WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz issued the following statement following the release of President Donald Trump’s fiscal year (FY) 2019 budget proposal:
“Thousands of federal programs are duplicative, fragmented, or outside of the purview of the federal government. Many of them can more appropriately be managed by states, cities, local officials, and the private sector. Every taxpayer dollar that is wasted is a dollar not spent on the critical functions of the federal government, which is why rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement is so important.
“We are encouraged that President Trump’s budget includes the elimination of several wasteful and duplicative programs that have been included in CAGW’s Prime Cuts database and the Congressional Pig Book, such as Community Development Block Grants, Corporation for National and Community Service, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Delta Regional Authority, Denali Commission, Economic Development Administration, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Legal Services Corporation, Low- Income Home Energy Assistance Program, Manufacturing Extension Partnership, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, Rural Utilities Service, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All of these programs have also been identified as wasteful by either the Government Accountability Office or an agency inspector general.
“As President Trump is acutely aware, cutting government waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement has proven to be the most difficult task in Washington. Every program or agency has a powerful constituency that will fight tooth-and-nail against any reform of the federal bureaucracy. However, taxpayers continue to hope that President Trump maintains his focus on using private-sector principles to make the federal government more efficient and effective, as well as devolving non-federal functions to state and local governments.”
Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
