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This is the Fiscal Year 2026 Legislative Branch Subcommittee Public Witness Day Hearing. I’d like to thank Ranking Member Espaillat and Committee members for being here today.
A special thank you to our witnesses for being here today. We appreciate your interest in the Legislative Branch and for taking time out of your busy schedules to testify before this subcommittee. In addition to our witnesses here this morning, additional witnesses have submitted testimony for the record, and their statements may be found online.
I would also like to note that this hearing serves as a vehicle for the one Member of Congress who submitted testimony for the record, and her statement can also be found online. I now recognize Ranking Member Espaillat for his opening remarks.
Good morning. It is my pleasure to welcome everyone to the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education for a hearing to hear from outside experts and the public.
This is our public witness day – an opportunity for members of the public to come before this panel and draw our attention to issues of importance to them.
I look forward to hearing from our public witnesses as we learn more regarding the challenges facing our constituents and communities across this country, and what this subcommittee can do to help them.
For our witnesses, a five-minute clock will count down on the microphone box in front of you, when you have one minute remaining the light will turn yellow, and you should begin to wrap up your testimony at that point. Remember that your full written statement you submitted to the Committee will appear in the hearing record.
The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said it best when they described the federal government as quote - “one of the world’s largest and most complex entities.”
I have said for years that we do a lot of talking in DC about how much we owe – and rightfully so, with the national debt continuing to climb – but we do not do a good job of talking about what we own. The U.S. government needs a clear balance sheet to fully understand both our costs and our assets, and I am hopeful that GAO can assist in that process.
To help Congress and the executive branch manage the federal government’s operations, GAO created a High-Risk List. This list, which is updated every two years, identifies areas that are ripe for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, or areas that need to be fundamentally overhauled.
