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Show A book called Tat City' If you've ever spent any time in Washington, D.C., you can understand the tremendous waste of money and the cynicism resulting from that waste in those who live there. A recent book by Donald Lambro, a reporter for United Press International, Interna-tional, entitled "Fat City" is a good example. ex-ample. Lambro has taken a somewhat shallow, but interesting look at the federal bureaucracy and come up with $100 billion in cuts to lessen our tax burden. As reported by Marvin Stone, Editor of U.S. News and World Report, Lambro proposes the total elimination of the Civil Aeronautics Board. Lambro says the CA B. is no longer necessary since the industry was deregulated on July 1, I'M). According to the author the savings would be $100.8 million. "Fat City" also details the cost of chauffeuring government officials to and from work each day in Washington -4.8 million. Another place to pick up a considerable chunk of money is unpaid government loans, overpayment of V.A. educational assistance and small business loans - $.",00 million. As you may or may not know the U.S. Government is in I he filmmaking business. Lambro considers the activi- CAPITOL WATCHDOG By Bill Hendrix ty 'lrivolous" and very unproductive. In his estimation the U.S. film library has very little that couldn't be found somewhere else. If the Fed's were to get out of the film production business it would save taxpayers another $500 million. The Federal Trade Commission's budget, according to the UPI reporter, is $65 million. He says the agency's "Meddling parternalism" is a luxury we can no longer afford, along with the Maritime Administration which spends 491 million taxpayer dollars annually. Lambro lashes out at the Youth Conservation Con-servation Corps for its expenditure of $70 million mostly on white middle class young people who could be employed elsewhere in private industry. in-dustry. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced earlier this year the good news that smallpox has been eradicated from the nation. Yet Congress will spend $1.2 million at the Office of Smallpox Eradication this year to save us from this non-existent disease. Congress has put together a balanced budget that will be $50 billion in the red. Perhaps "Fat City" should be required reading for all Congressmen. |