| For Immediate Release | Daytime : Jessica Shoemaker (202) 467-5318 |
| September 14, 2005 | Evening : Tom Finnigan (202) 253-3852 |
(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released Prime Cuts 2005, which catalogues 600 recommendations throughout the government that if enacted could save taxpayers $252 billion in fiscal year 2006 and $2 trillion over the next five years. As reported in the Washington Times, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) yesterday asked for budget cuts to offset the cost of Hurricane Katrina relief, which has so far added $62.5 billion to the deficit.
“Rep. DeLay has challenged fiscal conservatives to come up with offsets. Prime Cuts is the answer to his challenge,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said. “The federal government is fraught with wasteful, ineffective, and duplicative programs that can be trimmed or eliminated altogether.”
Prime Cuts includes examples of agencies, programs, and policies that are plagued by fraud or negligence, serve political or parochial interests rather than the general good, do not demonstrate results, duplicate efforts in the private sector, circumvent procedural checks for transparency and accountability, or wildly exceed their original mandate.
Prime Cuts features some long-standing proposals to terminate specific programs, such as Community Development Block Grants (saving $24.7 billion over five years), the White House’s National Youth Anti-drug Media Campaign (saving $1 billion over five years), and the Advanced Technology Program (saving $750 million over five years). New recommendations include eliminating two narcissistic education scholarship programs that would save $205 million over five years: the B.J. Stupak Olympic Scholarship Program and the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program.
“Tradeoffs must be made in a time of budget deficit and national disaster. Prime Cuts arms citizens, legislators, and the media with specific, rational, and achievable options for rightsizing government. Our nation has seen the wrath of natural disaster, and we must avoid fiscal disaster by offsetting the cost of hurricane relief. These projects and programs are wasteful in normal circumstances, but they are even less essential in these extraordinary times,” Schatz concluded.
Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.