Turning a Blind Eye: Sununu's History on Bush Administration Spending

For Immediate Release
September 25, 2008

(Manchester, NH) - For the past eight years, John Sununu has helped George Bush run up the national debt to over $9.6 trillion, voting with Bush's budgets that expanded the deficit and voting against any oversight of contracting in Iraq, allowing no-bid contracts and rampant wasteful spending. Now that he's running for reelection, Sununu is changing his tune in an effort to cover over his record of voting 90% of the time with George Bush, and he's paying lip service to oversight on the Wall Street bailout package.

"John Sununu asking for oversight of Bush administration spending is about as credible as Jack Abramoff pushing for lobbying reform -- it's an absolute joke," said Alex Reese, press secretary for the NHDP's Coordinated Campaign. "For eight years, John Sununu has given the Bush administration a blank check and looked the other way while billions of taxpayer dollars were wasted. Now that he's running for reelection, he's pretending he supports accountability and oversight. This is election year lip service, but New Hampshire families won't forget how Sununu has wasted their money and driven our economy into a ditch."

For eight years, John Sununu has actively opposed oversight of Bush administration spending and has turned a blind eye to billions in wasted taxpayer dollars.

Billions in Wasted Taxpayer Money, Sununu Looks the Other Way

• John Sununu Voted Four Times Against a Commission to Investigate How Federal Contracts in Iraq Were Awarded. Despite numerous reports of wasteful spending during the Iraq reconstruction process, Sununu voted four times against establishing a Truman-style commission to investigate how contracts were awarded. [Senate Vote #228, 9/14/05; Senate Vote #259, 10/19/05; Senate Vote #316, 11/10/05; Senate Vote #176, 6/20/06]
  • Federal audit: $180 million paid to Bechtel for projects it never completed. [MSNBC, 7/25/07]
  • Special Inspector General Report: $5.1 billion in Iraq reconstruction charged without documentation. [Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction report, 3/19/07]
  • Government Accountability Office: $10 billion spent in Iraq was wasteful or poorly tracked. [GAO report, 2/15/07]
• Sununu Turned a Blind Eye to Millions Wasted After Hurricane Katrina. A 2008 Homeland Security report showed that millions were wasted on four no-bid  contracts. [Homeland Security Department Inspector General, 9/10/08]
• Sununu Said Nothing to $1 Trillion in Wasted Pentagon Spending. In 2003, the Government Accountability Office reported that $1 trillion in Pentagon spending was unaccounted for, which included 56 missing airplanes, 32 missing tanks and 36 Javelin missile command-launch units. [GAO Report, 5/18/03]
• Sununu Did Nothing As Bush More Than Doubled No-Bid Contracts. A 2007 report by the Center for American Progress showed that spending on no-bid contracts had more than doubled under the Bush administration to over $145 billion in 2005 alone. [CAP Report, 5/11/07]