| For Immediate Release | Contact: Curtis Kalin 202-467-5318 |
| April 24, 2017 |
(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), America’s largest taxpayer watchdog group, applauded the numerous effective actions taken by President Donald Trump during his first 100 days in office to curb rampant waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the federal government.
On March 13, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order that “is intended to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the executive branch by directing the Director of the Office of Management and Budget [OMB] … to propose a plan to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies, … components of agencies, and agency programs.” On April 12, 2017, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney issued a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies that provides details of this much-needed and long overdue comprehensive plan to reform and reorganize the federal government.
On March 16, 2017, President Trump submitted “the most fiscally conservative budget in recent memory.” The blueprint was heralded by CAGW as “unquestionably the most pro-taxpayer plan in decades.” The budget proposes the consolidation and elimination of many programs that have been identified by CAGW as wasteful for years in Prime Cuts and the Congressional Pig Book.
On March 27, 2017, President Trump created the first of its kind, White House Office of American Innovation. The effort was dubbed a “SWAT team to fix government with business ideas.” It “will have broad power to implement successful business practices to streamline and shrink government.”
This new office, combined with the government-wide reorganization plan, are reminiscent President Reagan’s Grace Commission, which deployed an army of successful business leaders to work “like tireless bloodhounds” with an eye toward bringing private sector innovation to the operations of the federal government. Since CAGW was established following the release of the Grace Commission report in 1984, $1.5 trillion has been saved through the implementation of the commission’s findings and other cost-cutting recommendations.
CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “I commend President Trump for acting decisively on his commitment to foster a more efficient, frugal, and fiscally responsible government. His administration has been a breath of fresh air against longstanding bureaucratic inertia and mismanagement. As pundits and prognosticators pontificate about President Trump’s accomplishments in his first 100 days in office, I would like to remind American taxpayers of the many actions that the President has taken to save billions of dollars and make government smaller and more efficient.”
CAGW is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
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