TAXPAYER WATCHDOG GROUP TELLS CLINTON TO CUT WASTE IN FOREIGN AID BUDGET | Citizens Against Government Waste

TAXPAYER WATCHDOG GROUP TELLS CLINTON TO CUT WASTE IN FOREIGN AID BUDGET

Press Release

For Immediate ReleaseContact: Jim Campi or Aaron Taylor
November 3, 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 waste, fraud, and abuse from the foreign operations budget 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 waste in the foreign aid budget every year,” said CCAGW President Thomas Schatz.  “Cutting less than one percent out of that 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 returning to the U.S. Treasury any foreign economic assistance funds not expended within three years of obligation.  This common-sense  reform would save the taxpayers $2 billion in the first year alone, and $5 billion over five years.

In the arena of pork-barrel spending, 1999 Pig Book Summary calls for the elimination of the International Fund for Ireland.  This earmark began as a going-away present for outgoing House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.) in 1986.  Over the years, the fund has paid for golf videos, pony trekking centers, and sweater exports.

“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.

 

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