CAGW Praises Sen. Coburn’s Waste Report

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) issued a statement of enthusiastic support for the work of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who this morning released the third installment of his annual “Waste Book” reports. “Waste Book 2012” details more than $18 billion of utterly unjustifiable taxpayer-funded projects.

The 100 projects revealed in the report include:

• $38.8 million in subsidies for a tourist train in Alaska;
• $5.5 million for a State Department program to send professional athletes on diplomatic trips around the world;
• $947,000 for an outpost in Hawaii where NASA scientists study what astronauts could eat on Mars;
• $520,000 for the rehabilitation of an unused covered bridge in Ohio;
• $505,000 for a pet shampoo and toothpaste company in Nebraska, and
• $325,000 for a National Science Foundation grant to study how squirrels and rattlesnakes interact.

“Sen. Coburn has long been a leading ally of taxpayers and anyone who loathes wasteful spending,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “He has done a great service with this report, not only by once again identifying a huge amount of government waste, but by further revealing how much Washington is out of touch with reality. These 100 examples give lie to the notion that government spending is under control.”

“When the Government Accountability Office released its 2012 ‘Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue’ report, Sen. Coburn commented that the GAO’s findings made him and his fellow lawmakers ‘look like jackasses.’ As ‘Waste Book 2012’ demonstrates, it is almost impossible to eliminate even the most obviously frivolous federal expenditures. However, the situation would be much worse without the likes of Sen. Coburn, whose outrage at the inefficiency of the federal government has encouraged him to fight wasteful spending at its source.”

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