government Accountability Office, the Comptroller General and the Inspector General’s office at the Department of Defense. I want to ask who has been held for this wrongdoing.

I’m still an auditor at heart and I’m determined to fight as hard as I know how to stop these wasteful practices in the federal government.

Out here in Washington I may get lost on my way to the restroom, but I know how to find my way to wasted tax dollars. And I’ve only just begun.