LITTLE IF ANY PROGRESS FOUND IN REVIEW OR IN IDENTIFYING WASTEFUL OR DUPLICATIVE SPENDING

WASHINGTON, OCT. 5, 2011 – Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said, “We convene this hearing to find out what this Administration has done to implement the President’s repeated promise to conduct a “page-by-page, line-by-line” review of the federal budget and what more can be done.  President Obama promised a fresh, in-depth, and exhaustive review of the federal budget. What measurable actions have been taken? What are the results? Unfortunately, the Office of Management and Budget, the agency in charge of the line-by-line review, declined to provide a witness to testify here today to answer such questions.”

The Committee has found that while the President has repeatedly stated that his Administration would conduct a comprehensive line-by-line review of the federal budget, he did not issue an Executive Order explicitly on this initiative nor has the Obama Administration OMB issued specific guidance.

Veronique de Rugy, PhD Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, testified about the need to identify wasteful and duplicative spending, “The president was right. Unfortunately, little evidence suggests that the president’s promise has been realized.”  She further stated, “Unfortunately, government agencies have little incentive to engage in such an effort. That is why Congress and the Administration must outline some clear goals and principles that agencies could follow to identify obsolete, mismanaged, or otherwise dysfunctional programs for elimination.”

Andrew Moylan, Vice President of Government Affairs, National Taxpayers Union also testified.  He stated, “Despite the existence of some successes, there are also tremendous gaps in the Obama Administration’s attempts to systematically review the budget. Perhaps the most obvious signal that the President has not completed a line-by-line review is the sheer size of his budget requests. The last official budget submission called for $3.7 trillion in spending next year, with more than $1.1 trillion of it borrowed, and expenditures as a percentage of our economy near post-war records. It strains credulity to claim that a comprehensive waste assessment could have been completed hand-in-hand with such a stunningly profligate budget outline.”

“Although nation faces a serious debt crisis, federal spending under President Obama has increased by nearly 20 percent a year,” concluded Stearns.  “I hope that he will become serious about controlling spending here in Washington to prevent a fast-approaching fiscal meltdown.”