MARLOW CROSSING, Conn. — The Marlow Crossing Efficiency Association said Friday that it has saved $215 billion by canceling meetings it has already held, a figure the group says matches the savings claimed by the federal government’s efficiency office, and then canceled the cancellations in order to save the money a second time.
“We are the same number,” said Hollis Pruett, 61, the association’s treasurer, who presented the total on a poster board at the club’s usual table in a diner on Route 9. “They said $215 billion. We said $215 billion. When two groups reach the same number independently, that is called verification.”
The federal Department of Government Efficiency has listed roughly $215 billion in claimed savings on its public tally. In a review released on Aug. 6, the Government Accountability Office examined the $110 billion portion drawn from terminated contracts, grants, and leases and found that some of the estimates were incorrect or unsupported and that the agency had not provided enough information to verify the method behind 96 percent of its claimed grant savings. Of the roughly $61 billion in claimed contract savings, the GAO said nearly $35 billion came from contracts that were not terminated or whose savings could not be corroborated.
Separately, the Congressional Budget Office estimated this week that the federal deficit for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 was about $2.0 trillion, about $218 billion more than the year before.
Pruett said the association had read both reports at its last meeting, which it canceled afterward. “Two hundred eighteen billion higher, two hundred fifteen billion saved. That is a difference of three billion, and we are very comfortable with three billion,” he said. “A receipt is waste. If you need a receipt, you were not saving.”
The association’s method, according to a four-page handout reviewed by the Reporter, is to cancel any meeting that has already occurred and enter the cost of the meeting as savings. The handout lists 61 such cancellations since January, including the club’s 2019 holiday potluck, a 1994 zoning hearing several members attended as spectators, and the Constitutional Convention, which Pruett called “a very expensive series of meetings.” After the cancellations were recorded, the club canceled them as well, “to see what that saves,” and entered the cost of each cancellation meeting as a second saving, which he said brought the total to “well past the number.”
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center’s own audit of the handout was unable to locate the savings. “The Center examined all 61 cancellations and found 61 meetings that were held, which the club concedes, and zero dollars saved, which the club does not,” Teller said. “The association’s accounting treats the absence of a receipt as proof of a saving. We have seen this approach before. Further study is needed.”
Dr. Chad Brickhouse, a senior fellow at the Institute for Common Sense, said the logic was sound. “If you don’t spend it, you saved it. If you already spent it, you can still not spend it, retroactively,” Brickhouse said by phone from a hardware store. “It’s just common sense. The money is somewhere, and it isn’t anywhere you can look.”
The association said it would announce next quarter’s figure after canceling next quarter.
Glenn Whitacre filed this report by phone from a booth in the diner, where he said the check had been canceled and he was awaiting a refund.