Obama Singles Out Printed ‘Federal Register’ in Launching Campaign to Cut Waste
WASHINGTON, DC—June 13, 2011—In a video message to the American people, President Obama and Vice President Biden launched the Campaign to Cut Waste. According to the announcement, the campaign “will hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the federal government.”
In his portion of the video, the President chose to lead off with the printed version of the “Federal Register” as an example of waste, noting “no one reads this thing.”
Here’s the rest of the “print” version of the announcement:
The Campaign to Cut Waste will build on the Accountable Government Initiative, led by OMB Director Jacob Lew and OMB’s Deputy Director for Management and Federal Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients, which has already tackled waste and inefficiency in many areas across government, cutting contracting spending for the first time in 13 years, identifying $3 billion in information technology savings, shutting down duplicative data centers and getting rid of excess federal real estate.
“Targeting waste and making government more efficient have been a priority for my administration since day one. But as we work to tackle the budget deficit, we need to step up our game,” President Obama said in a message to the American people. “No amount of waste is acceptable – not when it’s your money; not at a time when so many families are already cutting back.”
“For too long the federal government has allowed billions of taxpayer dollars to be wasted on inefficiencies,” said Vice President Biden. “Over the last two years, we have been slashing waste across government and today we are putting Washington on notice: the President and I are committed to changing the way government works and we are stepping up the hunt for misspent dollars.”
“Any waste of taxpayer dollars is unacceptable whether we are in surplus or deficit, but it is particularly offensive at a time of such fiscal challenges,” said OMB Director Jacob Lew. “At the same time as we work to tackle our deficits, it is critical that we continue to root out waste, identify ways to do more with less, and ensure the tax dollars of America’s families are put to good use. We will continue to update the public on these efforts, building on the unprecedented transparency of the Recovery Act.”
The Vice President was joined for the announcement by Lew, Zients, and chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board Earl Devaney, along with several agency Inspectors General, Chief Financial Officers, Deputy Secretaries, and additional Administration officials.
Source: The Whitehouse.