There wasn't much more that could be said on the third day of hearings in Congress on the excessive spending by the General Services Administration, as lawmakers wondered aloud how the feds could prevent such abuses in the future.
"What's next?" asked a peeved Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who pronounced himself "outraged and embarrassed" as the last of four hearings this week began in a Senate committee room.
"What we hope will come out of it is indictments," said the GSA Inspector General Brian Miller, who emerged as one of the bright spots in testimony this week before the Congress.
One of Miller's favorite lines was that every time his investigators turned over a stone inside the GSA, fifty more things emerged that needed review.
"When you talked to GSA employees or management, was there a defense that, 'this kind of thing goes on everywhere, all the time' kind of thing?" asked Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS).
"Many of the witnesses we talked to said this conference was similar to previous Western Region Conferences," said Miller, who said it seemed like every year the host tried to step it up another notch - leading to the 2010 event in Las Vegas.
But the focus isn't just on Vegas 2010.
"What we've learned is that there is more than just this conference in this region that we need to be concerned about," said acting GSA Chief Dan Tangherlini.
"Why would they hold an interns conference in Palm Springs, California?" Sen. Durbin asked Tangherlini at one point.
"I have no ability to explain what they were thinking," said Tangherlini, who will be back on Capitol Hill for more meetings on Thursday with key lawmakers.
Now that these hearings are over, this is the time that will show whether the Congress is serious about doing something.
Yes, lawmakers grabbed the headlines, but now they have to do the dirty work of formulating ways to prevent a repeat and possibly including that in legislation later this year.
Stay tuned.
