Today, Vice President of Government Affairs for the362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU) Andrew Moylan testified beforethe House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight andInvestigations in support of over $1 trillion in budget reductions detailed inNTU and U.S. Public Interest Research Group’s (U.S. PIRG’s) new “Common Ground”report.
In his testimony, Moylan warned that failure to immediatelybegin the challenging work of reducing the federal budget would lead to a debtdisaster that could easily force massive program cuts as well as crushing taxhikes, a situation that neither political party would want. He laid out thecase for NTU and U.S. PIRG’s report as a non-controversial first step thatwould help meet the Congressional “Super Committee’s” mandate for $1.2 trillionin deficit reduction.
“We authored this joint report…to identify spending reductions that could beundertaken without fundamentally harming the core operations of the federalgovernment as either conservatives or liberals understand them.” Moylan said.
In citing some of the specific recommendations, he calledout “corporate welfare”, agriculture supports, and subsidies for energyproduction: “For example, the Market Access Program…consumes taxpayer dollarsto fund advertising and promotion in foreign countries for American companiesincluding McDonald’s.”
On the defense spending side Moylan used the example of theV-22 Osprey as a failure for taxpayers, “the V-22 Osprey has suffered fromnumerous schedule, management, cost and production issues. Cancelling it…couldsave taxpayers $15 billion.”
Moylan also addressed relatively unknown programs that representboondoggles for taxpayers, such as the ““Abandoned Mine Restoration Program,” a$1.23 billion funding stream which is unrestricted and often spent on unrelatedprojects.”
In addressing entitlements Moylan emphasized the“no-brainer” reforms proposed on the “Common Ground” report, such as “reducingexcess Medicare payments” and “empowering the Social Security Administration torecoup overpayments in disability programs.” However, he also made clear that fromNTU’s perspective, further entitlement reform is necessary, and these measuresare only an immediate first step in the right direction.
Beyond the solutions he offered, Moylan also volunteeredsome praise for the Obama Administration : “The President has been a leader inaddressing improper payments made by the federal government.” In addition toimproper payments reform, Moylan lauded the White House’s initiative toreinvigorate the Office of Special Counsel’s whistleblower protectionoperation.
However, Moylan also countered with sharper criticism of thePresident’s $3.7 trillion budget proposal for 2012 saying, “It strainscredulity to claim that a comprehensive waste assessment could have beencompleted hand-in-hand with such a stunningly profligate budget outline.”
Moylan closed by calling for the committee members andgovernment as a whole to finally follow through on longstanding commitments toattack wasteful spending and take on the political battles necessary to makethose promises a reality.
In addition to NTU, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (ourresearch and educational arm) has done yeoman’s work on government spending, analyzingreform plans and tracking legislative proposals that would reduce spendingthrough its BillTally project. Learn more at ntu.org and ntu.org/ntuf.