Have a moment this evening, Friend? It's a short read.
Please find enclosed in this email an op-ed from White Coat Waste Project. To
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Taxpayer –
If you can log in to your personal bank account and see how you spend your own
money, why is it that taxpayers can’t see how government white coats spend $20
billion of our tax dollars each year?
Senator Joni Ernst and I wrote this op-ed for Newsweek
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coats to get away with secretive and wasteful spending on animal labs.
You can read our entire op-ed below for a detailed explanation of the problem
and why our new bill – the Watchdog Act
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Stop the MONEY. Stop the MADNESS!
Justin Goodman
Senior Vice President
White Coat Waste Project
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WANT TO CUT GOVERNMENT WASTE? FIX GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY | OPINION
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SEN. JONI ERNST AND JUSTIN GOODMAN
Transparency is an integral part of the American republic. We can never be a
government “of the people, by the people, for the people” without an informed
and engaged citizenry, and Americans can never be fully informed if our
government shields its actions and information from public view.
In their great wisdom, the Framers recognized the importance of transparency by
enshrining it in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution: “a regular Statement
and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be
published from time to time.” Congress has periodically passed legislation to
make government records available to the public. These include the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency
Act, which created the indispensable USASpending.gov—a searchable archive of all
government grants and contracts.
These laws have greatly increased citizens’ ability to see their government in
action. And they have revealed some hard truths.
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Consider the pandemic. Using government spending databases, White Coat Waste Project (WCW) was the
first organization to reveal in early 2020 that U.S. taxpayer dollars had been
shipped to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for dangerous coronavirus experiments
on animals, which many experts believe caused the pandemic.
WCW also found emails showing that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was
concerned about these dangerous experiments as early as 2016. But, bizarrely,
the agency allowed them to proceed anyway.
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Other FOIA requests also exposed that, early in the pandemic, close confidants
of NIH leadership expressed concern that a lab leak may have caused the COVID-19
outbreak.
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These findings and others gleaned from FOIA requests—and open records lawsuits
when agencies don’t cooperate—helped shape the conversation about the pandemic’s
origins, and reignited discussion about dangerous virology research, which
Congress continues debating to this day. This is transparency done right; public
information was used by the public to help elected leaders decide matters of
great public import.
Despite their importance, however, America’s transparency laws have been plagued
with issues of compliance, timeliness, and accuracy. Agencies are required to
process FOIA requests within 20 days, yet a Government Accountability Office
report found that, between 2012 and 2018, the backlog of overdue FOIA requests
grew more than 80 percent, as FOIA requests overall increased more than 30
percent.
These numbers are likely to have grown during the pandemic. In the course of
responding to FOIA requests about its relationship with the Wuhan lab, the NIH
has also often failed to release documents and produced materials that were
excessively redacted without any legitimate justification.
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In addition, using USASpending.gov and other resources, WCW discovered that NIH
wasted $770,000 for bizarre experiments that involved removing parts of cats’
brains, implanting electrodes in their spines and making the “zombified” cats
run on treadmills.
These experiments are wasteful enough on their own, but what makes this
experiment particularly shocking is that it was done at a Kremlin-run laboratory
in Russia. In fact, four Russian government labs are currently authorized by NIH
to receive U.S. taxpayer dollars. It is unconscionable for Americans to
subsidize Vladimir Putin’s government in any way.
It’s time to start taking transparency seriously.
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This Sunshine Week, we are working together to pass critical new legislation to
protect taxpayers and renew our government’s commitment to transparency.
The Watchdog Act
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openness in government, ensuring federal departments and agencies comply with
existing sunshine laws such as FOIA, the Federal Funding Accountability and
Transparency Act and other laws requiring public disclosure of federal spending,
meetings, and documents.
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The Watchdog Act will restore the balance of power in Washington; it will help
hold federal agencies accountable to taxpayers and ensure money is being well
spent.
Americans do not want their tax dollars frittered away on wasteful projects. Nor
should taxpayers have to foot the bill for dangerous research like the
gain-of-function experiments in Wuhan that may have sparked the pandemic, or
have their tax dollars sent to Kremlin-controlled labs.
The more people know about government spending, the easier it will be for them
to speak up and speak out. Trimming fat and increasing public knowledge? Sounds
like a win-win.
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Transparency matters. Let’s open the windows to the government as wide as
possible, and let the sunshine in.
Republican Joni Ernst represents Iowa in the United States Senate. Justin
Goodman is the Senior Vice President of White Coat Waste Project.
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Taxpayer, government white coats continue to take $20
billion of your money each year, then violate federal law by hiding evidence of
the cruel and wasteful animal experiments they’re funding with it — with no
consequences. The Watchdog Act would change that!
Please help us find, expose, and defund EVEN MORE wasteful and cruel animal
experiments by urging your Congressmembers to support the Watchdog Act today.
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CONTACT CONGRESS
[[link removed]] To stop taxpayer-funded animal tests, we must first stop the $20 billion+ in
wasteful government spending.
We find, expose, and de-fund wasteful government spending on animal experiments.
To change public policy, we unite liberty lovers and animal lovers with
hard-hitting investigations and public policy campaigns.
DONATE
[[link removed]]Stop the MONEY.
Stop the MADNESS!
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