By Citizens Against Government Waste
Washington, D.C. - December 9, 2017 - (The Ponder News) -- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz released a statement applauding the Department of Defense (DOD) for announcing the start of its long-delayed first audit:
“Taxpayers should be encouraged that DOD has finally begun the necessary process of auditing its gargantuan bureaucracy. The Pentagon has done an exemplary job of protecting our national security, but a very poor job of keeping track of how defense dollars are spent.
“The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) required audits to be performed and accurate financial statements disclosed for every federal department. CAGW was instrumental in the enactment of this legislation.
“That means DOD has failed to perform an essential accounting function for the past 27 years, while every other agency required to provide an audit under the CFO Act has done so. Since the Pentagon is the largest federal department, the lack of transparency and accountability has made this delay even worse.
“Determining how the taxpayers’ money is being used at the Pentagon should not be difficult. On December 5, 2016, The Washington Post reported that the department had buried an internal study that found $125 billion in administrative waste. The Government Accountability Office has regularly found DOD programs at ‘high risk’ of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.
“While the Pentagon has previously announced its intent to produce an audit, we fully expect that this time it will carry out that commitment with the meticulous scrutiny that taxpayers expect, and we look forward to analyzing the findings when they are released.”
Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
The Unpopular Truth
Showing posts with label Citizens Against Government Waste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Citizens Against Government Waste. Show all posts
Monday, December 11, 2017
Thursday, September 7, 2017
CAGW’s Deborah Collier Testifies Before Senate Commerce Committee on FCC’s Lifeline Program
Source: Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW)
Washington, D.C. - September 7, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) Director of Technology and Telecommunications Policy, Deborah Collier, testified this morning before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation’s hearing on the, “Risk of Waste, Fraud and Abuse in the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline Program.”
The testimony reads, in part:
“Many Americans have heard of the ‘Obamaphones,’ made infamous by the viral 2012 video of a Cleveland woman touting the ‘free’ Lifeline program. However, few Americans realize is that Lifeline is part of the Low-Income support program, which was created in 1985 to provide subsidies for low-income households to obtain a telephone enabling them to communicate in emergencies.
“Over the years, the Lifeline program has evolved from initially providing one landline telephone per household in need, to offering low-income, qualified subscribers a choice between a landline telephone, a wireless phone, or broadband internet service at a reduced cost (with a limit of one per household).”
“GAO also revealed multiple instances of fraud and abuse within the program. For example, some recipients were using Craigslist to advertise the sale of Lifeline-subsidized phones and service. In other instances, Lifeline beneficiaries violated the one phone line restriction of the program by signing up for service from multiple carriers.”
“Continued fraud and abuse within the Lifeline program has continued despite efforts to reform the verification process in 2012 and again in 2015. If Congress intends to continue the Lifeline program and make it sustainable in the future, CAGW strongly recommends that the USAC be required to implement a front end verification process, and the FCC engage in more stringent enforcement actions against companies that actively register ineligible or duplicate recipients into the program, and skirt the verification process.”
Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
Washington, D.C. - September 7, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) Director of Technology and Telecommunications Policy, Deborah Collier, testified this morning before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation’s hearing on the, “Risk of Waste, Fraud and Abuse in the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline Program.”
The testimony reads, in part:
“Many Americans have heard of the ‘Obamaphones,’ made infamous by the viral 2012 video of a Cleveland woman touting the ‘free’ Lifeline program. However, few Americans realize is that Lifeline is part of the Low-Income support program, which was created in 1985 to provide subsidies for low-income households to obtain a telephone enabling them to communicate in emergencies.
“Over the years, the Lifeline program has evolved from initially providing one landline telephone per household in need, to offering low-income, qualified subscribers a choice between a landline telephone, a wireless phone, or broadband internet service at a reduced cost (with a limit of one per household).”
“GAO also revealed multiple instances of fraud and abuse within the program. For example, some recipients were using Craigslist to advertise the sale of Lifeline-subsidized phones and service. In other instances, Lifeline beneficiaries violated the one phone line restriction of the program by signing up for service from multiple carriers.”
“Continued fraud and abuse within the Lifeline program has continued despite efforts to reform the verification process in 2012 and again in 2015. If Congress intends to continue the Lifeline program and make it sustainable in the future, CAGW strongly recommends that the USAC be required to implement a front end verification process, and the FCC engage in more stringent enforcement actions against companies that actively register ineligible or duplicate recipients into the program, and skirt the verification process.”
Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Citizens Against Government Waste Statement on Tax Reform Kickoff
Source: Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW)
Washington, D.C. - September 3, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz issued the following statement echoing President Trump’s kickoff speech on the urgent need for comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates and eliminates loopholes:
“President Trump’s tax plan will reduce taxes, create jobs, simplify the tax code, and put more money back into the taxpayers’ pockets. There is a simple choice on tax reform: Either the taxpayers’ hard-earned money will continue to be sent to Washington and enter a maze of bureaucratic inefficiency and ineptitude, or the tax code can be fixed and rates can be lowered. The American people will then make their own decisions about how to spend and invest their own money.
“The President’s plan would reduce both the individual and business tax rates, which will be particularly helpful to the middle class and small businesses. The U.S. cannot remain competitive with other nations with a tax rate that is 16.4 percentage points higher than the world average. His plan is intended to result in economic growth of at least 3 percent and create millions of new jobs. It deserves prompt consideration by Congress so that Americans can get immediate relief from burdensome taxes and a complex tax code as soon as possible, and fill out their tax returns in the future on a short form that should be no longer than one page.”
Background:
Taxpayers spend 8.9 billion hours annually complying with the tax code.
Tax code compliance costs the economy $234.4 billion per year.
The tax code is 10 million words and is more than six times as long as it was in 1955.
94 percent of taxpayers paid someone else or used software to prepare their tax forms.
The instructions alone for the typical 1040 tax form used by most Americans has grown from just two pages in 1935, to 241 pages today.
Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
Washington, D.C. - September 3, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz issued the following statement echoing President Trump’s kickoff speech on the urgent need for comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates and eliminates loopholes:
“President Trump’s tax plan will reduce taxes, create jobs, simplify the tax code, and put more money back into the taxpayers’ pockets. There is a simple choice on tax reform: Either the taxpayers’ hard-earned money will continue to be sent to Washington and enter a maze of bureaucratic inefficiency and ineptitude, or the tax code can be fixed and rates can be lowered. The American people will then make their own decisions about how to spend and invest their own money.
“The President’s plan would reduce both the individual and business tax rates, which will be particularly helpful to the middle class and small businesses. The U.S. cannot remain competitive with other nations with a tax rate that is 16.4 percentage points higher than the world average. His plan is intended to result in economic growth of at least 3 percent and create millions of new jobs. It deserves prompt consideration by Congress so that Americans can get immediate relief from burdensome taxes and a complex tax code as soon as possible, and fill out their tax returns in the future on a short form that should be no longer than one page.”
Background:
Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
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