The President’s New Defense Blueprint Will Determine If He Is Serious About Cutting Waste

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), the nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog organization, announced that it will examine the details of the President’s first defense budget to see if cancels the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter.

“The President has been saying a lot about earmarks and cutting wasteful programs.  So far, his actions haven’t caught up with his rhetoric.  He has proposed the largest budget in history while asking federal agencies to cut a miniscule $100 million, and he signed a $410 billion omnibus appropriations act that contained billions of dollars in pork-barrel projects, while simultaneously calling for earmark reforms.  The fiscal year 2010 Defense blueprint expected to be unveiled shortly by Defense Secretary Gates will give taxpayers their first detailed look at what a new, more efficient Obama defense budget might look like.  This is the time to deliver more than just rhetoric by canceling this egregious waste of taxpayer dollars,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.

There were two earmarks totaling $465 million for the alternate engine that were included in the 10,160 earmarks worth $19.6 billion identified in CAGW’s Congressional Pig Book, released on April 14, 2009.

The Pentagon has tried to cancel the $7.2 billion alternate engine project every year since 2006, only to have Congress add hundreds of millions of dollars in funding surreptitiously back into the budget each year.  Several independent studies have concluded that an alternate engine will not save money or improve U.S. defense capabilities.  CBS News reported in 2007 that the U.S. Air Force and two independent panels had also concluded that the second engine is “not necessary and not affordable” and that the alleged savings from creating a mock competition “will never be achieved.”

Even more worrisome for taxpayers, the two earmarks for the alternative engine were included among the 142 anonymous earmarks in the Defense Appropriations Bill that cost taxpayers $6.4 billion.  This occurred despite months of congressional leadership paying lip service to more transparency and supposed earmark reform.  To date, no Member of Congress has publicly taken responsibility for adding the funding to the defense budget.

Schatz concluded, “The funding of the alternate engine project is the poster child for what’s wrong with the defense budget.  The Obama Administration has a real opportunity to stand up to the pork barrel spenders in Congress this year.  The budget should shut down the engine.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.