As a former FBI Special Agent and Federal Prosecutor, spending my entire career arresting corrupt politicians, I’ve now made it my mission to take on a broken and dysfunctional Washington. On my very first day in office, I introduced a bold and sweeping government reform package to challenge the career politicians, impose term limits, and abolish congressional pensions for members of Congress. But we still have more work to do.
In Congress, we are fighting to reform a broken Washington. I led a successful effort to stop a pay increase for members of Congress, supported a Balanced-Budget Amendment to our Constitution to end the limitless borrowing from crippling future generations, and support ending the Federal government’s duplication of agencies and programs, a practice that costs our country billions of dollars. Also, by bolstering and empowering the Office of Inspectors General (OIGs) to aggressively investigate and prosecute all instances of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in federal agencies, we can save taxpayers billions annually.
I led by example with regards to No Budget, No Pay during the last government shutdown. Following through on my promise to return pay during the government shutdown, I wrote a $10,008.68 check to the United States Treasury –the net pay from the 35-day government shutdown. If over 800,000 federal employees and their families were forced to live without their paychecks due to no fault of their own, then no Member of Congress should accept a dime of pay during a government shutdown. If Members of Congress actually feel the pain of the people they represent, perhaps they would approach their jobs differently. I am the author of the “No Budget, No Pay” legislation and I will always abide by it.