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One of the responsibilities of Congress is the power of the purse, but there is also oversight. In order to have proper oversight, you have to have agency administrators, directors, and secretaries of those agencies speak frankly and about the facts.

As a member of Congress, I believe Congress must provide oversight of actions by the Executive Branch as our system of checks and balances requires.

Serving on the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight allows me to play a role making government more accountable by investigating waste, mismanagement, and improprieties.

In the rush to become all things to all people, the federal government has lost sight of its core responsibilities. As a result we're stuck in this frustrating paradox where Washington actually neglects things it's clearly supposed to be doing, while interfering in other areas where they are neither welcome nor authorized.

Congress has the constitutional authority to investigate the other agencies of government. We are the watchdogs of the taxpayer's money, and we have the right to know how that money is being spent and to conduct oversight over the government.

It is only when there is the supervision and critical oversight from the people that the government will be in a position to do an even better job, and employees of government departments will be the true public servants of the people.

There is no better example of the overreach of government than in environmental law.

When governments become large, voters cannot exercise close oversight, otherwise known as political power.

The office has oversight of people who do analysis and oversight of people who do operations, but it is not charged with doing either. That is an important point to make. Those functions are performed by the CIA, DIA and other agencies.

The accountability of state legislators is so much more than federal legislators.