You Know You're Having A Great Day in DC, When...

Sometimes when you're working in DC, you have good days and you have bad days (like working anywhere else, of course). Sometimes you have great days.

You know you're having a great day when a member of the US Senate, testifying before a House committee, directly quotes stats you offered in previous testimony to the House - and not just stats, but uses the same verbiage.

I was sitting in a hearing a few hours ago when Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) used some research that I'd done for my hearing in July on paperwork costs in his testimony. This was the same subcommittee - the House Government Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, and the hearing was on a bill regarding the waiving of penalties for first-time paperwork violations, where the violation doesn't result in any "harm".

You might recall, when I testified in July, I offered some figures on the costs of paperwork overall, on an annual basis, for the economy as a whole. I then compared these costs to other things in the budget - like how that amount we spend as a nation on federal paperwork compares with what the Feds spend on cancer research, homeland security, defense, etc.

So I perked up when Senator Vitter started citing my figures, even using my verbiage (ie, when talking about the overall numbers, Vitter said "$410 billion dollars. That's 'billion' with a 'B'," just like I said. ).

I was quite pleased, to say the least.

Thanks, Senator Vitter (and thank you to the staffers who prepared his testimony!)!

- Andrew Langer