(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today encouraged Congress to pass a budget reconciliation package that achieves real savings for taxpayers.  The original version of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (H.R. 4241) would have saved $53.9 billion over five years and opened up a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve (ANWR) to oil exploration.  House Democrats are united against any reconciliation measure and House GOP leadership has tried to placate Republican “moderates” by stripping the ANWR provisions, reducing the proposed savings to under $50 billion, and adding special interest spending measures to the bill.   

“Members of Congress need to realize that there is nothing compassionate about letting wasteful entitlement programs grow at unsustainable rates,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “The reconciliation is a chance for this Congress to clean up some of the budgetary mess it is leaving to future generations.”  

Under ten years of Republican leadership in Congress, spending and the deficit have skyrocketed.  Between fiscal years 2001 and 2005, non-military and non-homeland security spending has increased $303 billion and the deficit stands at $317 billion, while the federal debt has surpassed $8 trillion.  Americans are now saddled with a Medicare drug benefit expected to cost $724 billion over ten years, which rivals any program passed during the Great Society.  Mandatory spending now constitutes 54 percent of the federal budget.  Left unchecked, it will absorb 62 percent in just 10 years and will eventually crowd out all other federal priorities.  Some members of Congress have also pushed for an amendment to resurrect the failed and counterproductive Milk Income Loss Contract Program, which could cost taxpayers more than $1 billion.    

“The original bill would have restrained the growth in mandatory spending by just one-tenth of one percent over five years,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “While any measure to curb entitlement spending is a step in the right direction, the modest savings proposed in this bill hardly warrant the doomsday predictions of its opponents.”

Medicaid spending soared 85 percent from $160 billion in 1997 to $295 billion in 2004.  A year-long investigation by The New York Times found that the program misspends billions of dollars annually in New York alone.  The original reconciliation bill would have slowed the program’s average annual rate of growth from 7.7 to 7.5 percent over 10 years and would have prevented payments to illegal immigrants. 

“It is time to halt the backroom dealing and vote on the Deficit Reduction Act.  Democrats can offer nothing but empty rhetoric and obstructionist tactics.  If Republicans do no better than a sham proposal that preserves the status quo, it is doubtful that either party can defuse the ticking time bomb of mandatory spending,” Schatz concluded. 

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, mismanagement, and abuse in government.