TOM SCHATZ – President, Citizens Against Government Waste Joins Houston Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tom chats is with us. He's a president of Citizens
Against Government Waste. What do you think of President Trump's idea, Tom,
of creating a commission focused on making government more efficient
and putting Elon Musk in charge of that.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I think it's a great idea, regardless of who's in charge.
It hasn't been done since the Grace Commission under President Reagan.
Jpter Grace, who was the chairman of the wr Grace Company,
was the head of that operation, and Citizens Against Government
Waste was created to follow up on those recommendations, and
those recommendations and others have helped save two point four
trillion dollars. And then President Trump says it could save trillions.

(00:36):
He's right, because we've got a seven trillion dollar budget.
You just cut fifteen percent, you got over a trillion.
So it's a great idea.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Kind of simple math is long two and it's a
matter of doing audits. You know, it's not just going
in and politically saying you're gone, you're gone, you're fired,
you're fired. It's a matter of getting all these different
agencies and all redundancies and everything else audited and find
out actually what's happening. Defense Apartment can't even account for

(01:03):
the money that it's lost for instance.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, interestingly, the audit for the Defense Department was something
that was recommended by the Grace Commission. Create the chief
financial officers for every agency create a budget, should say
an audit and say where the money's come even they
can't find equipment. It's really unfortunate because we need every
single dollar spent on our national security to be spent

(01:29):
effectively because you know the other countries are doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
You know, Tom, you have to think, you know, the
swamp has got to be scared beyond belief over this
because big government is how they make their money. This
is how money changes hands without us even knowing money
is changing hands. This is what makes people of Washington,
DC rich.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
It does. For example, the Government Accountability Office every year
issues a report on duplicative and overlapping programs, and they've
actually those recommendations have help save money, but they don't
do enough about them. And you need a leader in
the White House who says, this is what I'm going
to do in my budget, this is how I'm going
to get this done. I'm going to keep talking about it.
Ronald Reagan did that after the Grace Commission report was issued.

(02:10):
He talks about it all the time, and a lot
of those recommendations were implemented, far more than people think.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
You know this, all this could get solved with a
balanced budget amendment, a requirement for the federal government to
balance the budget. But I don't think that's ever going
to pass in DC. Do you.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Unlikely? Because, as you pointed out, things happen here because
money is spent. That's how everything gets solved. So you know,
you sit around the kitchen table and say, hey, let's
just go spend money and solve all our problems. Eventually
you run out.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Passing an amendment. What could does passing an amendment do?
I mean, they're required under the constitution to create a budget,
and they haven't done a budget in what thirty years?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, well, they haven't passed the bills on time, they
haven't done a budget and about that time as well.
And you're right, unless it's enforced, unless they change that system,
which is another way to help fix those problems, they'll
keep doing what they're doing. And so, just as I said,
takes stronger leadership, it takes taxpayers demanding the change and

(03:10):
making sure that whatever gets recommended is done well.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
It takes taxpayers who care enough to demand the change.
Thank you, Tom, appreciate it. Tom Schatz, President of Citizens
Against Government Waste. It's six twenty six