(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today guardedly encouraged the work of the House Republican leadership in its effort to pass a $50.5 billion, five-year budget savings package during the budget reconciliation process, named the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (H.R. 4241).

“The proposed budget reconciliation bill will only reduce the budget by one-tenth of one percent over five years,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “While we believe that 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.”

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 increased to $8.0 trillion.  And instead of reducing government, Americans are now saddled with an unaffordable Medicare drug benefit, which rivals any program passed during the Great Society that is projected to cost $724 billion over the next ten years.

Mandatory spending, accounting for 54 percent of the federal budget, is largely wasteful and unsustainable at its current level.  Left unchecked, it will absorb 62 percent in just 10 years and will eventually crowd out all other federal priorities. 

A prime example of a wasteful and inefficient entitlement program slated for a spending reduction is Medicaid, with an 85 percent increase in spending since 1997 to $295 billion in 2004.  The reconciliation bill will slow the program’s average annual rate of growth from 7.7 to 7.5 percent over 10 years and will prevent payments to illegal immigrants.  

Even as Republican leadership in both branches of Congress talks of spending cuts, the recently passed Senate budget resolution contains agricultural and corporate subsidies, including a nearly $1 billion extension to the Dairy Market Loss Payments and $3 billion to help convince households with analog television to convert to digital service. 

In a letter to Speaker Hastert, Schatz wrote, “It is time for taxpayers to know who in Congress favors the status quo by supporting big government programs costing taxpayers billions of dollars each year in waste, fraud, and abuse and who is for reforming these programs and reducing spending so that our nation does not leave a huge debt for future generations to pay.  It is time to halt the backroom dealing and to call the vote on the Deficit Reduction Act.”

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.