(Washington, D.C.) – As tributes to Ronald Reagan continue throughout the nation in recognition of his 100th birthday, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today issued a statement to remind Americans that the fortieth President’s mission to “get government off of our backs” is alive and well.  On June 30, 1982, President Reagan signed Executive Order 12369, which established the President’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control in the Federal Government.  The study was funded entirely by the private sector, and became known as the Grace Commission after its chairman, the industrialist J. Peter Grace.

President Reagan asked Mr. Grace, along with the 161 members of the commission’s executive committee and its 2,000 volunteers, to “work like tireless bloodhounds to root out government inefficiency and waste of tax dollars.”  Eighteen months of work produced 2,478 recommendations that would have saved $424.4 billion over three years following full implementation.  When the final report was released in January, 1984, President Reagan asked Mr. Grace to avoid letting it “gather dust on a shelf.”  Peter joined with Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jack Anderson to co-found CAGW to carry out the commission’s recommendations.  Twenty-seven years later, CAGW has helped save taxpayers $1.08 trillion from the implementation of Grace Commission and other waste-cutting proposals, and the group has grown from 5,000 members and supporters to more than one million.

At a White House luncheon honoring members of the Grace Commission shortly before he left office in 1988, President Reagan called CAGW “An organization whose only loyalty is to the one special interest group that we should support because we all belong to it – the United States taxpayers.  You put the issue of waste and inefficiency front and center on the public agenda. … And that’s why the work of Citizens Against Government Waste is so vital – vital in the battle against budget deficits and vital to the strength and resiliency of the democratic system and public confidence in our government.”

“All of us at CAGW are proud to be a direct part of President Reagan’s legacy and fulfill one of his most important principles, as we work like ‘tireless bloodhounds’ each day to prevent the government from wasting the taxpayer’s money,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “We remain inspired by President Reagan’s faith in our mission and continually re-dedicate ourselves to working on behalf of the taxpayers.”

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