TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE
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Mission Statement
Taxpayers for Common Sense is a nonpartisan budget watchdog serving as an independent voice for American taxpayers. Our mission is to achieve a government that spends taxpayer dollars responsibly and operates within its means.
About This Cause
MISSION. Founded in 1995, Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) is an effective, 501(c)(3) nonpartisan budget watchdog dedicated to cutting wasteful spending and subsidies in order to achieve a responsible and efficient government that operates within its means. TCS believes that the federal budget is about more than just dollars; TCS seeks to improve our government spending decisions to better mirror the nation's true economic, security, and American values. VISION. At Taxpayers for Common Sense, we believe that government waste costs more than just money. Misguided government subsidies do more harm than good by endangering public health, aggravating social and economic problems, increasing taxpayer cynicism, and undermining true national security. At a time of record deficits, these subsidies are driving the government further into debt and threatening the nation’s economic stability. We believe in making decisions based on evidence and value. We believe that the decisions on how to spend our tax money should be transparent. And we believe we have a right – and a duty – to demand excellence and accountability from our government. STRATEGY. The core strategy of TCS has remained the same throughout our history: we eschew ideology and work with individuals and organizations from all political perspectives in order to build support for common sense reforms. TCS works to transcend partisanship and attract the widest possible audience to help build something Americans can believe in: a government that inspires trust and makes more sense. TCS empowers national and local media and citizen activists by providing them with the information, insight, and tools necessary to help them report on and advocate for responsible spending priorities. What We Want. - Government should live within its means. - Federal spending decisions must be transparent and merit-based. - Federal programs and agencies must be subject to effective oversight, regular evaluation, and independent financial audits. - Effective transparency means information is easily accessible, timely, and usable by the general public. - Government spending should give the taxpayers the best possible return on their investment. How to Cut Waste. - If it doesn't work, don't fund it; if we don’t need it, don’t buy it. - Cut unnecessary subsidies and corporate welfare. - Avoid unnecessary long-term liability for the taxpayer. - Expose and stop corruption. - Don’t just give away government assets. TCS Operating Principles. - We watchdog government spending because it should reflect national priorities. - We generate timely, accurate analysis with rigorous attention to detail. - We promote common sense solutions to complex policy problems. - We maintain strict independence and do not take funding from anyone with a financial interest in our work. - We are aggressively nonpartisan and not affiliated with any party. - We choose to work on relevant and engaging issues that connect with the public in order to educate them about how the government manages taxpayer dollars. PROGRAMS. Taxpayers for Common Sense seeks to: eliminate wasteful and harmful programs and subsidies; increase government transparency and accountability related to the federal budget and appropriations process; and develop and promote solutions to prevent irresponsible spending. Current TCS programs focus on: Agriculture, Energy and Natural Resources, Disaster Planning and Resilience, Infrastructure and Transportation, National Security, and Tax Reform... along with ongoing oversight of the budget process. WHAT WE DO. TCS’ lean and effective team of specialists read the bills and get into specifics with reporters and policymakers. Our attention to detail, credibility as a nonpartisan source, and commitment to accuracy mean that we can find areas of real agreement and build cross-partisan bridges to elevate common sense solutions. We work with Congress. TCS works extensively with opinion leaders from both political parties. TCS policy positions are often cited during floor debates, and TCS testifies frequently before congressional committees. TCS’ Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Award honors lawmakers and activists who have made a difference to taxpayers across America, and the Golden Fleece Award embodies both outrage and humor as it puts a spotlight on projects that waste taxpayer money. We sound the alarm in the media. TCS has discussed budget issues on national TV, including on NBC’s Today Show and “Fleecing of America;” CBS Evening News; ABC “It's Your Money;” CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 and The Situation Room, MSNBC Morning Joe and All In with Chris Hayes; Fox’s Cavuto and Fox and Friends; and TCS was the feature of a Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. TCS appears regularly in all leading opinion-leader media, from NPR to Fox and all major papers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and regional leaders including The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times. Magazines count on our research, from The Economist and Smart Money to Reader’s Digest, Parade Magazine, and US News & World Report. Hundreds of local outlets, political blogs, and Capitol Hill papers run TCS opinion pieces and use TCS research, and TCS is a key source for PolitiFact and other fact-checking media. We assist grassroots partners. TCS helps grassroots citizen groups fighting boondoggles in their communities. We work on joint educational campaigns, help get media coverage, and serve as a guide in the halls of power in Washington, D.C. We engage the public. Through our research, website, and public outreach, we educate taxpayers on government waste and provide opportunities for people to make their voices heard in Washington. Our online databases, timely commentary, and rapid-response action alerts provide easy-to-understand analyses of the budget process and opportunities to affect it. SELECTED ACCOMPLISHMENTS. • TCS fiscal arguments regularly win support for less wasteful federal spending. Among years of successes across the budget: the Associated Press named Taxpayers a “winner” in the battle to keep $50 billion in risky loan guarantees out of the Stimulus package. After long battles, TCS saw the end of the F-22 Raptor and the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, expensive and increasingly irrelevant programs that also happen to be built in the districts of influential lawmakers. The New York Times echoed our call for cuts, and the Pentagon announced they would seek to end the program. We first identified the $200 million earmark for the Gravina Island Access Project in Alaska, coined it as the “Bridge to Nowhere,” and with consistent pressure ensured its demise. • Our work has increased transparency and accountability in Congress. By creating the first widely-available online databases, TCS made available and searchable the thousands of earmarks in House and Senate spending bills annually for seven years. When the public saw what was going on, they demanded this broken process be stopped, illustrating the power of sustained watchdog attention. In 2007, Congress required that lawmakers’ names be listed in bills next to the earmarks – special interest spending – that they requested, due in no small part to TCS’ media work highlighting the secretive process. Our work continued to lead to increasing levels of transparency until the current hard-won moratorium on earmarks went into effect. Now TCS is working with Congressional offices to develop criteria to make spending decisions based on merit, competition, or formulas. • Our investigations helped uncover the pattern of bribes and rewards between former Rep. Duke Cunningham and partners. We worked with the San Diego Union Tribune on a multi-pronged investigation to expose the patterns that were at the root of the criminal prosecution that resulted in Mr. Cunningham’s guilty plea to federal bribery charges. We worked with the Wall Street Journal to examine former Rep. Charles Taylor, who repeatedly directed federal funds towards road projects that would likely increase the value of his property. Among other lawmakers, we have highlighted the earmarking excesses of Rep. Don Young and the late Rep. John Murtha, working with investigative journalists and garnering extensive press coverage.