Rep. Russ Carnahan: Porker of the Month

via: cagw

Washington, D.C. – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) its July Porker of the Month.  Rep. Carnahan, who was caught on videotape by a vigilant citizen blogger at a town hall meeting held at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, who posted the remarks on his website and on YouTube, grossly misrepresented the costs associated with the controversial healthcare reforms bills currently under consideration in Congress.  His statements were so patently false that when members of the audience reacted with disbelief and loud guffaws, he instantly became the public face of those in Washington, D.C. who are willing to blurt out anything they think will mask the reality of this heinous reform plan to try to slip it by taxpayers.

Rep. Carnahan first stated that “The overall cost of the package has been estimated at about $1 trillion over ten years.  About half of that comes from savings and efficiencies in the system,” a statement which drew derisive chuckles from a skeptical audience.  He then compounded his verbal misery by asserting that “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) most recently came out and analyzed the current plan and said that it was not only debt neutral, which has been one of the important factors of the President and congressional leaders, but also that over 10 years it would create a $6 billion surplus,” a statement which was both demonstrably false and elicited loud guffaws.  In fact, on June 15, a month before these remarks, CBO estimated that the Kennedy-Dodd bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years.  On July 16, four days before Rep. Carnahan’s comments, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee that every healthcare reform bill would increase costs, not reduce them.

Rep. Carnahan’s behavior seems to be part of a pattern.  Democrats in the House seem to be willing to say anything to misdirect taxpayers.  For example, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the legislation’s head cheerleader, said during the week of July 10 that “all of the cost of the healthcare reform bill can come from squeezing more savings out of the system;” soon thereafter she came out in favor of a $544 billion tax increase to finance healthcare reform.  The President has said that he would only support a bill that is deficit neutral, and that reforms should mirror “what members of Congress are getting through the federal employee plan.”  Yet he seems to be pushing for a bill that would not meet any of those criteria.

For his memorable walk-on cameo appearance in this political Comedy of Errors and his significant contribution to the unbridled bloviation emanating from Washington, most of which has been long on spin and short on facts, Rep. Russ Carnahan is CAGW’s July Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.  Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

####

For more information, contact:    Leslie K. Paige
                                                202-467-5334                 
                                                media@cagw.org

CAGW Names Sen. John Kerry Porker of the Month

Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) Porker of the Month for his arrogant rationalization of why the American people cannot be trusted with their own money.  On February 6, Sen. Kerry spoke on the Senate floor in support of the $787 billion economic stimulus package.  In his speech he said, “I have heard a lot of talk about we ought to do a tax cut…If you put a tax cut into the hands of either a business or an individual today, there is no guarantee they are going to invest their money…in the United States.  They are free to go to invest anywhere they want, if they choose to invest…The fact is none of those people are guaranteed to invest that money in any of the new projects that we are.  So government, yes government, has the ability to be able to make a decision that the private sector won’t necessarily make today.”  For his casual infantilization of American taxpayers and for being the chief spokesperson of the new Nanny State on Steroids, CAGW names Sen. Kerry the February Porker of the Month.  Read more about the Porker of the Month.

Economic Crisis, Congressional Reward

With the economy in recession, a national debt of $10.6 trillion, and a record estimated deficit of $1.2 trillion for the fiscal year, it seems a strange time for Congress to be receiving a raise, yet that is exactly what is scheduled to happen as the new session begins.

Established in 1989 by the Ethics Reform Act, members of Congress receive an automatic cost-of-living increase each year.  For 2009, Congress is scheduled to receive a raise of 2.8 percent, or $4,700.  This would elevate the base pay for Members to $174,000.

Congress has rejected a pay raise only four times over the twenty years since it became automatic, from 1994 to 1997.

Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.) introduced a bill last year to prevent the 2009 pay raise, but it had just 34 co-sponsors.  Rep. Mitchell plans to introduce a similar bill to halt the 2010 salary increase.  There is likely to be more support than usual to block the pay raise for next year, perhaps because members have been shamed into action by the current economic climate.

Regarding 2009, Article XXVII of the Constitution states, “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”  Consequently, since the pay raise for the current year has already gone into effect, it cannot be rescinded, short of a new Constitutional Amendment.

Nothing exemplifies the disconnect that exists on Capitol Hill more perfectly than accepting a raise during a recession.  Although insignificant compared to the national debt or projected deficit for the 2009 fiscal year, the $2.5 million the pay raise will cost taxpayers is highly symbolic.

While Americans are scraping to get by during the current economic downturn, members of Congress continue to live high on the hog.  Congress should repeal the automatic annual pay raise for 2010 and collectively agree to donate their increase in pay for 2009 to charity.

Found on Citizens Against Government Waste

CCAGW To Congress: Shut Your TARP!

The lobbying arm of the nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog group, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today expressed strong opposition to the release of the second $350 billion tranche of the authorized $700 billion for the troubled Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

President Bush, President-elect Obama and many in Congress are demanding the distribution of the second phase of TARP, albeit with additional, purportedly tougher regulatory strings attached to the money.  Both the establishment and the implementation of the program have been the subject of scathing criticism.  The Associated Press reported in December, 2008 that recipient banks were refusing to divulge how they used the money.  Until recently, the Treasury Department balked at releasing a list of the financial institutions that had received TARP funds.  The Bush Administration opened the door to using the money to bail out Detroit’s automakers.  The congressionally-mandated Special Inspector General for TARP was confirmed on December 8, 2008 and has only recently begun an after-the-fact review of TARP expenditures, and Congress’s five-member TARP Oversight Panel has excoriated Treasury for its mismanagement of the first $350 billion and its failure to make its activities transparent to taxpayers.

“TARP was an atrocious gamble in the first place and the taxpayers ended up on the wrong side of that bet,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.  “Taxpayers were promised clear results and tough oversight of that money.  Instead, Treasury and the recipient banks have been allowed to keep taxpayers in the dark about where that money went and they are appalled, as well they should be.  And now Congress wants more.”

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who early on accepted Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s controversial plan to buy up the toxic assets of struggling banks has now pronounced the program insufficient.  Chairman Frank is crafting a bill that would allow Treasury to release the second $350 billion to an even broader array of recipients, including smaller community banks to purchase commercial real estate loans, mortgage-backed securities and municipal securities.  He would also direct the money toward the reworking and purchase of the underlying non-performing mortgages, although under purportedly much stricter accountability requirements.  Frank intends to include provisions to cap executive salaries of participating banks and even claw back executive compensation and bonuses from previous recipients, unprecedented government intrusions into private markets.  In a January 12 New York Times blog, University of Connecticut law professor Steven M. Davidoff called it “bailout creep in the making.”

“The nation faces an unprecedented $1.2 trillion deficit.  Yet the new administration and Congress are running helter-skelter to push both new TARP money and an $800 billion stimulus out the door.  CCAGW opposes the release of any more TARP money, regardless of the allegedly tougher oversight measures promised by Congress.  It is time this Congress stops treating the U.S. Treasury like the Banker in some fictional Monopoly game,” concluded Schatz.

CCAGW 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.

Found on Council for Citizens Against Government Waste

Economic Crisis, Congressional Reward

Wastewatcher, January 2009

With the economy in recession, a national debt of $10.6 trillion, and a record estimated deficit of $1.2 trillion for the fiscal year, it seems a strange time for Congress to be receiving a raise, yet that is exactly what is scheduled to happen as the new session begins. 

Established in 1989 by the Ethics Reform Act, members of Congress receive an automatic cost-of-living increase each year.  For 2009, Congress is scheduled to receive a raise of 2.8 percent, or $4,700.  This would elevate the base pay for Members to $174,000.

Congress has rejected a pay raise only four times over the twenty years since it became automatic, from 1994 to 1997.

Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.) introduced a bill last year to prevent the 2009 pay raise, but it had just 34 co-sponsors.  Rep. Mitchell plans to introduce a similar bill to halt the 2010 salary increase.  There is likely to be more support than usual to block the pay raise for next year, perhaps because members have been shamed into action by the current economic climate.

Regarding 2009, Article XXVII of the Constitution states, “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”  Consequently, since the pay raise for the current year has already gone into effect, it cannot be rescinded, short of a new Constitutional Amendment.

Nothing exemplifies the disconnect that exists on Capitol Hill more perfectly than accepting a raise during a recession.  Although insignificant compared to the national debt or projected deficit for the 2009 fiscal year, the $2.5 million the pay raise will cost taxpayers is highly symbolic.

While Americans are scraping to get by during the current economic downturn, members of Congress continue to live high on the hog.  Congress should repeal the automatic annual pay raise for 2010 and collectively agree to donate their increase in pay for 2009 to charity.

Found on Citizens Against Governement Waste

California’s Assembly Bill 1X Defeated

CCAGW led a grassroots drive that helped defeat California’s Assembly Bill 1X.  Modeled on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s health insurance program that has already incurred nearly $400 million in cost overruns, the California bill aimed to create a near-universal healthcare system in the Golden State.  The business and consumer taxes used to finance the proposal would have impacted virtually every Californian.  CCAGW mobilized thousands of its members and supporters in California by e-mail, and the bill failed to pass the Senate Health Committee by a vote of 7-1.  In addition to this victory, CAGW published six of its widely heralded Piglet Books in California, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Washington, generating numerous television, radio, and newspaper citations in those states.  Among the absurd examples of state waste detailed in the Piglet Books:  $225 million to subsidize billionaire Richard Branson’s “Spaceport America” in New Mexico; $18 million in cost overruns at the new Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas; $550,000 allocated to the conservation of pheasants in Illinois; and $142,000 spent on licensing animal massage practitioners in Washington state.

Taxpayer Watchdog Reacts To Stevens Verdict

The nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today issued the following statement on the news that Sen. Ted Stevens was found guilty on seven counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in improper gifts he received from 1999 to 2006.  He faces a possible five-year prison sentence on each count.  Sen. Stevens was CAGW’s top Porker during that period of time.   

“The Stevens trial will go down in history alongside the trials of lobbyists Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Randy “’Duke’ Cunningham as just another sad, but not surprising spectacle of corruption and cynicism in the nation’s capital,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “The congressional spending process has become rife with examples of politicians skirting the spending rules, skirting the ethics rules and stepping over the line.  Sen. Stevens abused his position of power as the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee for years to bilk the taxpayers in order to aggrandize himself and his cronies.  He did so with impunity and arrogance, until today.  Astonishingly, since the Senate does not preclude a convicted felon from serving, Sen. Stevens could win reelection and remain in office.  Members of Congress, who have so far been unwilling to police themselves and stop the grotesque, runaway federal spending spree, ought to view Stevens’ conviction as a cautionary tale.  He will not be the last to get sideways of the law over greed and the unaccountable spending of taxpayer dollars.  In fact, the taxpayers, in their wisdom, have already given their verdict on Congress with a single-digit approval rating,” concluded Schatz. 

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

Found on Citizens Against Government Waste

Taxpayer Watchdog Rips Arrogance of Automakers, Union

CAGW Opposes Taxpayer-Funded Bailout

The nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog group, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), today criticized both the management of the “Big Three” automakers and the leadership of their unions for their arrogance and sense of entitlement.

CAGW President Tom Schatz appeared this morning on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in a piece by ABC’s Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross exposing the fact that auto executives flew to Washington, D.C. in private corporate jets to beg for a taxpayer-funded bailout.  In addition, the United Autoworkers Union (UAW) has stated it will not modify contracts or relinquish benefits in order to give automakers the flexibility to restructure and retool.

“Both sides are to blame for the failure of the domestic automakers.  Neither executives nor the union is willing to acknowledge culpability, nor will they give up their perks and benefits to help dig out,” said Schatz.  “Instead, they have their hands out for a taxpayer-funded golden shovel.”

General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner received a 64 percent salary increase to $15.7 million in 2007, when the company was shutting down plants and posted a $39 billion loss.  He has stated that he sees no reason to resign.  Chrysler Corporation is still planning to distribute $30 million in retention bonuses to 50 of its executives, six of whom will receive between $1.5 and $1.9 million.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told the Financial Times on November 17, 2008 that “the focus has to be on the economy as a whole as opposed to a UAW contract.”  The union will not provide “givebacks” for healthcare and pension liabilities, nor is the UAW willing to renegotiate counterproductive union rules that have made the companies inflexible and uncompetitive.

“It is time to apply the brakes to the bailout bonanza.  The industry should be forced to reap the rewards of decades of bad decisions, failed management, and a union culture of entitlement.  Instead of ripping off the taxpayers with an open-ended bailout, Congress should consider proposals for a ‘structured’ or ‘prepackaged’ bankruptcy instead of perpetuating the status quo,” concluded Schatz.

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

CCAGW Urges the Senate to Reject the Climate Security Act

Monday, June 2, 2008
By: Tom Schatz

U.S. Senate
Washington, DC  20515

Dear Senator,

You will soon consider S. 3036, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008.  This legislation is a cap-and-trade plan that will attempt to impose a limit on greenhouse gas emissions. But what it really will do is place severe regulatory burdens on domestic industry, impede trade, and harm the nation’s economy.

Through energy rationing, S. 3036 will dramatically increase government’s control over Americans’ daily lives. Cap-and-trade is nothing more than a hidden tax, as the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this bill would raise costs on energy use to $1.13 trillion by 2018.  On behalf for the more than 1.2 million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I ask that you oppose this legislation.

S. 3036 significantly grows the government by giving more power to bureaucrats, such as requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to establish a greenhouse gas (GHG) registry, create a GHG emission allowance transfer system, and set emission allowances for 2012-2050.  New agencies include the Climate Change Credit Corporation that will auction emission allowances and the Carbon Market Efficiency Board that will observe and report on the national GHG emission market. This government expansion will eventually control every aspect of business and individual energy use.  Ultimately the cap-and-trade system will be open to market manipulation, with politicians and bureaucrats picking winners and losers.

Some argue that cap-and-trade is environmentalism. But CCAGW agrees with Czech President Vaclav Klaus’s conclusion that this kind of environmentalism is nothing more than an elite command-and-control system which, like communism, will kill prosperity. Again, I urge you to reject S. 3036. All votes on S. 3036 will be among those considered for CCAGW’s 2008 Congressional Ratings.

Sincerely,

“Coburn Omnibus” Squashed

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today released the following excerpt of a letter from CCAGW President Thomas A. Schatz to the Senate:

“Before the August recess, you may have the opportunity to vote on the Advance America’s Priorities Act, also known as the “Coburn Omnibus” to address legislative holds that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), along with several other Senators, have placed on a variety of bills. These senators do not want Congress to subject taxpayers to billions of dollars in new spending for numerous government programs without a proper debate on the programs’ merits and costs. … I urge you to vote against cloture unless spending for the bill is offset by cutting spending elsewhere.

“The magnitude of Congress’s spending problem cannot be overstated. In the first nine months of fiscal year 2008, the budget deficit was $148 billion higher than in the previous year. As our national debt nears $10 trillion, you and your colleagues in the Senate must take the time to determine whether or not it is worth it to pass billions of dollars in new spending, adding to the debt burden that will be passed onto our children and grandchildren. …

“This action is another attempt to rubber stamp more government spending without considering the cost or impact on our nation’s finances. These actions hardly live up to the perception that the Senate is ‘the world’s greatest deliberative body.’ If the legislation in the Advance America’s Priorities Act is worthy of taxpayer money and government resources, surely the Senate should have no problem spending time to debate the individual bills.

“As stated by Sen. Coburn, some of the legislation contained in the Advance America’s Priorities Act may be worthy of government funding. Yet in order to determine this, the Senate must carefully examine all the bills and decide whether the programs in question duplicate already existing programs, whether they actually benefit the intended recipients, and whether they are worth spending valuable tax dollars. …”

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