WasteWatcher - 2011, August
August, 2011
WasteWatcher
A Monthly Dispatch from Citizens Against Government Waste
A Letter to the House on The Budget Control Act of 2011
With the clock ticking and the nation’s economic future hanging in the balance, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) urged all members of Congress to support House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) Budget Control Act of 2011. The Congressional Budget Office found that the Budget Control Act would reduce the deficit by $22 billion in fiscal year 2012
The Pig Book is Alive and Well
by: Courtney Frink and Luke Gelber
Congress is supposed to be on a no-pork diet in 2011. After Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) nonbinding one-year earmark moratorium passed in the Senate on November 16, 2010, and as more and more politicians began to speak publicly about the importance of ending pork-barrel spending, longtime earmark opponents like Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) began to think that the earmark era might finally be coming to a close. Those prospects seemed even rosier when President Obama announced that he would veto any bill containing earmarks during his 2011 State of the Union Address.
The Senate Budget Committee – A Story of Failed Leadership
by: PJ Austin
Congress is statutorily obligated to pass a budget by October 1 of each year; yet, as of August 1, 2011, it has been 824 days since the Senate last passed a budget (April 29, 2009). Lawmakers have abdicated their duty by funding the government through multiple, consecutive short-term continuing resolutions. During this protracted period of indolence, the Senate Budget Committee has spent more than $12 million in taxpayer funds on staff salaries and other extraneous expenses, while Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) office has spent in excess of $5 million
FCC Continues to Forge Ahead with Net Neutrality Regulations
by: Deborah Collier
On July 11, 2011, President Obama issued Executive Order No. 13579 to improve and reform the regulatory process for government agencies. How this Executive Order will be implemented remains to be seen, as some agencies are forging ahead with costly, unnecessary and burdensome regulations that contravene the intent of the Executive Order
Multibillion-Dollar CMS Overpayments Continue; Efficiency Programs Fail Spectacularly
by: Christopher P. Ryan
On June 30, 2011, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report about the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’s (CMS) incompetence in curtailing waste, fraud, and abuse. For more than 20 years, GAO has deemed Medicare a high-risk program, and applied the same label to Medicaid since 2003. GAO justifies the high-risk distinctions by citing both programs’ “susceptibility to improper payments—estimated to be about $70 billion in fiscal year 2010.”
