TAXPAYER WATCHDOG GROUP URGES BABBIT TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE WASTE | Citizens Against Government Waste

TAXPAYER WATCHDOG GROUP URGES BABBIT TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE WASTE

Press Release

For Immediate ReleaseContact: Jim Campi or Aaron Taylor
November 2, 1999(202) 467-5300

(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today ridiculed an assertion made last week by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit that the Interior Department has eliminated waste in its various programs.

“Secretary Babbit needs to come out of the wilderness,” remarked CCAGW President Thomas A. Schatz.  “No conscious human being really believes the Interior Department is completely fat-free.”

In fact, waste abounds throughout the federal government.  Earlier this year, CCAGW issued a report entitled Prime Cuts, a compendium of budget-cutting options that, if implemented, would save taxpayers $1.2 trillion over five years.  In the report, CCAGW identified $1.5 billion in possible savings in the Interior Department alone.

“Secretary Babbit is not minding his shop.  He could save taxpayers $45 million by simply reducing the department’s ridiculously bloated bureaucracy,” Schatz noted.  “He could save taxpayers another $60 million by eliminating preferential treatment of concessionaires at National Parks and opening its concessions up to real competition.”

In addition, the National Park Service (NPS) has an obsession with expensive toilets.  Two years ago, NPS spent $784,000 for an outhouse at Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania.  More recently, NPS spent $1 million for a potty at Glacier National Park in Montana – an outhouse so inaccessible that they had to use helicopters to get construction materials to the site.  “Secretary Babbit needs to wake up and smell the waste,” Schatz wryly noted.

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