WASHINGTON, July 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today urged members of both the Senate Budget and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees to move forward immediately with a committee vote on former Rep. Jim Nussle 's nomination as the new Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). A timely committee vote will pave the way for a final vote on the Senate floor before Congress goes into recess on August 3 .
Former Iowa Representative Jim Nussle testified before both Senate Committees this week and was reported to have been candid, knowledgeable, and diplomatic.
"The Senate should resist the urge to politicize this nomination or hold it hostage in exchange for increases in spending for wasteful programs and pork," said CCAGW President Tom Schatz . "Jim Nussle is an excellent successor to Director Rob Portman and Congress should move with the greatest dispatch to get this nominee confirmed so it can move on with the country's business.
"The Senate leadership has only passed one fiscal 2008 spending bill so far. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D- N.D.) and others are hinting that they may use Rep. Nussle 's confirmation as a pawn in their game of chicken with the Bush administration over spending levels," he continued. "If the Senate leadership is determined to shove tens of billions more in wasteful spending down taxpayers' throats, they should simply have the decency to pass those bloated appropriations bills, fight it out on the Senate floor, and try to override the president's vetoes. Congress' approval ratings are at record lows. If they delay or otherwise impede Jim Nussle's nomination, it will only be further evidence that the taxpayers' perception of congressional ineptitude and knee-jerk partisanship is well-placed."
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
SOURCE Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
