(Washington, D.C.) – At a news conference today, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) was joined by leading taxpayer advocacy groups to announce continued support for passage of a tax cut package this year.  Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) President Thomas A. Schatz issued the following statement in support of Armey’s efforts to enact tax relief.

“Official Washington continues to suffer from what can only be called a ‘surplus addiction.’  Rather than returning the surplus money as a rebate to its rightful owners, both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are drooling over possible ways to spend their new-found riches.

“Like anyone suffering from severe addiction, our government officials live in a world divorced from reality.  They seem to think that taming the deficit means that government waste is no longer an issue.  However, as the recent series of General Accounting Office reports revealed, bureaucracy is still too big, pork is still too prevalent, and waste is still too widespread.

“No good can come from keeping that money in the hands of Washington bureaucrats.  As long as that money remains in Washington, it will continue to be spent on short-sighted, wasteful, duplicative, and unnecessary federal programs.  Only by returning surplus tax dollars to those who earned them, can we guarantee that the money will be spent wisely.”

CCAGW is a 600,000-member nonpartisan, nonprofit lobbying organization dedicated to enacting legislation to eliminate waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.