(Washington, D.C.) – The nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog group, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), today reacted to an investigative report by KNXV ABC 7 in Phoenix, Arizona.  CAGW President Tom Schatz issued the following statement:

“This morning’s news that the federal government has increased its stake in AIG to $150 billion should exacerbate the taxpayers’ outrage over the KNXV November 7 investigative report about the posh conference held by the company at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix.  AIG executives should be ashamed of themselves.  Individuals across the country are on the precipice of financial ruin while AIG personnel still attend extravagant getaways at the taxpayers’ expense.

            “It is incredible that senior AIG executives would hold such an event following the dust up last month over the $440,000 conference near Los Angeles.  After being castigated by the media, Congress, and taxpayers, AIG pledged to cancel more than 160 conferences.  Apparently the stylish event in Phoenix escaped the ax.  While an AIG spokesman claimed that 90 percent of $343,000 cost of the conference would be paid by outside sponsors, that statement has as much credibility as the claim that taxpayers would only have to pay $85 billion to bailout AIG – a figure that today increased by 76 percent over the original estimate.

            “Taxpayers should be demanding complete accountability and transparency for every penny being spent on the Wall Street bailout.  Yet the KNXV report shows the AIG tried to hide its sponsorship of the conference.  In addition, news reports indicate that the Federal Reserve will not identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion in emergency loans nor the type of collateral it has received in exchange for those loans.

            “Congratulations to KNXV for providing information about where at least some of the bailout money is going.  That is more than the participants in this unprecedented expenditure of the taxpayers’ money have been doing to date.”

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