Happy Tax Day!
April 15, 2010
It's April 15th–oh joy. Tax deadline for U.S. residents.
In honor of this special day Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released its annual Congressional Pig Book, highlighting the government's fiscal year wasteful spending through appropriations earmarks, or what is more commonly known as "pork barrel spending."
When CAGW released its first Pig Book in 1991, pork barrel spending for the year added up to $3.2 billion for 546 pet projects. Few Americans took any notice of the earmarks, and only one of the 546 projects received modest criticism. Pork barrel spending peaked at $29 billion in 2006, and according to CAGW, led to an outpouring of public outrage and helped Democrats retake the majority in Congress. Among the exposed earmarks that drew in the most outrage were $50 million for an indoor rainforest in Iowa and $500,000 for a Teapot Museum in North Carolina.
The Democratic controlled Congress did enact some reforms designed to curb the practice, with the most significant being one to encourage transparency by having the name of any member of Congress requesting an earmark appearing with the proposed project, which must be specifically identified and described.
CAGW believes that the "transparency" reforms did not go far enough in curbing the practice, and notes that exceptions to the reforms still allows some pork spending to remain anonymous.
For 2010, the Pig Book highlights the "most egregious and blatant examples of pork" among the 9,129 projects that will cost taxpayers $16.5 billion. Of the spending, about $6.5 billion is anonymous.
To be included in the book, projects must meet at least one of seven criteria (however, most satisfy two):
• 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 or the previous year's funding;
• Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
• Serves only a local or special interest.
Just a few examples of this year's Pork:
$465 million for development of an "alternate" engine for the Joint Strike Fighter.
$14.4 million for a chapel complex at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
$7 million for the (Sen.) Robert C. Byrd Institute of Advanced Flexible Manufacturing Systems.
More than $2.5 million for "potato research" in four states.
$1.8 million for a "climate model evaluation program."
$500,00 for the Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
$500,000 for construction of a "culinary reservoir" for Draper City, Utah.
$400,000 for safety improvements at the Brooklyn, NY Botanic Garden.
$349,000 for swine waste management in North Carolina.
$305,875 for a national program to improve "financial literacy" for Girl Scouts.
$300,000 for youth soccer gang prevention initiatives.
$200,000 for a business development center in Illinois.
$100,000 for a new water main in Bardstown, Kentucky.
