For Immediate Release July 18, 2011

Contact:  Leslie K. Paige 202-467-5334 Luke Gelber 202-467-5318

CAGW Issues Spending Cut Alert: Financial Services Appropriations

Washington, D.C. – Citizens Against Government Waste today released its preliminary analysis of the House version of the fiscal year (FY) 2012 Financial Services Appropriations Act. The bill provides $19.9 billion in funding for the Treasury Department, the Executive Office of the President, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, the Small Business Administration, the General Services Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and several other independent agencies. The bill’s cost to taxpayers is 9 percent less than FY 2011 and 22.5 percent less than the President’s request.

On June 14, 2011, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers stated, “This bill exemplifies the commitment of the Republican majority to reduce spending, dig our nation out of record deficits, and rein in unnecessary agency regulation and interference that obstructs economic growth.” However, after combing through the bill in search of opportunities to cut wasteful spending, CAGW found room for additional savings. In this Spending Cut Alert, CAGW compared the FY 2012 Financial Services bill to the 691 recommendations contained in its 2011 Prime Cuts database and found three significant spending cuts that, if enacted, would save taxpayers $234 million in FY 2012 and $1.4 billion over five years.

“The Prime Cuts database gives the public, the President, and Congress a very straightforward list of wasteful, duplicative, and outdated programs drawn from more than two dozen credible sources,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “All that is missing is the political leadership to eliminate these boondoggles using the budget process and the veto pen.”

Spending Cut	1-Year Savings (millions of dollars)	5-Year Savings (millions of dollars)
Eliminate the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund	6	165
Eliminate funding for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, which can continue to operate from its endowed trust fund	1	5
Eliminate the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program	227	1221

CAGW’s Prime Cuts database is a compendium of 691 waste-cutting recommendations that would save taxpayers $391.9 billion in the first year and $1.8 trillion over five years.

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