branch individuals including president obama and vice president biden. in fact, we need to look beyond that. we need look to the question of do we need to change the law for future presidents that would ensure prompt filling of vacancies in the absence of presidential action. could significanty have the right to temporarily fill those f. there is a dismissal and i must admit i was tardy because i was dealing with a potential false dismissal of an inspector general today, the fact is, if that occurs, what is our ability to ensure that the acting inspector general in that entity or agency is in fact independent and that that dismissal is reviewed or any other action reviewed in a way that prevents any loss of the independence, no matter what the allegation is. as we all know, it is clear that inspector generals wear two hats. one of them is for the agency or the cabinet position they work for, they may or may not be presidentially appointed. they may or may not be confirmed in
we ll be joined by the institute s food and nutrition chairman, former agriculture secretary dan glickman. libertarian presidential candidate gary johnson, the former governor of new mexico will take your calls about the campaign. and we ll examine the foreign-born population in the u.s. with elizabeth grieco from the census bureau and audrey singer from the brookings institution. washington journal is live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. next, a house panel examines inspector general vacancies at federal agencies. right now there are ten inspector general vacancies, seven of them have been vacant for over a year. california congressman darrell issa chairs this house oversight committee chairman which is about two hours. hearing will come to order. before we begin, this is an unusual hearing. and i hope you ll all agree that this is a hearing in which we re not talking about any particular problem that s occurred in the recent or not recent past. we re talking
but we have not heard much beyond that. the partnership is being negotiated now which asian countries and does not involve china. he has reason i spoke about a bilateral trade agreement but nobody else has done that yet. governor romney has been a real hardliner on this issue so the chamber might be conflicted. which candidates policies they will push them to do you foresee mitt romney meeting with the u.s. chamber in the next couple of months? i think it would make a lot of sense because he seems to have a real alliance with the business community. some people might see it as preaching to the choir. some people are firmly behind him. it might be expected. this might be seen as overly political toward the national scene. gentlemen, thanr being here. thank you. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] they said the u.s. government was wasting tens of billions of dollars. colonel cowa
the committee will come to order. the custom of this committee to read our mission statement at the start of every hearing. i think particularly today it s important that we read it. the oversight committee s mission statement is that we exist to secure two fundamental principals. first, americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent. and second americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them. our duty on the oversight government reform committee is to protect these rights. our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to tax payers because tax payers have a right to know what they get from their government. it is our job to work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy. this is our mission statement. and i might add, when i say citizens watchdogs that does include the inspector generals. we re h
greta: okay. well, guess what? they are laughing at you. the new videos are the latest caught on camera moments. highlighting the g gsa colossal waste of money. we spoke with house oversight committee chair darrell issa earlier tonight. congressman, nice to see you, sir. nice to hear your voice. hopefully you are enjoying your time with less of us in town. greta: it s quiet. sort of quiet. not totally quiet. already you have plans for monday april 16, that that you are announcing a hearing on gsa. i am curious if your list of witnesses i have the list here, will show up. we think all the witnesses will show up. our invitation is not about the one episode which has been highly covered but about the problems that gsa that go back to the previous administration. as you know. lorita dome was working hard to change the culture at gsa and probably the first to say it s hard to change culture of an organization that hasn t been held responsible. greta: are you going