Pig Book Puts Pork Spending at $17.2 Billion
PIG-CONNECTICUT
Norwalk Hour
Erin Kutz
Boston University Washington News Service
April 2, 2008
WASHINGTON – Wasteful government spending grew 30 percent in the budget for fiscal year 2008, said government watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste when it released its Pig Book Wednesday.
The 2008 Pig Book listed $17.2 billion in what it dubbed pork-barrel spending on 11,610 projects—the second-highest number of such projects since the organization first compiled the Pig Book in 1991.
The group defines pork as spending that met at least one of these conditions: it was requested by only one chamber of Congress, it was not specifically authorized, it was not competitively awarded, it was not requested by the president or greatly exceeded the president’s request, was not the subject of congressional hearings and served only a local or special interest.
This definition encompasses spending earmarks, the practice of designating money for local or special-interest projects.
In a press conference featuring two live pigs and a panel of legislators, Thomas Schatz, the organization’s president, lamented this year’s ballooned pig book. The 2007 fiscal year budget included fewer than 3,000 earmarked projects, totaling $13.2 billion.
This year, Connecticut ranked 27th overall, jumping eight spots from 35 in 2006. More than $134 billion in pork barrel spending was designated for the state, amounting to $38.37 per capita. The national average was $33.77.
Alaska and Hawaii ranked first and second, rankings they’ve maintained since 2000, when Citizens Against Government Waste started calculating pork per capita.
“It all seems pretty funny and amusing until you realize that this money don’t come from nowhere,” said Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., suggesting that taxpayers must pick up the bill.
In January of last year, Congress approved a resolution for fiscal year 2007 that called for sharply limiting earmarked spending. Some members of Congress also have pledged not to earmark spending.
Because members of Congress were recently required to attach their name to their earmarks, this year’s report is the first that totals each legislator’s earmarks, though 464 undisclosed projects still made it through. The five Senate members who garnered the most dollars in pork barrel spending are all members of the Appropriations Committee, as were the top three in the House, Schatz said, who added that pork barrel spending is not confined to one party.
The Pig Book cites Rep. Chris Shays, R-4, with 32 pork barrel projects totaling $67.3 million. Some of them include $5,608,800 for Norwalk Harbor dredging and more than $400,00 for facilities and equipment for St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport.
“I believe securing federal funding for local projects is an important role for a member of Congress, but it is important this funding be transparent and meet basic requirements,” Shays said in statement.
Shays said his criteria are that transportation projects have the support of the local chief executive and that projects meet the “community meeting test.”
“If I can’t justify the funding to constituents, I know it’s not a project I should support,” he said.
“Unfortunately, projects like Alaska’s ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ taint views of all congressionally directed funding, which is why we need stronger earmark transparency,” Shays said of the bridge connecting sparsely populated Alaskan communities that cost hundreds of millions of dollars through earmarks a few years ago.
Shays has also made his fiscal year 2009 requests accessible on his Web site.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., brought in $149.4 million for 101 projects and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., pulled in $129.2 million for 75 projects.
“I support earmarks that promote the public good and provide much-needed services to Connecticut citizens,” Lieberman said in a statement. “The improved disclosure process has increased transparency and helped guarantee that the projects included in funding bills are responsible and beneficial. Any efforts to reform earmarks should include high levels of scrutiny and oversight.”
Some of the examples Citizens Against Government Waste highlighted as egregious were $1,950,000 put through by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., for a public service center named after him, $3 million that House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., earmarked in the defense bill for a golf program and $211,509 Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., inserted in a spending bill for research on olive fruit flies.
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