SUBMITTED NEWS RELEASE
A coalition of 36 state legislators and leaders of various citizen groups and party organizations submitted today a letter to Nevada Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford and Assembly Speaker-elect John Oceguera urging the creation of a joint Spending Reduction Committee similar to a former congressional committee formed after World War II which was charged with identifying waste and inefficiencies in government spending and recommending their elimination and repeal.
The Spending Reduction Committee would continue the work of the Nevada SAGE Commission and be consistent with SAGE’s recommendation (#17) for the creation of an outside Evaluation and Sunset Commission which would “make recommendations concerning statutorily created state agencies, boards and commissions regarding duplication of efforts, efficiencies to be achieved and potential elimination of functions.”
“While we absolutely support the SAGE recommendation for the creation of an ongoing outside evaluation commission to further identify waste and inefficiencies in government, we also believe the immediate creation of a joint committee in the Legislature charged with evaluating and enacting such outside recommendations, as well as proposing some of its own, is necessary, especially in this budgetary environment,” said Chuck Muth, president of Citizen Outreach.
“It does us no good to waste time and resources on important and productive efforts such as that of the SAGE Commission if its recommendations are simply going to sit on a shelf and never be acted upon,” Muth continued. “The Nevada Legislature should take at least as much interest in eliminating wasteful government spending as it does in appropriating new spending.”
Muth pointed out that in a recent television interview, Pete Ernaut, former chief-of-staff to the late Gov. Kenny Guinn, estimated that “there’s a good $500 or $600 million that we just throw away” on duplicative “pet projects” in the current general fund budget. “That would give the new Spending Reduction Committee a great place to start,” he concluded.
To read the full letter, click here
Citizen Outreach is a non-profit, non-partisan grassroots lobbying organization
which promotes limited-government public policies and legislation
