Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today observed Cost of Government Day by expressing outrage at the federal, state, and local governments’ continued abuse of hundreds of billions of tax dollars in outdated, ineffective, duplicative, and wasteful programs and agencies.  Cost of Government Day is the date on which the average American worker has earned enough to pay off his or her share of tax and regulatory burdens imposed by all levels of government, according to the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation. 

“Today taxpayers have been released from state servitude and can begin to provide for themselves and their families,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “Governments at all levels must move to aggressively cut taxes and waste and reduce regulations to alleviate the burden on American workers.” 

Cost of Government Day for 2008 is July 16.  Americans now work more than half of the year – 197 days – to pay their share of the cost of government with 84 of those days due to federal spending alone.  This year, the average American will need to work an additional 16 days out of the year to pay off his or her cost of government compared to 2000 and four days compared to last year.

Earlier this year, CAGW identified 11,610 pork-barrel projects in its 2008 Congressional Pig Book.  The cost of these projects was $17.2 billion.
“In exchange for surrendering more than half of their working lives to the government, taxpayers get dubious pork projects such as $4.8 million for wood utilization research and almost $2 million for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service,” Schatz continued. 

“This type of wasteful spending takes money away from real national priorities and contributes to the inefficiencies of government,” Schatz concluded.  “Hopefully there will be less wasteful spending and more fiscal responsibility in the future, and next year the Cost of Government Day will arrive much sooner.”

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