(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today marked its fourth annual celebration of Festivus to acknowledge the disappointments and successes for taxpayers in 2007.  In the sitcom Seinfeld, Festivus is a fictional holiday invented by Frank Costanza to protest the commercialization of other December holidays.  The Festivus dinner begins with the Airing of Grievances, where the celebrant tells family and friends all the ways they have disappointed him or her over the past year.  Similarly, CAGW will now tell politicians all they ways they have disappointed taxpayers over the past year.  Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned by another participant in the Feats of Strength.  Likewise, CAGW will end Festivus by recognizing the times taxpayers triumphed over Washington’s big spenders.

                        The Airing of Grievances

Farm Bill:  At a time when agricultural income is at record highs, farm commodity prices are soaring, and taxpayers have been paying an average of $20 billion annually for the most expensive farm subsidy payments in history, the 2007 Farm Bill was a lost opportunity for farm subsidy reform.  The farm bill passed by Congress increased subsidies for most crops, in addition to creating a costly permanent disaster assistance program.  Efforts to reform the farm bill, which were supported by CAGW, were thwarted in both the House and the Senate.

Energy Bill:  While some of the worst provisions of the energy bill were taken out to prevent a presidential veto, two problematic items remain: an increase in CAFE standards and a mandate for 36 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels to be blended into gasoline annually by 2022.  Design and engineering changes to improve fuel economy can add thousands of dollars to the cost of a new car and contributed to thousands of deaths each year, according to a 2002 study by the National Research Council.  Mandating renewable fuel be added to the gasoline supply will only continue to raise the price of corn and increase the cost of other products such as food and transportation.  Corn ethanol is not an efficient fuel and even if the nation’s entire corn crop was used for ethanol, it would replace only 12 percent of current gas use.

Omnibus: The House was given less than 24 hours to review the 11-bill Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2008, but still approved the behemoth bill, more than 3,500 pages in length, 253-154.  The Senate will vote within 48 hours of the bill becoming public.  The omnibus is loaded with budget gimmicks, including approximately $11.1 billion in emergency spending, much of it for non-emergencies such as $400 million for the special supplemental nutrition program for woman, infants, and children, and $100 million for presidential security at political conventions.  There are also 8,967 earmarks worth $7.5 billion.  While this is an improvement over 2005, the last year every appropriations bill included earmarks, Democratic leadership failed on their promise to cut earmarks by 50 percent.  The best option for taxpayers would have been another continuing resolution like that passed for fiscal year 2007 in which pork was cut out of nine of the 11 bills.

Feats of Strength

CSAR-X: On November 15, the Air Force finally agreed to re-open bidding for a new $15 billion Combat Search and Rescue-X (CSAR-X) helicopter contract.  In November 2006, the Air Force awarded the contract to Boeing.  Many were puzzled by the decision considering that other bids were technologically comparable, and Lockheed Martin’s was $3 billion less than Boeing’s.  In addition, Boeing offered Vietnam-era Chinook helicopters with two rotors while Lockheed and Sikorsky offered newer models with single rotors.  Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin protested the contract award and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) twice ruled in their favor when the Air Force agreed to change its evaluation scheme, but limited the basis on which contractors could revise their bids.  As CAGW recommended, the Air Force finally followed GAO’s decision and re-bid the contract to determine the best company to build the CSAR-X. 

SCHIP: Congress failed to override the President’s two vetoes of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) saving taxpayers from another costly entitlement program.  Congress tried expanding the program by an additional $35 billion over five years and increasing eligibility to at least 300 percent above the federal poverty level, which would have directed scarce funding to higher income families at the expense of poor families and placed an additional entitlement burden on future generations.  Furthermore, the expected revenues from cigarette taxes were unlikely to materialize, leaving taxpayers to foot the balance.  Instead of relying on more government intervention and regulation into healthcare, Congress should support tax reforms to empower all families to obtain private health insurance.

DM&E: In February, Federal Railroad Administrator (FRA) Joseph H. Boardman concluded there was an “unacceptably high risk to taxpayers” and denied a $2.3 billion federal loan to the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern Railroad (DM&E).  The DM&E loan would have been used to expand and improve a rail line used primarily to transport coal from Wyoming to Minnesota, a route that is already served by two railroads.  The loan quietly moved through Congress thanks to behind-the-scenes legislative maneuvers by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a former lobbyist for DM&E.  Taxpayers would have been forced to foot the bill if the company were to default on the loan.  In just one week in February, CCAGW members and supporters sent 10,258 letters to their representatives in Congress in opposition to the loan.  Fortunately, the FRA took the side of taxpayers and derailed this sweetheart deal.

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