Transcripts For CSPAN2 QA 20160825

I have just ordered the meaning of human existence which is the capstone book and dont we all want to know the meaning of human existence so im looking or were too reading the continuation of the social conquests book. We will see where the rest of the summer leagues. Im sure there will be other topics that will pop up that will keep me reading. This week on q a Thomas Schatz president s of citizens against waste talk about his organization including several members of congress to bring attention to government waste over the years. Cspan Thomas Schatz citizens against government waste you you are the person in europe and around that organization promised 30 years. What is it to . Guest is an organization created following the release of the Grace Commission report under president reagan and teeter grazed head of the Grace Commission and peter and Jack Anderson the syndicated columnist took president reagans advice which was to not that they purport gather dust on the shelf and they put together citizens against government waste in the lobbying arm called the counsel for citizens against government waste so the job of the organization is to uncover expose to publicize and eliminate affirmative waste, fraud and abuse. Cspan what is the book . Guest the book was started in the early 90s in 1991 was the first book and following the release of a list of unauthorized programs which was done under president reagan and i believe 1988 we got the idea of taking out list and figuring out how those expenditures were getting to the bill because they really werent supposed to be there under the rules. We worked with a Bipartisan Coalition of members of congress which then was called the congressional pork busters porkbarrel spending and really still lives and eventually became the term term earmarks in the winter all the Appropriations Bills and started the pig book. I believe the first year was 3 billion went all the way up to 29 billion in 2006 and every year that we can find earmarks in the preparations bill we released a congressional pig book around april or may. Cspan we have video of past conferences you have held and you are in the middle of all of this. Talk about some of this. Senator ted stevens bundled nearly 30 million his home state of alaska in this fiscal fiscal fiscal year. There is 70 million for construction at two National Guard bases and an air force base. Senator Charles Grassley of the biggest project the 50 million for an indoor rainforest in coralville iowa. The award goes to senator grassley for this money. Thats only the down payment on a 225 milliondollar project that we are all going to pay for because iowa is contributing absolutely nothing. The longestrunning earmarks this year 5. 9 million at the Eastwest Center in hawaii. The center has received 10 earmarks worth 103. 8 million since 2001, im sorry since 1997 all by appropriations senator daniel at inouye. My view of anything . Guest its still there. The indoor rainforest was always one of my favorites and it turned out that coralville decided not to spend the money that they shopped around the rest of the state and they never built it. North carolina, spartan North Carolina was supposed to get a halfMillion Dollars for teapot museum. That never happened because somebodys required matching funds and a lot of the local said wait a second we will have to spend some of our own money to do this so earmarks earmarks over the years have been some of the most ridiculous projects that one could possibly imagine. All of that was true, we dont make make it happen in make it happen in my field days days and we could figure out exactly which member of congress put in the air remarks, the changes more difficult to determine who has inserted an earmark into the Appropriations Bills. Cspan you mentioned the Eastwest Center in hawaii, 5. 9 million or whatever and 100 some million over the years, how does that kind of thing happened and what does it do . This is something we need . Guest the center is fully funded by the private sector. The Eastwest Center should be funded the sum same way. Duplicates a lot of other programs and even president obama said it should be funded via the federal government. Senator inouye who was either chairman or Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee at the same time senator stevens of alaska was either chairman or Ranking Member depending on which party was in charge of course and they split a huge pot of money. Percapita hawaii West Virginia were the top three. They write the bill, they have the last chance to put in their particular project and thats how it gets in. Not an open process. Its behindthescenes and the Eastwest Center is still there because the new senator who replace replaced senator inouye, senator schatz no relation keeps putting in there. Right you have done is from a 30 years. Why did you start with this and the first place that you created citizens against government waste . Guest i joined the organization after working for six years for congressman hamilton fish, came in a 1986 in overtime we started looking at how can we best get people to Pay Attention to wasteful spending so we can to find things that are just doing and easy to understand. The government is so large an organization has to cut through a lot of the noise and the other things going on. Members of Congress Talking about all the wonderful things that they are doing in trying to get people to be more involved and more personal so that they understand the impact on them and their families and their children and grandchildren. The big thing for peter grace to talk about the impact of the National Debt on our children and grandchildren because they will be the ones if we dont get our fiscal house in order that will suffer and have a lesser standard of living which will be the first time that one generation would pass on to the next at a higher not a higher standard but a lower standard of more debt. Cspan you went to school in new york, which branch . Guest i went to the university of new new york now binghamton university. Cspan you went to George Washington law school paid what was your reason to want to do a lot of . Guest at that would need good thing to do and my brother gone to georgetown so neither was practiced law for very long. I did for a couple of years and had a lot of friends who worked on capitol hill but a job opportunity to be legislative assistant and legislative director with congressman fish. Fish was my philosophical interest and after six years on his personal staff a friend of mine who worked for something called the House Wednesday group , he said to me i heard about a position as citizens against government waste and of course i knew about the Grace Commission which was only two years previously had issued its report and i went there and have been ever since. Cspan we are going to get down the weeds may be too much in his hour before its over but before we start that i want to show you some video of an interview done with William Fox Meyer former senator from wisconsin from 1975 to 1988 for 13 years. Every month you should something called at Golden Fleece award. Lets watch senator fox meyer. This was an agency that spent 100. [inaudible] there were all kinds of places you could go to get volunteers for that program. Cspan how does this thing happen . Guest they happen because people are hired to spend this money and in order to spend a trillion dollars in the present budget you have to have thousands of people spending money as fast as the possibly can and they come in and they spend 50 or 60,000 for coffee in the morning and another 100,000 he goes on and on day after day and. Soon money loses all significance. Cspan im asking you how does it happen . Guest its so big that its very difficult to get things under control. People may recall when senator dole ran for president he wanted to get rid of the three departments but those kinds of things are so difficult to do these days because money is spread out all over the place. The Government Accountability Office Issues a report on duplication and overlap which interestingly was something that then senator barack obama and senator tom coburn pushed for together they also push for more transparency in terms of how money is being spent at the reports in gao described the duplication. For example one of the report said there are 209 Science Technology and generic math programs or s. T. E. M. Programs that the federal government and 13 agencies so someone could get rid of the department of education and congress could eliminate the department of education. They there would be 12 agencies including the department of defense that has a program for Science Technology education. You have one place where education would be done so its a department or agency or whatever it might be that everything is spread out all over said could eliminate entire departments and you dont eliminate all of the associated programs that just permeate throughout the federal government so our thought is take all these gao recommendations bring them to the Florida House and the senate and get rid of the duplication. Find something that works well. Cspan when senator left it was trillions of dollars in debt. A lot less than it is now but i want to show a web site called the u. S. Debt clock. Org and anybody in the country can look this up and its much larger than you see on our screen right now. With all these numbers moving and according to the debt clock where 19 trillion in debt and there are lots of other figures on you. Matter fact he would point out how many automobiles were sold in the last month at the different companies. What do you think about this, not the clock so much but would he think of this money thats moving around this town . Guest one thing looking at the debt is higher than the total output of the United States, not a good position to be in a particularly when we depend on other countries given the Global Economy that help support that debt. They buy our Treasury Security and therefore they are buying our debt. Everything is intertwined out its not good to be dependent on others for how the country is indebted. Cspan by the way the first Golden Fleece award was in 1975 for the National Science foundation for squandering 84,000 to try to find out why people fall in love. Guest im sure Something Like that is still going on over there. The National Science foundation has been in the list and senator coburn announced senator langford and many others were some of the studies may have merit but a lot of them are duplicative, a lot of them really dont help anybody around the country. It just has to make sense. Cspan the second one back in 75 to the National Science foundation for spending over 500,000 to determine under what condition rats, monkeys and humans bite and clinch their jobs. Guest given a rat population around capitol hill these days i dont think you want to know the result of that one. Cspan select service, for 98,000dollar contract the allvolunteer army concept in Foreign Countries two years after an allvolunteer army was adopted by the United States. Guest again not a surprise. Thats the way things work Great Washington tends to be reactive, not proactive. Nobody thinks ahead. No one is thinking about what it would be done before and how can we keep funding that and they dont solve romes. You asked earlier how do these things happen . Its not planned like any other organization. Another organization is setting goals first and looking for solutions to the problem and then determining how can we get there within the budget cuts the budget is not first and most organizations because they have to figure out how they are going to get money to support what theyre going to do. One of the recommendations of the Grace Commission was to change the name of the office of the executive branch that does the budget and change it to the office of federal management so that management would be the title not budget. Not an exciting thing. Most people dont think of it as being all that interesting but its extremely important to the thought process in washington. They did managing first and did budgeting next. They would be setting goals and looking for results. They wouldnt pay for something if somebody had proven that it works. We spend 100 million, didnt work with spend a billion. Its not that much but i wouldnt be surprised if thats a solution. Its not just democrats, love if republicans as well. Those s. T. E. M. Programs the third of those came into being after theyd took over the house and senate. People tend to think republicans want more defense and democrats nondefense and eight it together and they just spend more. 405 million to his state of oregon. That includes a 2. 6 million grant for Marine Science Center named after you guessed it mark hatfield. 1. 7 million to improve the shelf life of vegetables which was served up by senator patty murray of washington. 55 million in pork in 2007 defense bill. Also Million Dollars as speaker of the house nancy pelosi ran through the Learning Center which will preserve the site of the u. S. Armys first Language School established in 1941. Senator thad cochran the Ranking Member of the senate Appropriations Committee who received the for his 490 million. He has been number one for three years in a row and his total exceeds 2 billion during that threeyear period of time. Cspan standing next to you senator jeff flake and im not sure whether he was a congressman at that time but the point i want to ask about is how im piercing is that for these members to stand next to you is your blasting one of her colleagues . In most cases they have no pork at all. Senator mccain has been to these events longer than anyone else and he has been the leader on the elimination of your remarks and pork spending for 20 plus years. Senator flake came into the house and right away he got involved in the senate. He puts out his own report. Members i care about it have had an impact. Moratorium which i want to talk about further further but they were caught up in a on earmarks without people like jeff flake and john mccain and others who stood up to them. Cspan let me show the cover of the reports that jeff flake puts out in december of 2015. It called the. [speaking in farsi] wakens and it looks a little bit like tom coburn but he put out a waste book like this. Did he follow this on purpose . Guest yes and in fact James Langford of oklahoma who was elected when senator coburn retired spoke with us almost a year ago or a year ago in fact about what he was planning as well so there was a book from senator langford, 100 billion in savings and senator flake, senator mccain inside the pentagon. So its wonderful that the idea that senator coburn had proliferating among senators and congressman Steve Russell from oklahoma getting this out to the public because the more this gets publicized the easier just to keep making the case that something needs to be done about wasteful spending. The appropriators and the Transportation Committee loves to spend money and they need to be reminded there still ways. Cspan we will show you senator flake and moment that hears from his book. I will read one paragraph. U. S. Air force contract with nascar totaling 1. 6 million that included autograph sessions with Aric Almirola at an air force recruit in booth meet and greets and other appearances by Richard Petty and 20 Richard Petty driving experience right alongside. What is the government doing spending money on this . Guest thats an example of jeff flake and john mccain bringing up this kind of expenditure and not spending that money. This is one where they really looked at it and said why is the pentagon sponsoring events and it turned out senator mccain sometimes to have the pentagon come to these events so they said look the military wants to volunteer and spend some time at sporting events, find but it shouldnt be transactional. They shouldnt be doing this and thats a good case, good example i should say of why these things the two continued to be done. Eventually some of this goes away. Cspan heres another one here called hipster parties. Quote will you be there to help a hipster in need . Thats the question posed by help the Hipster Movement and has received nearly 5 million of taxpayer funds from the National Institutes of health over the past five years the project organizes parties and bars at night clubs featuring indie rock bands, local artists, djs as well as other activities aimed at enticing hipsters quote to take a stand against tobacco corporations unquote. Guest standing up against tobacco corporations and taxes and tobacco settlements is a ridiculous waste of money and whos going to go to such an event and convince people not to smoke would tend some ways is the easiest way to get people to continue did do something but a lot of those efforts lead to money the federal level. Cspan one of the quotes from part of the study says hipsters are hard to define because being hard to define as part of their culture. They initiate trends and for the moment that seems to bring up a focus on flannel, facial hair, skinny jeans. To identify the hipsters paid researchers used photos in various measures of style. The researchers used that as a guide. Guest it speaks for itself. Just absurd to be spending that kind of money on something that they dont even know what kind of impact it will have or have had. He cant identify people them how do you know whether works and how many people quit smoking because these people showed up . Cspan heres a bit from senator jeff flake. Nasa can no longer even launch astronauts into orbit. Yet nasa is spending 1. 2 million to study the impact of microgravity on sheep. Nasa is spending 280,000 to develop plans to build a cloud city on venus. The pentagon is spending 2 million to teach robots how to play jazz and 2. 5 million in parts to create a robot lobby grieder. 1 million on the monkey on the treadmill study. The purpose of this research . To determine if other studies can be conducted of monkeys on treadmills. I think everybody will have to agree this is totally bananas. Cspan how much do you work with people like senator flake . Guest we are in constant touch with senator flake and others about this kind of wasteful spending. He mentioned monkey on a treadmill and they have also funded shrimp on a treadmill and the Mountain Lion a treadmill and do not mind one the researcher had to shop around to find a treadmill big enough for the Mountain Lion and it was determined how long they could run and how fast they could run. Cspan who decides how these monies are going to be spent on these projects . Guest Congress Gives money to the National Science foundation and others and they have the peerreviewed studies that apparently having this kind of money means they are getting too much paid the nih budget was expanded dramatically over the last 10 years to do research, not to do these kinds of things. We want to cure diseases and we want to cure cancer and alzheimers and aids and Everything Else but this really takes away from more serious and needed efforts at these agencies in the puts them in a bad light when you do this kind of thing. Cspan you mentioned the gentleman that took senator coburns place, senators James Langford from oklahoma. He has got a book out called federal fumbles and here is senator langford talking about it. Is there one example of this report have particularly its you that particularly irks you . There are about 100 of them that particularly irked me. As you go through and look at it whether it be small or large and you were mentioning large and small but let me give a couple of them. The earned income tax credit the largest fraud in the federal government and it has been for 20 years. At one program has a 20 fraud. About 18, 16 to 18 billion a year in fraud and loss in that one program alone. That goes year after year. Lots of people catch me at home and said they want to take care of the irs and whats happening with Identity Theft with the irs. The irs has methods that they could put in place that will protect the identity of the individual so their identity is not stolen. They have false tax returns put in. If we dont deal with that we will continue to have more money in the billions of dollars go out the door and lot of hassle for americans getting their identity stolen and false tax returns. Cspan how hard is it for someone like senator langford to do this . Guest when senator coburn was putting this together he had two people and Committee Staff that spent almost the entire year working on it. We worked very closely with them and senator langford met with the staff and put this report together and we have been getting the information and helping them in really trying to push it out to the public so they are aware of it because again its important. They talked about stolen identity and hes right they could reduce the amount of refund fraud. Someone gets ahold of your Social Security number and a filed a full tax return and they get the refund instead of you. Its very difficult to get the money back both from the irs and prove that he really wasnt you who got the first one. They can figure this out. Its not all that difficult. Cspan all of these reports we are talking about are available on the web. I want to go to one of the items in this report. Gao released a Government Accountability Office Released ever poured in 2014, practices of five departments d. O. T. The department of Defense Veterans Affairs usaid gsa and doi. Gao found these departments spend it combined 3. 1 billion on workers who were cased on administrative leave from 2011 to 2013. 775 million of which went towards the salaries of 57,000 employees who were off work for one month or longer. This is money paid for by the taxpayers who actually work hard to earn their salaries is with senator langford said. Why 50 does 57,000 people on administrator believe . Guest its very difficult to fire someone and many managers dont want to spend the time going through the process. There are multiple levels of appeals by employees and they feel its easier to keep paying them because its not the managers money and is not a agencies money. If the taxpayers money. Theres no penalty or leaving these people on the side. In the private sector this would never happen. You get two weeks notice in your out. You can appeal but it just doesnt work the same way in washington as it does in the private sector but you may recall jimmy carter came in when the first thing he wanted to do was perform those services and nobody talked to him much after that. This is something that is really difficult to fix because it requires literally redoing the Civil Service system negotiating with the federal workers unions and its messy in the process has gotten totally out of control. I remember talking about this before came out when the original report came out and a lot of people wanted to know why this was going on and it really is systemic and Congress Needs to do something about it. There are others in here, Donald Trumps deal on rebuilding that, whats going to be a hotel. Well, if it hadnt been donald trump, it would have been something else. Is this the appropriate use of tax dollars lars, and it would disappear if the the tax form was reformed. If that is done all these other tax breaks should disappear. One of the reasons it exists is base the corporate rate is so high and its difficult for some companies to invest. They are expensive. Its what it is because of the way the system works and theres a big lobby, they are going in and saying, i would love to do this project. But you better give me a tax break. But if you add lower corporate rate, and tax credit this wouldnt exexist. Jim, got a lot of publicity, and the whole issue on whether or not he was going to be charged of not giving up his sources. This is a clip from q and a interview that we had with james back in 2014. I want you to try to explain this. Over 11 billion of the roughly 20 billion that, in iraqi money that the United States sent back to iraq was unaccounted for and what stewarts investigators found was that nearly 2 billion in cash, in 100 bills was stolen. By powerful iraqis, and was being hidden in a bunker where the people who had stolen it, after it was airlifted to baghdad, there were hide it go for safekeeping for future use. No one seems to know what happened to it. Into the surprise. Special Inspector General has been doing a wonderful job. He was former head of the iraq special investigations. He had, i believe, another investigative arm of the government. So they have looked at all of these things, and, its not a big after surprise. The way that things work in iraq. You go to some local group and you hand them money because you want some favor. But they should have kept track. Whether the system was set up so money was glowing, in, to various parts of the country says one thing. But, if cash was going to be handed out, somebody needed to keep track just to make sure, whoever was supposed to be paid only got that amount of money. Thats what they did. But keep track of the money. Thats the bigger problem in washington as well. Its not their money, the agencys money. Its the taxpayers money. It doesnt have consequences. Look at the va, people sitting in those offices, waiting to be treated and dying. They set up false lists of wait times. I think three people were transferred, oh, you know, well take care of these people and again it goes back to why do they sit around and do nothing. Because it is very difficult to hold them accountable. The first gentleman we showed, was a liberal democrat from wisconsin. Most of the other people are now republicans. Is there a difference between these parties and how much theyre interested in this kind of waste . Weve had a lot of conversations about it. Former business owners, we tried to make the point, it is not a business but it should be run like that. We made the argument, if somebody wants to help a Certain Group of people, they can help more if they eliminated the waste. 100 million, program and, 20 million is going to waste. That means 20 million is not going where it is supposed to be. The answer is not make it 120 million so you have extra 20 million that goes to people that need it. You get rid of the waste. But its easier to add the 20 million. Management is not that interesting. You dont get your name on some building. You say, i just made the government more efficient. How does it benefit me . Thats why we say whats the formula, if you eliminate that 20 million in waste, 30 million more people get help. This is the way to get things done. 72 inspectors general in the government. How effective are the inspectors general in the federal government. Na depends on where they are working. Some of them are way more effective. The Inspector General for the Postal Service, williams, who may have retired, probably should. But, he is supporting having the Postal Service get more involved in non postal activities. Competing with the private sector. Becoming a banking operation. Not just doing money orders and doing bank. This is something that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders support. The Postal Service can get out of the debt that comes up. 5. 7 billion lost. They think getting the Postal Service to do something other than what they do, rather than eliminating, duplication, and, excess post offices, that thats the solution. Its a spend more money. It doesnt work. Robert gates former secretary of defense was here a couple of weeks ago. Heres a question that we asked him and explain this. Has the department of defense ever been audited. We get audited in different ways by different people. But when it comes to a formal general Accounting Practices the answer is no. The department has been working for years to get itself into a position of where it knows where all the money is gone and has that documented and can present it in formal Accounting Practices. Do we know where it goes . Yes. Does huge do huge amounts of money disappear into the ether . No. What do you think. I think they need to have a clean audit and fee is that is correct. Im not doubting him but we dont know. This goes back to the chief financials officer act, promoted. They had not had them in federal agencies until the fact, in 1989. You dont have a cfo. And then in 1993 government performance and results act, that was the one that started the ball rolling for these audits. So that was 23 years ago. 1993. And the pentagon still didnt have a clean audit. Only agency. So you see things, that say we dont know where this particular ship s they just dont have it, in their system. So they can say here is where it is. Its that bad at the pentagon. Im happy that they exist. They do a wonderful job. But they need to figure out where all this money is going t. Affects their budget, they tend to ask for things that they dont need. Why wouldnt the Congress Want an audit of the pentagon and force them to do it. They have been saying it for years. Give ausclean audit. But they dont say well cut off the money if you dont. That would be the way. But they have been pushing it, for years. Every time a secretary of defense comes up and talks about the budget. They say get us a clean audit. Were working on it. Theres a famous conservative economist that think all of this is a waste of time. Milton treated man. Complain about waste. I dont complain about waste. Would you really like the irs to be spending its money efficiently . [laughter] in general we dont like waste. But, one of the effects of this, is that government didnt have as much control as you might think it would. You have a few hundred thousand bureaucrats, and, 2 Million People figuring ways to get around it. But at least it preserves our freedom. 120 million americansing a. Look, i have heard this many times and i have heard him say it. To us, waste can be subjective. And its the mismanagement part that people need to Pay Attention to. We think the more that is talked b. No one likes mismanagement of their assets and resources because that means youre not getting what you think you should get out of it. And people need to think about the money they pay in taxes. People watching the market, goes up and down and they see that everyday. But nobody sees whats going on. Theres very little transparency and its easy to talk about it. People know a lot more about the state and the local expenditures. My father was the president of the school board and they knew about the budget. And it was close to home. Thats one of the problems with dealing with and trying to get spending in washington under control. But to say that waste helps people is wrong. It means money is not going where it is supposed to go. They always figure out ways to get around certain things. You may want the irs to be effective. Just collect the taxes, and then go. But, when they allow people to have their identities stolen, theyre not doing basic work. How many people. We have 15 people in the office. And more than 1 million members. How much money do you spend a year. 5 million. The budget is about 5 million. Any government money. Never. Dont want it. How much money do you spend for lobbying, with your about half a million. Its mostly education, and research. About a 41, 57 run to a year. Another member of the senate, is john mccain. He has something called americas most waited. Lets watch a clip of his interview. The National Guard is 100 million in debt. And yet spent 14,000 on bubble balls. Q. It was some hair brain idea somebody had. And one of the other aspects of the National Guard, and that is professional sports teams charging the taxpayers for honoring the veterans, honoring the men and women who serve. You would think, that is great thing that the new york jets are honoring our veterans, and our men and women who are serving. Absolutely theyre being paid for. In his americas americas md wasted time, washington is out of control, spending, heres another one, in july 2012 the army research, Development Engineering award a 50,000 year long grant, for researchers, with ella factses, to see if their sense of smell could be used to sniff out bombs. Well, hopefully you find it before the elephants find it. Thats why they need to justify it. Thats. What is that going doing for national security. Canaan house office building, built in 1908 is due for a refurbishing and spend 725 million for doing that and thats almost as much as they spent on the visitor center. Maybe things need to get it done. Im sure don don could say i can do it cheaper. But, the capital is being redone. We dont want things to fall apart and maybe too much. But some of those things over time need to be done. Probably less expensively. 14 million, for Catfish Inspection Office, among the many wasteful provisions in the appropriations bill, was a do you blah kative to continue developing a Catfish Inspection Office even though the food and Drug Administration runs one and they are 1. 8 billion catfish enjoyed by americans, each year. They have tried to eliminate that duplication and they have been defeated, to try to eliminate it. This is another example where common sense gets taken over by the beltway mentality. Doesnt make sense anywhere else. You would have two agencies, looking at catfish. You mentioned, congressman Steve Russell, who is involved in his own waste project. This is called waste watch. Hes a retired lieutenant colonel. There was, wasnt there some money being spent on ella ella fantsds, and national security. We brought over a bunch of middle people, to be filmmakers, and they made anti u. S. Phils. 100 million missing, that no one can account for, in afghanistan. We are asking where it is. Im on the the the sight and government committee, we can reach down and get to the bottom in his book, its a 30,000 item, the National Endowment for the humanities, provided, money for the toxic rhetoric, with large scale computer games. Thats pc gone wild. No way that that would be useful or stop anybody. In 2012 he has, the National Endowment for the arts, awarded a 40,000 game based on walden, it was panned, who pointed out that the whole message was experiencing only the essential facts of life. And the senator featured it. In 2015 the endowment picked up, where they left off, doubling down with 100,000 grant to help finish the project. This is why they are on many lists of agencies that should be eliminated. I always mat point before they were established in 1963, did we have arts, we didnt have the government involved in spending 180 million each year for projects, that they would not get done. Who doesnt like what you do . People that like to spend money. Sometimes both sides of the aisle and we make some alliances, and we do other things. Many tax issues. There was a press conference with a group, 45 organizations, supporting a permanent extension of the internet tax moratorium. Talking the impact. So, the farm bill, thats left, right, middle. We tend to find a lot of alliances, that people may not think about. But, generally, depends on the issue. Now, another item in, congressman russ cells waste book, in 2014 the department of energy held 407 conferences at hotels, instead of using federal government space. In 2014, they held its fifth annual advance projects, summit at the Gaylord National resort just outside the washington, dc. They talk about thousands of dollars. Thats another example where the publicity has created change. They now have cut back on agency budgets, and this began about 3, 4 years ago. Generally no you wont go, so people say well, i dont get this. Why are the members of Congress Getting this. I want to put on the screen, a list of the different site thats we found and there are others, and people that are interested can go to them. Citizens against government waste. Theres a group called watchdog. Org. Do you know anything about them. The franklin center. They do a lot of work at the state level. Good resource. Heritage foundation. They have wasteful spending. Some of your critics say you use your organization to help your funders on the hill get things passed. Thats a criticism around washington. Thats old news. We dont do anything that doesnt benefit our mission or the taxpayers and our members and of course, the organizations, that is a sport them would not do so if they, that our mission was going to be moved forward. Over time its been about 80 individual, and 20 is foundations, and corporations. So the vast majority comes from individual taxpayers. Why would we not want to fight against internet taxes. Im sure there are companies that might benefit. 16. 4 annually in new taxes on individuals and then the states get the money and spend it unwisely. Weve been around a long time. Do you ever get tired of doing this. No. Spent six years on capitol hill, with congressman fish and since 1986 and everyday i love going in there, we try to get things done that benefit the taxpayers. You talked about william, and heres one that goes way back. The federal Aviation Administration was named for spending 47,000 57,800 on the study of the physical measurements of 4828 Airline Steward difficulties, their buttocks and how their knees were arranged. He give it to the screw worm fly, sex life. How much credit do you give him . The screw worm research was in the big book. Those things kept going. He was the first one to start identifying this kind of wasteful spending and after that, a number of members of the congress, and organizations took up this fight. We talked, about the moratorium, on earmarks. None of that would have come about without a bipartisan effort, and after finding it and we keep finding them under our definition, according to the house and senate there arent any. There are a few compared to the old days, where it reached 29 billion. Department of commerce for spending, 500,000 for creating, the replica of the pyramid. Began in 1979. It was insufficient and it is abandoned. I remember that. I remember t. Because as you know i have been here a long time. All of those helped lay the groundwork for getting rid have a lot of these earmarks. Heres one, u. S. Department of defense for 3,000, to determine if people in the military should carry umbrellas in the rain. Im not surprised, that those kind of expenditures take place. It helped publicize the 640 hammer, and 640 toilet seat. How do you do your work . Whats the most valuable tool that you have to find these different examples . Theres so much more Information Available now which is helpful. We were in business long before the internet. And then you go up, we didnt get copies of the bills. You would have to read them in the Clerks Office or go to a member of congress. When we first did the pig book, there wasnt a list of the earmarks. That only occurred for three years, out of the 25 years. So transparency would be helpful. Who is putting them in. Are they calling agencies to say, give my state or district more money. So thats really part of what we now do. Those reports, inspectors general and g. A. O. , and members of congress. It is all there. Its a matter of having the will to do something. 5 million for abstinence education. The United States has spent more than 8. 1 billion for abstinence programs. 22. 3 million since 2007 you 2001. In 2008, and 2009, Arlen Specter was responsible for them pennsylvania worth 1. 4 million and were talking about abstinence from sex. What is the government doing getting involved. We like them, just abstain from spending all this money like that. Sometimes they set themselves up pretty well. But this is a perfect example of why people are angry. We have some charts, one is pork barrel spending, 1991,2015. And theres a huge dip. Well the 2006, 29 billion, the moratorium came about, 2011. The two years that you see zeros were years that they add bill and they spent everything, they spent so no expenditures. And hopefully, almost back where we started. Even under our definition, were having fewer and fewer. This year we might be up again. But well see. When will your next pig book come out. We plan to put it out, april 12, just before tax day, in early april and it can be found at c. A. G. W. Org. Anything coming up in this report. More money spent on alternative energy. Its something that senator talked about. Biofuels at the department of defense. It is i think lower than in previous years. So, progress in terms of that type of expenditure. More money spent for the tank, and something they dont need. So theres they dont want them but the Congress Says you will get them. Who is behind them. Everywhere they are made. All over the country parts are made in a lot of places. Something that was a local thing, with the engine for the fighter and the strike itself. But they didnt want. Through two administrations. Bush, and, president barak obama, saying we dont want it. But it was being built in ohio, and mass has and finally we got rid of it. But that took five years. Our guest has done this work for 30 years. Where is home. New york. Long island. Hes the president of the citizens against government waste and the author of the pig book and thank you for joining us. Thank you tomorrow on q and a, bill press will talk about his book, buyers remorse, how president barak obama let them down. And q and a starts at 7 p. M. Eastern