| For Immediate Release | Contact: Daytime:Jessica Shoemaker 202-467-5318 |
| September 12, 2005 | After hours:Tom Finnigan 202-253-3852 |
Scores 83 Percent on CCAGW’s Congressional Ratings
(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today honored Sen. BLA as a Taxpayer Hero for scoring 83 percent on its 2004 Congressional Ratings. The average for the entire Senate was a record low 40 percent. Since 1989, CCAGW has tracked roll call votes to separate the good stewards of taxpayer dollars from the politicians who support wasteful programs and pork-stuffed spending bills. As one of 10 Senators with a score of 80 percent or higher, Sen. BLA consistently voted to reign in deficit spending, reduce the tax burden, and make government more accountable to taxpayers.
“Anyone can talk about cutting waste and lowering taxes. Sen. BLA is of the rare breed who ‘walks the walk’ by voting to ease the burden of a cumbersome, bloated federal government,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.
For the 108th Congress, second session, CCAGW rated 16 key votes in the Senate. Sen. BLA helped extend the moratorium on Internet taxation for four years and also cast a crucial vote (47-49) against an amendment that would have derailed the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.
“The bipartisan campaign to sabotage BRAC was about putting special interests before the national interest,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said. “Sen. BLA helped rescue a process that will save taxpayers billions of dollars and will allow the military to restructure to meet modern threats.”
The federal government ran a record deficit of $412 billion in fiscal 2004. Yet Congress missed several chances to shave the total cost of several pieces of legislation busting with pork and waste. The Senate adopted a resolution that prevented emergency spending for agriculture disaster assistance from being offset by cuts to the bloated farm bill. The Senate adopted an amendment striking language from the budget resolution that would have saved $14 billion. Finally, the Senate rejected an amendment to reduce the total cost of the highway bill from $318 billion to the President’s fiscal 2005 budget request of $256 billion. In each of these votes, Sen. BLA went against large majority of big spending Senators by exercising fiscal sanity.
“Cutting waste is a politically difficult task because almost every program has an active constituency that profits from the status quo,” Schatz said. “But Sen. BLA recognizes that the federal government must set priorities. He has taken a long-term view of the nation’s fiscal problems and makes a serious effort to tackle the enormous debt being left to future generations.”
“With all the special interests in Washington clamoring for handouts from a spendthrift Congress, the fight against big government is an uphill battle. Thanks to people like Sen. BLA, taxpayers have a fighting chance and will continue to score victories,” Schatz concluded.
Sen. BLA is continuing his taxpayer-friendly activities in 2005, recently signing CCAGW’s “Hurricane Katrina No Pork Pledge,” by which he promises to oppose any project or provision that is not directly related to the impact of Hurricane Katrina in emergency supplemental bills, thus ensuring that every cent of recovery spending goes to the victims of this terrible tragedy.
Visit www.ccagw.org for the complete 2004 Congressional Ratings.
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.