It's Déjà Vu All Over Again
The nation's premier taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today reacted positively, but tepidly to President Obama's proposal to cut 126 programs that would save $23 billion in one year and $240 billion over 10 years.
"The fact that tomorrow is Groundhog Day is apropos," said CAGW Tom Schatz. "Many of the budget-cutting proposals contained in the President's budget have been talked about year after year and they continue to receive funding from Congress. On the one hand, the President has publicly acknowledged that the federal budget is in grim shape. He seems to understand that something has gone dramatically wrong politically, since his approval ratings have plummeted and the groundswell of taxpayer anger is undeniable. But his approach is much too halfhearted. The President's budget revised the fiscal year 2010 deficit to $1.6 trillion and calls for a deficit of $1.3 trillion in fiscal year 2011. The total of $2.9 trillion over two years is equal to 40 percent of the combined $7.3 trillion in spending. No family or business can sustain that kind of debt to finance current expenditures. In a disjointed document, he calls for negligible spending cuts on a budget that grew 84 percent larger in FY 2010, proposes new federal spending programs, calls for tax increases of $2 trillion over 10 years, and continues to insist on a massive new healthcare entitlement and a cap-and-trade energy tax."
"Taxpayers probably feel like they are one of the unlucky extras in the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, unable to shake the exhausting feeling that they have heard it all before; but unlike Bill Murray's character in the movie, members of Congress never seem to learn or modify their spendthrift behavior. Many of these programs will never be cut until the President commits to slashing his own budget proposals significantly and promises to veto any bill which contains funding for them. Most importantly, he must buck the big spenders on both sides of the aisle to force more dramatic spending cuts and stop digging an even deeper hole with new wasteful programs if he is serious about getting the budget deficit and skyrocketing debt under control."
The President's list has 65 programs worth $11.9 billion that all appear in CAGW's 2010 Prime Cuts list, which has been published annually since 1993. Prime Cuts has a total of 763 recommendations that would save $350 billion in one year and $2.2 trillion over five years. Projects that reappear this year include the C-17 cargo plane ($2.5 billion in savings), the Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine program ($465 million in savings) and the Interior Department's Save America's Treasures and Preserve America programs ($30 million in savings), all of which are on the President's list as well.
Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.
Contacts:
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW)
Leslie K. Paige,
202-467-5334