Citizens Against Government Waste Takes Politicians to Task

By Linda Orlando

In 1982, President Ronald Regan’s Private Sector Survey on Cost Control was directed to "work like tireless bloodhounds to root out government inefficiency and waste of tax dollars." The group, founded by the late industrialist J. Peter Grace, became known as the Grace Commission. For two years, 161 corporate executives and community leaders led an army of 2,000 volunteers in digging through the federal government searching for waste. The search was funded entirely by voluntary private contributions and cost over $76 million. Taxpayers didn’t pay a penny.

At the conclusion of their efforts, the Grace Commission made 2,478 recommendations which, if implemented, would have saved over $424 billion during the next three years. The Grace Commission Report consisted of 47 volumes and 21,000 pages of detailed information about the tremendous amounts of taxpayer money literally thrown away by the federal government on mind-numbingly useless and inappropriate spending projects.

The ongoing legacy of the Grace Commission is a private, non-partisan, non-profit organization that represents more than a million members and supporters nationwide. Founded in 1984 by J. Peter Grace and syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, Citizens Against Government Waste has worked continuously to make the vision of the Grace Commission a reality. Over the past 20 years, CAGW has helped to save taxpayers over $825 billion through the implementation of Grace Commission findings and other recommendations. The organization has worked tirelessly to put into practice the beliefs of its founder, J. Peter Grace: "To advocate an efficient, sound, honest government is neither left-wing nor right-wing, it is just plain right."

CAGW’s membership has grown from just 5,000 members in 1988 to more than a million today, thanks to taxpayers’ increasing frustration about the government squandering their hard-earned money. The organization is nationally recognized as the definitive source of information about government waste, and CAGW representatives appear frequently in the media. Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole said that "CAGW researches and identifies the most blatant waste in government and shows how it can be eliminated. CAGW has a long and successful record of winning major cuts in wasteful spending without sacrificing America's defenses." House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Christopher Cox agrees. "CAGW has fought side-by-side with us for welfare reform and massive cuts in wasteful spending to shrink the size of government and the deficit," Cox has said, calling CAGW "the premier waste-fighting organization in America."

The CAGW website offers up a regularly updated menu of the mismanagement information they have collected:

• In 2002, the group launched a series of State Piglet Books to expose waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at the state level. With budget deficits in many states and taxes increasing, State Piglet Books are a valuable resource to legislators and taxpayers for spotlighting where wasteful spending can be eliminated.
• The Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to the lawmakers, political candidates, and government officials who have shown the most egregious, blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers in making financial decisions.
• The group’s quarterly newsletter, "Government WasteWatch," is distributed to Congress and members of the media nationwide.
• CAGW’s annual Congressional Pig Book Summary, published each spring, is CAGW’s widely heralded expose of the most blatant irresponsible pork-barrel projects during the previous year. Every year the lobbying arm of CAGW tabulates its Congressional Ratings, evaluating how each member of Congress measures up on key tax and spending votes.

One of the most scathing sections of the CAGW website, "Byrd Droppings," is named for Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia. In 2005, Senator Byrd used his privileged position as ranking chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee to snag $399 million in pork for West Virginia—which works out to about $220 for every single resident. This flagrant abuse is nothing new; after securing $97 million in fiscal 1999, Byrd became the first person in history to obtain more than $1 billion in pork for his state. The CAGW website says, "In honor of this fiscal incontinence, we dedicate this page to Senator Byrd." Byrd’s response? "They call me ‘the Pork King,’ they don’t know how much I enjoy it."