(Washington, D.C.) – Much scarier than the prospect of being haunted by the undead is the prospect of being spooked by the third-highest budget deficit in the nation’s history, a $319 billion monster in fiscal 2005.  In the Halloween spirit, Citizens Against Government Waste provides a list of who deserves tricks and treats from taxpayers:

Trick:  To Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) for requesting $2 million for a Navy study exploring the use of “no flush” urinals, which was added to the fiscal 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations Act.  What taxpayers can learn from the study is that it doesn’t take water to flush their hard-earned money down the toilet.

Treat:  To Sen. Tom “Waste Slayer” Coburn (R-Okla.) for proposing amendments to eliminate pork-barrel projects in the recently-passed highway bill.  The first amendment would have revoked funding for two extravagant bridge projects in Alaska:  $223 million for the Knik Arm Bridge (renamed Don Young’s Way) and $229 million for a bridge in Gravina referred to as the “Bridge to Nowhere.”  The amendment would have redirected $125 million of the savings to hurricane recovery in the Gulf Coast.  The second amendment targeted $950,000 for a parking facility for a private museum in Omaha, Nebraska, $500,000 for a sculpture park in Seattle, Washington, and $200,000 for an animal facility in Westerly, Rhode Island.  The Senate rejected both amendments to the Transportation, Treasury, HUD, Judiciary, and District of Columbia Appropriations Act (H.R. 3058) by votes of 18 to 82 and 13 to 86.  

Trick:  To Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) for his hysterics on the Senate floor in response to Sen. Coburn’s amendment to remove funding for the two Alaska bridges.  With the petulant fist pounding of a five year-old whose candy had been taken away, he threatened to resign from the Senate and declared that “I will be taken out of here on a stretcher” if the amendment passed.  Had Sen. Stevens followed through on his threat, this trick would have turned into a treat, although his ghost might have haunted the halls of Congress in an eternal search for tax dollars to waste.

Treat:  To the “Fiscal Monster Squad.”  Senators Brownback (R-Kans.), Coburn (R-Okla.), DeMint (R-S.C.), Ensign (R-Nev.), Graham (R-S.C.), McCain (R-Ariz.), and Sununu (R-N.H.) proposed a comprehensive package of spending cuts ($75 to $115 billion over two years) to offset the cost of hurricane recovery.  The package includes a 5 percent across-the-board cut to non-defense and non-homeland security discretionary spending and freezing the annual pay raise for members of Congress.  These senators have removed the funhouse of mirrors distorting the nation’s fiscal situation.

Trick:  To the U.S. Congress for overseeing a national debt that surpassed $8 trillion on October 18.  The debt took less than two years to morph from $7 trillion to $8 trillion and continues to increase by an average of $1.62 billion per day.  No costume could possibly disguise this budgetary mess.

Treat:  To the Republican Study Committee for enlightening party leadership on the waste and inefficiency in the federal budget, coming up with 122 cuts that would save taxpayers $950 billion over ten years. 

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