TAXPAYER WATCHDOG GROUP TELLS CLINTON TO CUT WASTE AND BUREAUCRACY
Press Release
For Immediate Release | Contact: Jim Campi or Aaron Taylor |
November 4, 1999 | (202) 467-5300 |
(Washington, D.C.) — The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), America’s largest taxpayer watchdog group, today called on the President to cut the waste, fraud, and abuse throughout the federal bureaucracy in order to insure the integrity of the current surplus in the Social Security trust fund. While Congress has called for a .97 percent across-the-board cut, CCAGW has found that even deeper cuts can be made without sacrificing essential functions.
“We find billions of dollars of wasteful spending every year,” said CCAGW President Thomas Schatz. “Cutting less than one percent out of the budget is child’s play. If the President has trouble figuring out where to make the cuts, I’d be happy to send him Prime Cuts and Pig Book, two excellent sources we publish every year detailing the waste, fraud, and abuse endemic in nearly every government agency.”
For example, the 1999 Prime Cuts Catalog recommends reducing bureaucracy and eliminating uneccessary positions in the Department of Interior. This common-sense reform would save the taxpayers $45 million in the first year alone, and $256 million over five years.
In the arena of pork-barrel spending, 1999 Pig Book Summary calls for the elimination of the National Center for Cool and Cold Water Aquaculture in West Virginia. $15.9 million dollars has gone to this project since 1995, and construction has not even begun. For this and many other pork-barrel projects in West Virginia, we can thank Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the first Billion Dollar Man in Pig Book history.
“We hope that the President will follow the example set by Congress in making a serious attempt to cut government waste. If we don’t live within our budgets now, our senior citizens will pay the bills when Social Security goes broke. That’s not a legacy President Clinton should want to be remembered for,” Schatz concluded.
CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a 600,000 member nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.