Now todays House Oversight committee. Secret Service Hearing with the head of the secret service joseph clancy. Congressman Joseph Chaffetz of utah chairs the committee. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the committee on oversight and government reforma come to order. Without objection. Without objection the chair chairs authorized to declare recess at any time. Appreciate everybody being here. Reforming the United States secret service is not a partisan issue. Ranking member cummings and i have presented a united front on this issue and i look forward to continuing this important work with him on both sides of the aisle. The most Important Mission for the secret service is protecting the president and his family however a litany of recent mishaps to raise major concerns. In 2011 nobody recognized shots were fired at the white house until bullets were discovered by maintenance staff. It has been well publicized the secret Service Agents engag
What result is and, clearly, what were looking at is something that is the an tistithesis of what you can see would truly exist within a competitive environment. I think its time, thank you. And this is a complicated issue. I think its time to open it up to the audience. Yes, sir . Right here. Theres a microphone . Yes, there is a microphone. The thing i learned about running an Organization Even though it was a notforprofit i was the ceo oval,f, we needed revenue. The revenue seems to be the heart of the problem. We talk about businesses. I dont know of any business that restricts its price increases to how through some other criteria other than what the market would bare. The market would bare these lower prices, they lower the prices. If the market could bare higher prices, they raised the price. I think the biggest problem, one of the big problems was the new Regulatory Regime in the post office. And congress has limit to an external inflation as the limit on how much that you can
But just think about the example of delivering a package at the same time youre delivering the mail. The incremental cost of delivering that package given that you already have these enormous economies of scale and scope based on the monopoly product. We would be very uncomfortable if we said that the military could provide could have a private business for private security forces. I dont see any difference. Frankly. Second you know, the kirby. The activities of this Government Agency in the private market to postal product. We heard from our friends proposals for a whole line of new products. This would only compound the problem. The notion that the Postal Service, as the expertise to handle backnking services and financial services. To me, this is, you know, in the 1970s, the Oil Companies had a lot of money because oil prices had skyrocketed. They said we are all going to become conglomerates. And they started buying businesses, they had nothing to do with the oil business. And ten
Has gone on, diplomatic for example, and as part of a lot of international forums. Our government is trying to adopt some norms to get the chinese to go along with them. But it is my function the fbis to understand what theyre doing, develop the factings and then show our government heres what we see. I understand, you know, that the cyber threat is real and i think congress and the American People are recognizing that its real and its clear and present danger. I hope were doing everything that we can as members of congress to provide your agency as well as others with the resources to counter this threat. Because not just illegally downloading music but its of huge fear that if they engage in some form of cyber attack that it could cripple our critical infrastructure. The last thing i would want to see the the lights go out and your atm doesnt work, your navigation on your car and phone. I think it would cause a huge amount of panic in our country. You also mentioned something about t
Secretary of defense Ashton Carter and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general martin dempsey, both testified before the committee. And i have Great Respect for both of them. I asked them if after a decade in afghanistan keeping troops in afghanistan for nine more years would even make a difference. Last year in his politico article and i quote the title was down the opium rathole, roger says, and i quote, if you spent 13 years pounding money down the rathole with little to show for it you might wake up one morning and say, hey, ill stop pounding money down this rathole. Unfortunately, the United States government does not think this way. Even though our combat troops are leaving afghanistan, our money will continue to flow there. Billions after billions. Mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent to submit this politico article for the record. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Jones in recent days, the waste of billions of dollars in afghanistan has been dominating the h