(Washington, D.C.) – The nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog group, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today responded with dismay at President Obama’s speech at the Brookings Institution regarding next steps in addressing the stagnating economy and the 10 percent unemployment levels announced last Friday.  On a positive note, the President promoted new tax breaks for small businesses, such as the complete elimination of capital gains taxes on small business investment and a tax credit to add and keep employees.

The President made the remarkable claim that the administration is “taking responsibility for every dollar” it spends, and “We’ve done what some said was impossible:  preventing wasteful spending on outdated weapons systems that even the Pentagon said it didn’t want.  We’ve combed the budget, cutting waste and excess wherever we could.  I’m still committed to halving the deficit we inherited by the end of my first term.  And I made clear from day one that I would not sign a health insurance reform bill if it raised the deficit by one dime – and neither the House nor Senate bill does.  We have begun to not only change policies but also to change the culture in Washington.”

“The President’s comments about wasteful spending and the healthcare bills are both outlandish,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “Other than a few defense systems, nothing has been cut from the federal budget, which reached a record $3.6 trillion.  And only the tooth fairy believes that the healthcare bills will not raise the deficit.”

The President said he favored “more investment in the nation’s infrastructure beyond what was included in the Recovery Act,” while also acknowledging that the “potential for abuse in a program of this magnitude, while operating at such a fast pace, was enormous.”  The President asked Vice President Biden and others to “make sure – to the extent humanly possible – that the investments were sound, the projects worthy, and the execution efficient.” A December 1, 2009 report in the Wall Street Journal quoted construction industry executives saying that “$27 billion out of the $787 billion stimulus package that went to highway construction went mostly to relatively small ‘shovel ready’ projects, those that didn’t require much lead time.”  As has been widely reported, the job numbers reported on recovery.gov are incomplete, wildly exaggerated, and patently unreliable by almost any standard.

“The President continues to try to appease the big spenders on Capitol Hill, who are living in a parallel universe where the solution to every problem is to borrow more and spend more.  He wants to sound like a fiscal hawk, but his plans generate more wasteful spending and more big government control,” said Tom Schatz.  “Big spenders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) can’t wait to get their hands on more taxpayer dollars.  Remaining TARP funds should be used to reduce the deficit, not to help drive the nation further into bankruptcy.  When one is in a huge $12 trillion hole, the rule of thumb is, stop digging,” concluded Schatz.

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