For Immediate Release
Contact: Curtis Kalin 202-467-5318

March 22, 2018
 

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz issued the following statement after House Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R- N.J.) laughably claimed that “not a dollar was wasted” in the gargantuan, 2,232-page fiscal year 2018 omnibus spending bill that passed the House today:

“The $21 trillion national debt and the increased deficits that will result from the omnibus appropriations bill that passed the House of Representatives are no joke, yet Chairman Frelinghuysen had the audacity to claim there is no waste in the bill.  That may be the most ridiculous comment ever made about any legislation in Congress.  And taxpayers do not need to be lectured to on waste by the same member who attempted to funnel $900 million to the Gateway Project, one of the largest earmarks in history.

“According to an estimate made in a March 22, 2018 Washington Times article, members would have to read 195 pages per minute to get through the entire bill before they voted on it today, which may or may not have been enough time for them to determine if the chairman’s comments are accurate. 

“Nonetheless, CAGW can identify obvious examples of wasteful spending that are in the bill and also appear in the CAGW’s Prime Cuts database, which contains 607 recommendations that would save taxpayers $336.2 billion in one year and $2.3 trillion over five years.  The omnibus boosts or maintains funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, TIGER grants, Export-Import Bank, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and renewable energy subsidies, and more.  And while the Department of Defense won its argument that it needs more money, it has never had a clean audit. 

“Bad process begets bad legislation, and the House omnibus is the worst of both.  The only thing worse is for a member like Chairman Frelinghuysen to put forth the ludicrous claim that it is free of waste.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.