February 8, 2012

U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Representative,

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kans.) will soon introduce the Grant Return for Deficit Reduction Act of 2012. On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I urge you to support this legislation.

Under current law, grant funds that are returned by states and localities go back to the bottom line of the corresponding executive agency, where they can be spent on other irrelevant projects at the agency’s discretion. States and localities should feel confident that the funds they return are providing a direct benefit to taxpayers, rather than be faced with perverse incentives to spend the remaining funding elsewhere.

Rep. Pompeo’s legislation would allow a state or locality to designate that any money that it returns from a federal grant be sent to the general fund of the Treasury and put toward deficit reduction. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget would be required to compile and submit to Congress by February 15 a report containing a description of all grant funds returned during the prior fiscal year.

At a time when the national debt has surpassed $15 trillion and lawmakers are scrambling to find places to cut federal spending, it seems clear that unused federal grant funds are an easy place to save money. I strongly urge you to support Rep. Pompeo’s legislation. All votes on the Grant Return for Deficit Reduction Act will be among those considered in CCAGW’s 2012 Congressional Ratings.

Sincerely,

Tom Schatz
President, CCAGW