CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE 07/29/2015

Porker of the Month: Rep. Stephen Fincher

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.) Porker of the Month for his efforts to resurrect the wasteful Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank after its authorization expired on June 30.  Founded in 1934 to help finance U.S. exports, the bank today is an egregious example of taxpayer-funded corporate welfare benefitting some of the most profitable U.S. companies that have no trouble securing private financing.  Elected in 2010 as a Tea Party fiscal conservative, Rep. Fincher voted against reauthorizing the bank in 2012, but he now leads the coalition attempting to raise it from the dead.  Not only has Rep. Fincher flip-flopped, he has repeatedly made erroneous claims in defense of the Ex-Im Bank, including that it “supports about 200,000 jobs each year at no cost, let me repeat, no cost.”  However, a May, 2014 Congressional Budget Office report found that when the fair value accounting method is used, Ex-Im Bank has an estimated 10-year cost of $2 billion.  For his leadership in the battle to revive a wasteful and unnecessary haven for corporate welfare, CAGW names Rep. Fincher the July Porker of the Month. Read more about the Porker of the Month.

CAGW Appalled by Latest GAO Report on ObamaCare

CAGW expressed outrage over a July 16 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the Affordable Care Act’s (ObamaCare) complete lack of fraud prevention capability.  The report updates and expands on a “secret shopper” investigation GAO conducted in 2014 to test whether or not the federal healthcare exchange was able to detect and prevent falsified applications.  Of the 12 fictitious identities that applied for taxpayer subsidies, 11 were approved, a 91 percent failure rate.  Over the course of 2014, the government paid out $30,000 to these fake individuals.  In its latest investigation, GAO found that every one of the 11 was re-enrolled in 2015 for another year.  “The fact that there is still no system in place to prevent this type of rampant fraud is evidence that this law is not working,” declared CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “This damning report is further justification that this flawed law should be completely overhauled and replaced.” Read more about GAO’s latest report on ObamaCare fraud.

CCAGW Applauds Resignation of OPM Director Archuleta

CAGW this month applauded the resignation of Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Katherine Archuleta who presided over the worst cyberattack in U.S. history, dubbed a “Cyber Pearl Harbor.”  Beginning in May, 2014, cyber hackers breached the massive OPM database multiple times.  The hackers extracted personal and financial records on more than 21 million current, former, and prospective federal employees and contractors, including information collected in background checks, Social Security numbers, health information, and criminal records.  The multiple attacks were not discovered until May, 2015, a year after they began.  In the midst of five separate congressional hearings on this massive security failure, admonishment of Archuleta came from both sides of the political aisle in both chambers, but the OPM Director, who previously served as National Political Director for President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, seemed undeterred and even dismissive about taking responsibility.  “We are pleased that Ms. Archuleta changed her mind and finally took responsibility for the disaster that occurred on her watch,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “Now it is up to her successor to implement the much-needed reforms at OPM so that this kind of incident never happens again.”  Read more about OPM’s “Cyber Pearl Harbor.”

CAGW Slams CMS for Touting Its Fraud Prevention System

CAGW has expressed dismay that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) would boast about new fraud prevention technology while keeping the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program, CMS’s most successful fraud-prevention tool, on the bench.  On July 14, CMS flaunted the supposed success of its “Fraud Prevention System” (FPS), designed to identify and prevent improper Medicare payments, claiming it had saved the Medicare Trust Fund $820 million since 2010.  By contrast, until CMS suspended certain RAC audits in October, 2013, RACs were recovering about $1 billion per quarter, which eclipses the FPS’s savings rate.  “Once again, we see CMS patting itself on the back over its ability to measure the waste and fraud,” commented CAGW Vice President for Policy and Communications Leslie Paige.  “If CMS wants to really impact the staggering amount of Medicare fraud … then release the RAC program from administrative purgatory.”  Read more about CMS’s suspension of the RAC program.