(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today remembers President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), who passed away Saturday at the age of 93.  As the 40^th president of the United States, he left a long legacy, including a lasting effort to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in federal government.

“President Reagan forever changed the way people view the role of government,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “His demand for a smaller, more efficient government set the standard for fiscal responsibility in politics.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”

In his 1981 Inaugural address, President Reagan said, “we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present.”  Acting on this conviction, in an effort to reduce spending by cutting wasteful government, President Reagan signed Executive Order 12369, on June 30, 1982, establishing the President’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, better known as the Grace Commission after its chairman, J. Peter Grace.  President Reagan directed the Commission to “work like tireless bloodhounds to root out government inefficiency and waste of tax dollars.”  For two years, 161 corporate executives and community leaders led an army of 2,000 volunteers on a waste hunt through the federal government.  The search was funded entirely by voluntary contributions of $76 million from the private sector; it cost taxpayers nothing.

The Grace Commission made 2,478 recommendations which, if implemented, would save $424.4 billion over three years, all without eliminating essential services.  The 47 volumes and 21,000 pages of the Grace Commission Report constituted a unique vision of a well-managed government that is accountable to taxpayers.

After the commission completed its work, President Reagan asked Peter Grace to make sure “that the Grace Commission doesn’t become just another pile of reports.”  Grace and Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Jack Anderson formed CAGW in 1984 to make President Reagan’s vision a reality.  Through the implementation of the Grace Commission’s and CAGW’s waste-cutting recommendations, more than $700 billion has been saved to date.

“All of us at CAGW are honored and humbled to be part of Ronald Reagan’s legacy,” Schatz added.  “Without the unparalleled communication of his vision of the proper role of government and fiscal prudence, CAGW, along with other conservative organizations, would simply not exist.  It is a tribute to Reagan that CAGW has grown from 5,000 members to more than one million members and supporters today.”

President Reagan often spoke of the dangers of deficit spending.  In his second inaugural speech he stated, “An almost unbroken 50 years of deficit spending has finally brought us to a time of reckoning.  We have come to a turning point, a moment for hard decisions.  I have asked the Cabinet and my staff a question, and now I put the same question to all of you:  If not us, who? And if not now, when? It must be done by all of us going forward with a program aimed at reaching a balanced budget.”

“Unfortunately, with a record $521 billion deficit today, these same questions need to be asked again.  The $7.2 trillion national debt is 166 percent higher than when President Reagan left office,” Schatz concluded.  “The greatest homage that Washington could pay to Ronald Reagan would be to rein in wasteful spending, balance the budget, and leave a smaller, less onerous federal government in place for future generations.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.