CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE (CAGW) 02/28/2014

Porker of the Month: Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Porker of the Month for spouting off with the silly suggestion that the United States Postal Service (USPS) should be permitted to expand into providing financial services in order to “shore up its own financial footing.” USPS reported a $5 billion budget shortfall in fiscal year (FY) 2013, its seventh consecutive year of losses, yet Sen. Warren’s assertion that by starting another business USPS can save its primary business strains all limits of credulity. “Rather than spending ‘a lot of time working on’ expanding the postal service’s operations, as Sen. Warren said she would do, she and her colleagues should instead be working on enacting legislation that would improve the postal service’s ability to achieve its core mission to deliver mail while not suffering multibillion-dollar losses into the foreseeable future,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. For her preposterous idea to allow USPS to play Mr. Monopoly in order to chase profits without a scintilla of structural reform and expand into new businesses instead of preserving its core business, while setting the stage for another enormous taxpayer bailout, Sen. Warren is CAGW’s February Porker of the Month. Read more about the Porker of the Month.

CAGW Slams CMS for Gutting Recovery Audits

CAGW expressed alarm this month over the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) January 31 decision to extend by another six months the current suspension of recovery audits of medically unnecessary and improper healthcare claims. The Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program is one of the few initiatives that has proven successful in curbing waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare. Since 2009, the RACs have recovered more than $7 billion in overpayments by Medicare. CMS’s most recent move essentially gives Medicare providers and suppliers a yearlong “oversight holiday,” during which taxpayers and the Medicare Trust Fund will hemorrhage up to $4 billion. CAGW President Tom Schatz protested, “Congress should … step in to protect and safeguard the RACs from CMS. The agency is conducting a sub rosa campaign of regulatory nullification to destroy an auditing process that its own analysis proves is working exceptionally well. … The suspension of the RACs is a subversion of the will, if not the actual letter, of the law. Read more about CMS’s latest move against the RAC program. Contact your U.S. Representative in protest today!

CCAGW Applauds House’s “Stop Government Abuse Week”

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) this month urged members of the House of Representatives to support a series of 14 legislative measures aimed at eliminating or reforming burdensome laws and regulations, as well as helping increase government transparency and accountability.  In particular, CCAGW urged members to vote for four bills that it had previously endorsed:  H.R. 1232, The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act; H.R. 1423, The Taxpayers Right-to-Know Act; H.R. 3865, The Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act; and H.R. 3308, The Taxpayer Transparency Act. Read more about “Stop Government Abuse Week."

CCAGW Commends Rep. Camp on Tax Reform Act of 2014

CCAGW commended House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) for his introduction on February 26 of the Tax Reform Act of 2014, which is aimed at “creating a fairer and more accountable tax code.”  The legislation is estimated to create 1.8 million jobs in the private sector, allow about 95 percent of tax filers to get the lowest possible tax rate, and increase gross domestic product by up to $3.4 trillion without increasing the budget deficit, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. “Chairman Camp’s plan sets the stage for serious debate on tax reform and is a step in the right direction if Congress intends to spearhead a successful economic revival,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz. “We admire his boldness to undertake such an intricate subject matter during an election year, but do not agree with every provision in the legislation [most particularly the surtax on incomes greater than $400,000, which will adversely impact job creators].  However, there is far more to like than dislike.” Read more about the Tax Reform Act of 2014.

CAGW Testifies before Accountability & Transparency Board

CAGW Director of Government Affairs William Christian and Director of Technology & Telecommunications Policy Deborah Collier testified before the Government Accountability and Transparency Board (GATB) at its first open meeting on February 7.  Launched in June, 2013, GATB is part of President Obama’s “Campaign to Cut Waste.”  Christian's and Collier’s recommendations to GATB included using the federal USASpending.gov and Recovery.gov websites as the starting point for promoting enhanced data transparency and greater accountability in government spending, rather than starting over from scratch.  Read more about CAGW’s testimony before GATB.