Pig Book Reports Drop in Pork in Federal Spending
PIG NH
New Hampshire Union Leader
Alyssa Marcus
Boston University Washington News Service
3/7/07
WASHINGTON, March 7 – For the release of the Citizens Against Government Waste Pig Book 2007, anyone walking into the first-floor ballroom of Washington’s Phoenix Park Hotel would have come upon an interesting scene.
There were three porcine guests in attendance for this annual press conference. One of them was Porky, the organization’s mascot, played by a man in a furry, fluorescent pink pig outfit. The other two were Winnie and Dudley, Vietnamese potbellied pigs on leashes who performed tricks to the delight of their many watchers.
Each year Citizens Against Government Waste, a private, non-partisan, non-profit organization whose announced goal is to erase waste and mismanagement in government, issues the Pig Book detailing pork-barrel projects in the federal budget.
This year’s Pig Book identifies 2,658 pork projects that are costing a total of $13.2 billion, including at least one in New Hampshire. Scientific Solutions, a research and development facility based in Nashua, received $1.8 million to fund an integrated marine mammal monitoring and protection system.
The Pig Book defines pork as spending that meets at least one of seven criteria: requested by only one chamber of Congress not specifically authorized not competitively awarded not requested by the President greatly exceeds the President’s budget request not the subject of congressional hearings or serves only a local or special interest.
David Williams, vice president of Citizens Against Government Waste, said New Hampshire projects have consistently been on the list, although it doesn’t necessarily mean that the state has a lot of pork. It means that they have a lot in comparison to states of similar size.
“New Hampshire has been in the top 15 or top 20,” Williams said. “I think it’s mainly just because of their small population.”
The 2007 Pig Book has the smallest amount of pork spending since 1999. Unlike previous annual reports, this year’s was confined to the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. Spending bills for those two departments were the only ones Congress passed last year. Money for all other agencies and programs was included in one “omnibus” spending bill enacted this year after congressional leaders imposed a moratorium on earmarks, or money Citizens Against Government Waste considers to have been inserted inappropriately in a spending bill.
Tom Schatz, the president of the organization, said, “This is the Chinese year of the pig, and fortunately for taxpayers, it’s a much smaller pig.”
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