(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today applauded Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) for their new effort to target wasteful federal spending.  In a letter to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, the senators requested that the General Accounting Office (GAO) review specific spending items to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.  Collins is the new Chairwoman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, and Feingold is a member of the Senate Budget Committee.

“Sens. Collins and Feingold illustrate that cutting government waste is not a partisan issue, it is a common sense issue,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “Working Americans should be pleased that these senators are standing up to the Washington waste status quo on their behalf, especially in this time of foreign conflict, economic weakness, and rising budget deficits.  We are pleased to these two senators are carrying on the anti-waste battle of former Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman, Fred Thompson, and hope more senators will join the effort.”

Some of the areas that Feingold and Collins have asked the GAO to investigate include:

• Federal aviation fleet – A review of the 1200 aircraft owned by eleven civilian federal agencies;
• Government use of contractors – A review of the estimated $24 billion spent on outside consultants;
• The government's 380,000 non-tactical, non-postal vehicles – A review of selected agencies' justification for purchasing of vehicles;
• Purchasing supplies and services – A review of the billions of dollars of federal purchasing annually to ensure effective use of taxpayer dollars;
• Multi-year contracting – Determine the extent to which multi-year contracting is currently used by various agencies;
• Advertising expenditures using taxpayer dollars – Determine the amount of money spent on advertising sponsored by the federal government, as well as the purpose and nature of the advertisements.

CAGW was particularly gratified to note that several of the items under review were taken from the watchdog’s annual Prime Cuts publication, which recommends 543 cuts to the federal budget that would save $1.2 trillion over the next five years.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.