Newsroom 

Welcome to the Taxpayers for Common Sense News Room, a collection of TCS's latest news releases on government waste. Take moment to check out our top news stories or visit the press release archive (1997-2007). RECENT NEWS RELEASES   The Gas Tax Holiday:  Good Politics, Bad Policy With the average price of a gallon of gasoline over $3.60 and diesel well over $4.00, it’s no surprise that political solutions to the high price of fuel have started to surface. More... Bipartisan Group of Senators Call for Taxpayer Protections in New Mining Law Today Senators Feingold (D-WI), Sununu (R-NH), Cantwell (D-WA), and Gregg (R-NH) led a bi-partisan push for the inclusion of important taxpayer protections in the reform of the 1872 Mining Law. More... TCS National Security Spending Update: More Money, More Problems Can earmarks be too much of a good thing? Some high-level Defense Department officials think so. TCS commented this week on a recent DoD Inspector General report that aimed to determine the cost and oversight of earmarks and their impact on DoD’s “primary mission.” More... Air Force States That Earmarks Can Make Our “Force Less Capable” Members of Congress are quick to say that they earmark because they know a good project when they see one and know their district’s needs better than some bureaucrat in Washington. Well, the Air Force doesn’t necessarily agree. More... TCS Releases New Earmark Database Congress has cut earmarks by 23 percent from the record 2005 levels, according to a new groundbreaking analysis and database of congressional earmarks released today by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a national budget watchdog organization.  The database can be accessed at www.taxpayer.net. More... TCS Statement on the President's FY2009 Budget Today’s release of the FY 2009 federal budget is historic: it is the first budget to crack the $3 trillion mark. That’s trillion with a “T.” More... TCS Statement on Earmark Reforms in State of the Union “By not including this year’s spending bills, the President is passing the buck on reigning in earmarks. As a lame duck, it’s unlikely that the President will even see any of the spending bills that he wants to fix before he leaves the Oval Office. More... Senators Gut Earmark Disclosure, Still Take Credit for Corporate Pork Washington lawmakers are not generally shy about taking credit for what they bring home to their districts. That’s why we were so frustrated by the Senate’s failure to pass ethics legislation that would require them to disclose the beneficiaries of their earmarks in all the spending bills, as their colleagues in the House did. More... Sen. Coburn Calls for Full Cocount Road Investigation In a break from all-Omnibus, all-the-time coverage here at TCS, here's an update on a greatest hit from yesteryear. Sen. Coburn is promising to hold up the technical corrections bill to the 2005 highway bill until there is a full investigation of the events that lead to the changing of an earmark from widening I-75 to putting in a Coconut Rd. Interchange after Congress had already approved the bill but before it went to the President. More... Omnibus Spending Bill Stuffed With Earmarks The Consolidated Appropriations Bill is a perfect example of haste making waste. The House Rules Committee is currently meeting to lay the groundwork for considering the 3,565 page omnibus containing $517 billion in spending tonight. The bill will have been available for less than 24 hours – so no member of Congress can honestly say that they will have read the bill before they vote tonight. More... Earmarks Distort Foreign Aid Priorities Those who believe that earmarks’ damage is purely fiscal should listen to 21 policy experts from both sides of the aisle who say earmarking doesn’t just hurt taxpayer pocketbooks, it prevents the government from doing its job. More... As the Omnibus Turns While House Appropriations Cardinals are supposedly shaking the spending trees to find programs to cut from the end-of-the-year appropriations bill to get to the $933 billion spending level (this includes the already enacted Defense Appropriations bill), there have also been reports that the Senate is drafting its own version of the Omnibus spending bill. More... Same Day Service on the Omnibus Spending Bill Here’s one possible scenario: The Omnibus spending bill appears tomorrow, runs through a revolving door at the Rules committee, and makes a late night appearance on the House floor without earmarks disclosed. More... A Look at the New New Orleans Pam Dashiell, head of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, asked me how I thought they were doing. I told her I was inspired, but devastated by what I was witnessing. You see, I spent the last couple days in New Orleans and toured the historic Holy Cross neighborhood and other parts of the Lower Ninth Ward. More... Cochran, Stevens Top Congressional Earmarkers Senators Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Ted Stevens (R-AK) are at the top of the list for Washington earmarkers, according to a review of the latest version of each of the 12 spending bills for 2008. More... Transportation/HUD Spending Bill Earmarks Total More Than $3 Billion The FY2008 Transportation and Housing and Urban Development spending bill spreads $1.6 billion across more than 2,000 Congressionally disclosed earmarks. In addition, the bill contains 41 Presidential earmarks worth more than $1.3 billion and 17 undisclosed earmarks worth just under $200 million. The grand total for all of the bills earmarks rings it at 2,136 earmarks worth $3.1 billion. More... Defense Spending Bill Earmarks Just Shy of $8 Billion Now that the conference report for the 2008 Defense Department Appropriations bill is in, we can see whether Congress lived up to its “cut earmarks in half” promise for the federal government’s largest discretionary spending bill. The answer, unsurprisingly, is no. More... Congress Slams Home Water Pork The Senate voted to override the President’s veto by a vote of 79-14. Earlier this week, the House of Representatives voted to override the President’s veto by a vote of 361-54. The bill will now become law without the President’s signature. More... Congress Unwilling to Abide by Competitive Contracting Rules for Congressional Earmarks Congress has justifiably been highly critical of billions of dollars in government contracts that the Administration has issued without competition for reconstruction efforts in Iraq and the Gulf Coast. In fact, Congress has repeatedly voted to end or limit these “no bid” contracts. Section 828 the Senate Defense Authorization bill simply applies that same reasoning to earmarks. More... TCS Applauds Veto of $23 Billion Water Projects Bill We applaud the President for vetoing the water projects bill as part of the administration’s effort to restore fiscal sanity to federal investment in water infrastructure. More... House Votes to End Century Old Mining Giveaway After more than a century, lawmakers today took an important first step towards ending the outright giveaway of taxpayer-owned gold, silver and copper for free to multi-national mining companies. More... TCS Statement on the Draft Columbia and Snake River Biological Opinion We are very disappointed but not surprised to see that federal agencies have released yet another salmon plan that offers more of the same expensive salmon fixes that have been proven to be economic and scientific failures. More... TCS Analysis of 2008 War Supplemental Since President Bush released his latest addition to the burgeoning FY2008 war supplemental on Monday, the resulting debate in Congress has revolved around how to leverage it politically. We hope this does not mean that members or their staff will put off scrutinizing what the supplemental actually contains until they sit down to legislate it weeks or months from now. More... Natural Resources Committee Passes Mining Reform Legislation Today a core principal of mining reform was upheld by the Natural Resources Committee.  Chairman Rahall and the Committee have taken the first step in making sure that the mining industry pays their fair share for extracting minerals on public lands. More... TCS Action Supports Farm Reform Legislation Offered in Senate TCS Action applauds Senators Lautenberg and Lugar, and the bill’s other bi-partisan cosponsors, for introducing the FRESH Act to begin the phase-out of Depression-era farm subsidies that have cost taxpayers billions.  More... TCS Applauds Hinchey Amendment Securing Royalty Reforms in Mining Legislation Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D‐NY) deserves our gratitude for demanding that taxpayers be compensated when mining companies extract precious minerals from our public lands. Because of Rep. Hinchey’s efforts, we are one step closer to mining companies paying their fair share for gold, silver, copper, uranium and other hardrock minerals mined on taxpayer‐owned lands. More... TCS Statement on Partnership In Senate Farm Bill Campaign What Taxpayers for Common Sense wants in a Senate farm bill is simple – less taxpayer waste, a smaller budgetary footprint, and significant reform to the Title I commodity programs. Where the House failed, the Senate has the opportunity to meet these challenges. More... TCS Mourns the Passing of John Berthoud Taxpayers across the country lost a great friend and strong ally last week when John Berthoud, President of National Taxpayers Union and National Taxpayers Union Foundation passed away. His powerful intellect, keen insight, dedication and political acumen was only eclipsed by his warm, loyal and friendly nature. Berthoud fit the classic mold of an individual that passionately fights for their ideas but befriends all. Taxpayers for Common Sense mourns a fellow budget warrior and great friend as well. More... Senate Guts Earmark Transparency Rules TCS has just discovered that Senate leadership gutted earmark transparency rules that had initially passed passed the Senate 98-0. S. 1, the ethics and earmark bill, was first considered in January. At that time, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) offered what he called the Pelosi-DeMint earmark transparency amendment to the bill. This amendment did nothing more than apply the same earmark transparency rules to the Senate that the House of Representatives had overwhelmingly adopted days before. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) tried to kill the amendment using a procedural move, but lost. After other ill-fated attempts to scuttle the provision, Senate leadership moved to save face by improving the measure – requiring disclosure on the internet. More... New Online Tool Brings Transparency to Earmarks EarmarkWatch.org, a new project from the Sunlight Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense, lets citizens determine if earmarks – the measures inserted by members of Congress into the various appropriations bills that direct funds to a specific project or recipient – address pressing needs, favor political contributors or are simply pure pork. More... Alaska Governor Pulls Plug on Bridge to Nowhere Today, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) pulled the plug on the Bridge to Nowhere - the Gravina Island Access Project - by re-focusing Alaska's transportation investments on cost-effective solutions to real transportation problems. Instead of pursuing gold plated bridges to nowhere, lawmakers should be focused on fixing our nation's degrading infrastructure and enhancing America's transportation choices. A recent Department of Transportation Inspector General report found that more than 13%, or $8 billion, of transportation funding was earmarked. The Bridge to Nowhere was the poster child of Congressional excess, and hopefully its demise will be the harbinger of greater restraint and transparency in federal budgeting. More... Inouye, Stevens Pack Senate Defense Bill with Earmarks The Senate Appropriations Committee saved the biggest bill for last by finally passing the fiscal year 2008 defense appropriations bill. The legislation allocates $459.3 billion to the Department of Defense, $3.8 billion less than the President’s request but only $300 million less than the House bill. In all, the legislation includes 936 earmarks worth $5.2 billion. That’s about 400 fewer earmarks than what the House defense bill disclosed, but the House bill’s total cost is some $2 billion greater (TCS found an additional 70 undisclosed earmarks worth $3 billion).  The final FY 2007 defense appropriation bill contained 2,646 earmarks worth $10.5 billion. More... Congress Discloses $3 Billion in Defense Earmarks More...

Taxpayers for Common Sense is a non-partisan budget watchdog that serves as an independent voice for American taxpayers.  Now in its second decade of service to the nation, TCS seeks to ensure that our government spends taxpayer money efficiently and responsibly by working to eliminate wasteful and harmful federal spending.