HuffPost Interview: Rep. Henry Waxman
Huffington Post political editor Thomas B. Edsall recently spoke with House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman, who has led many of the high-profile investigations into the Bush administration over the last year.
+++
Tom Edsall: I was looking over your website and some clips. I noticed you have 61 investigative agendas or targets. How would you assess how you've done on those? Where have you made the most headway?
Henry Waxman: We've been looking at three general themes in our Oversight investigations.
One, we want to look at waste, fraud, and abuse of tax payers dollars whether it's reconstruction in Iraq, or a waste of money by the Coast Guard in building ships that don't float or the government response to Hurricane Katrina.
The second general theme that we have pursued is whether the government agencies are doing their job to represent the people, to serve the public interests and not the special interests. I'm a strong supporter of government; I know what an important difference it can make in the lives of people in a very beneficial way, and it angers me when we see incompetence and mismanagement of government agencies that once were looked upon with great pride like FEMA and FDA and are now tainted by cronyism and failure.
And then the third theme is that we've got to hold this administration accountable. One of the main purposes of Oversight is to provide the checks and balances between the independent branches of government, and I think Oversight is -- investigation -- may be in some ways even more important than legislating because we're making sure that the laws are carried out, we're trying to figure out what other laws may be needed, and we're trying to keep people honest. Government in a democracy functions best when it's open and transparent and accountable, and with this Bush administration we've had an administration, in its zeal for power, try to operate in secrecy and without being accountable.
TE: Is there a way to quantify your success, especially on this last front with the accountability of the administration?
(Continued here.)
+++
Tom Edsall: I was looking over your website and some clips. I noticed you have 61 investigative agendas or targets. How would you assess how you've done on those? Where have you made the most headway?
Henry Waxman: We've been looking at three general themes in our Oversight investigations.
One, we want to look at waste, fraud, and abuse of tax payers dollars whether it's reconstruction in Iraq, or a waste of money by the Coast Guard in building ships that don't float or the government response to Hurricane Katrina.
The second general theme that we have pursued is whether the government agencies are doing their job to represent the people, to serve the public interests and not the special interests. I'm a strong supporter of government; I know what an important difference it can make in the lives of people in a very beneficial way, and it angers me when we see incompetence and mismanagement of government agencies that once were looked upon with great pride like FEMA and FDA and are now tainted by cronyism and failure.
And then the third theme is that we've got to hold this administration accountable. One of the main purposes of Oversight is to provide the checks and balances between the independent branches of government, and I think Oversight is -- investigation -- may be in some ways even more important than legislating because we're making sure that the laws are carried out, we're trying to figure out what other laws may be needed, and we're trying to keep people honest. Government in a democracy functions best when it's open and transparent and accountable, and with this Bush administration we've had an administration, in its zeal for power, try to operate in secrecy and without being accountable.
TE: Is there a way to quantify your success, especially on this last front with the accountability of the administration?
(Continued here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home