Taxpayer Watchdogs Offer List of 'Ax-Ready' Programs as Alternative to Mayors' Pork Projects

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Conference of Mayors has sent Congress a $96.6 billion wish list of "shovel-ready" projects to allegedly create jobs and improve the nation's infrastructure, but the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) are offering a different solution to stimulate the economy: an updated list of "ax-ready" programs and legislation that would reduce wasteful spending. Last October, NTU and CCAGW sent a letter to then-Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama outlining ways to reduce federal outlays.

"Before Election Day, NTU and CCAGW answered the Presidential hopefuls' calls for going through the budget 'line by line' to root out waste and inefficiency," NTU President Duane Parde said. "Now, we're highlighting more 'ready-to-cut' areas of the federal government for Congress to act on instead of stuffing states full of pork." CCAGW President Tom Schatz added, "Congress must cut wasteful spending now, at the same time the stimulus package is being considered. Promising to address the mounting fiscal burden on taxpayers at a later date means that nothing will ever happen."

Among the mayors' "'Ready to Go' Jobs and Infrastructure Projects" are well over $1 billion in projects involving sidewalks; $1 million for annual sewer rehabilitation in Casper, WY; $6.1 million for corporate hangars, parking lots, and a business apron at the Fayetteville, AR airport; 28 projects with the term "stadium" in them; and 117 projects mentioning landscaping and/or beautification efforts. The taxpayers should be most teed off at the 20 golf courses included in the list.

Some alternatives to the mayors' list could be found through NTU's research arm, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), which through its BillTally program has compiled a list of legislation that would reduce federal spending. NTUF also maintains a roster of 2,150 spending-cut bills introduced in the last nine Congresses that totaled over $9.5 trillion, only 69 of which were eventually signed into law (for a savings of $89.6 billion). Finally, NTU reviews data from the Bush Administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool, which found nearly 220 programs in 2007 that were ineffective or did not demonstrate results.

CCAGW's research arm, Citizens Against Government Waste, has just issued the "2009 Prime Cuts," which has 700 cut recommendations totaling $1.9 trillion over five years. It includes the elimination of duplicative and inefficient programs such as the Market Access Program, which costs $231 million over five years to help large and profitable American companies advertise abroad.

"The mayors have billed their projects as 'shovel-ready,' but the only shoveling going on would be out of taxpayers' pockets," Parde concluded. Schatz added, "The best way to stimulate the economy and create jobs is to cut wasteful spending and keep money in the private sector."

Obama's Latest Speech Continues to Ignore Small Businesses

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In his latest speech on the economy, President-elect Barack Obama has once again failed to make even a single mention of America's small businesses, which create nearly 80 percent of net new jobs, and employ 50.4 percent of private sector workers.

With regards to the economy, Obama held true to his campaign pattern of significantly downplaying the role small businesses play in driving our national economy. Even one of his top economic advisors, Dr. Laura Tyson acknowledged that the best way to simulate the economy is to direct federal infrastructure funds to small businesses. Tyson is the former Chair of the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration and is currently an economic adviser to President-elect Obama.

On February 26, 2008, President-elect Obama stated, "Over half of all Americans work for a small business. Small businesses are the backbone of our nation's economy and we must protect this great resource. It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants." (http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/26/the_american_small_business_le.php)

The statement was made in response to a series of more than 15 federal investigations, which have found fraud, abuse, loopholes and a blatant lack of oversight in federal small business contracting programs; and have uncovered the diversion of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms. (http://www.asbl.com/documentlibrary.html)

Within days of making the statement Obama began to distance himself from it. During the final months of the campaign Obama failed to mention small business issues in campaign speeches, modified his statement regarding the diversion of small business contracts to large corporations on his campaign website, and gave small business issues virtually no priority in his campaign agenda.

When President-elect Obama's Transition Team website, www.change.gov was launched, any mention of Obama's statement to stop the flow of federal small business contracts to large corporations had been removed.

Small business advocates are concerned that President-elect Obama may enact policy and legislation that could be harmful to the nation's nearly 27 million small businesses. Additionally, advocates point to the fact that the Obama-Biden Transition Agenda which is housed on change.gov, contains no new provisions that would significantly impact our nation's small business community.

"I am extremely concerned that President-elect Obama doesn't seem to understand that most Americans work for companies with less than 100 employees and that these are the companies that are going to lead our country out of the recession and create a vast majority of all new jobs," President of the American Small Business League Lloyd Chapman said. "So far, he has refused to offer even the most basic proposal to redirect federal infrastructure funds to these companies. It appears that he has no intention of stopping the flow of up to $100 billion in government small business contracts to large corporations. We are concerned that during his first days in office he may try to create loopholes for venture capitalists that will divert even more federal funds away from small businesses. It is going to take a lot more than tax cuts to stimulate this economy. President-elect Obama keeps talking about how important it is that we act immediately, and I couldn't agree more. We would like to see him propose policies next week that would, as he promised on February 26, 2008, stop the flow of federal small business contracts to corporate giants."