The 2010 Congressional Pig Book: 20 Years at the Trough (Update: PJTV link)
When Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released the first Congressional Pig Book in 1991, the group was a lonely voice in the pork-barrel wilderness. There was only modest objection to the 546 projects worth $3.2 billion, and “earmark” was virtually unknown. The one constant since then has been the undisputed reign of the king of pork, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), who has brought home more than $3 billion in projects.
After Republicans took over Congress in 1994, pork-barrel projects started to be used as a currency of reelection. Over the following decade, they became a currency of corruption, and the explosion in earmarks to their peak at $29 billion in 2006 helped erase the Republican majority. The 9,129 projects in the 2010 Congressional Pig Book represent a 10.2 percent decline from the 10,160 projects identified in fiscal year 2009, and the $16.5 billion in cost is a 15.5 percent decrease from the $19.6 billion in pork in fiscal year 2009.
The reforms that were adopted when Democrats took over Congress in 2006 can be attributed to many years of work exposing earmarks, especially the outpouring of public outrage over projects such as $50,000,000 for an indoor rainforest in Iowa and $500,000 for a teapot museum in North Carolina.
The changes include greater transparency, with the names of members of Congress first appearing next to their requested projects in 2008, letters of request that identify where and why the money will be spent, and the elimination of earmarks named after sitting members of Congress in the House.
For fiscal year 2011, House Democrats are not requesting earmarks that go to for-profit entities; House Republicans are not requesting any earmarks (although there are both exceptions and definitional questions). Not surprisingly, the Senate has rejected any limits on earmarks. None of these reforms are sufficient to eliminate all earmarks, so CAGW expects there will still be a 2011 Congressional Pig Book.
Pork spending is a mere pittance compared to the actual corrupt spending done by (this) Congress. It is a pimple compared to a melanoma. It is a distraction used by corrupt pols like McLame who claim to be protecting the interests of the people while still (colluding with Dems and) spending trillions that will destroy our nation.
Fiscal responsibility in the form of reducing the national debt and balancing the budget are the key to keeping the government and economy in check. These earmarks, that seem to be so popular in Washington these days, is not a trait of fiscal responsibility. It is time to clean house in Washington. We need representatives in Washington that understand their responsibilities and what the founding fathers meant when they wrote the constitution. That is exactly why I support Doug Keller, who is running for congress in Oregon’s 1st Congressional District. He is smart and he is a leader. I would encourage you to learn more about him. http://keller4congress.com/
Of course if America cut way back on its biggest social project, Hell the world’s biggest social project!, and reduced military spending to strictly protecting its own shores rather than its self proclaimed business interests globally, she might stand a snowball’s chance.
But the writing is on the wall, and we are watching the collapse of the greatest empire even known to mankind at the hands of its own greed.
I’m sick of people who trivialize the size of pork spending compared to the overall budget. I put a “pittance” into a jar everyday, and it pays for an extra mortgage payment each year.
Those who receive pork are as greedy and corrupt as those delivering it.
Maryland has a “Open Space Program,” that funds things like little league ball parks and walking trails. Everyone is thrilled when they are awarded these funds…they actually think it’s free.
This kind of thing is badly needed. Unfortunately, CAGW lost a lot of credibility with me the year they included an upgrade to LANL’s classified computer network in their list of “pork”. Congress and the press had slammed LANL the previous year, heavily, for a lack of proper cybersecurity; one would think that spending to address this problem would be considered a bit more legitimate than, say, Alaska’s Bridge to Nowhere or an armored car for the Santa Fe, New Mexico SWAT team.
Vader, it the the job of government to provide security, and upgrades to thwart cyberattacks should be part of the budget, not a pork project. I don’t know the details, but it is possible that the specific upgrade in question was not wanted by the agencies in question, or that the company that makes the software was a big compaign donor. Pork is usually payback.
My recollection is that the request for the red network upgrade wasn’t in the original budget that year, and had to be inserted by Senator Domenici. That made it “pork”, by CAGW’s criteria.
As you say, cybersecurity is a perfectly legitimate concern for the Feds, particularly at a nuclear weapons laboratory like LANL, and I think this upgrade was perfectly justifiable budget item that served the national interest. But sometimes these things fall through the cracks and it takes a concerned Congresscritter to fix the omission. That it also benefits his district doesn’t prove it’s wrong.
CAGW understands that a lot of the spending that takes place is politics; what should not be forgotten is that a lot of the spending that does not take place is also politics, and I believe the omission of the upgrade in the original budget was political “payback.” Nuclear weapons laboratories, like everything else in government, collect political enemies over time (maybe more than their share, given that they are few, geographically localized, expensive, and do scary things), and the resulting politics is often not rational nor beneficial to the public interest.
I wish CAGW better recognized that, but they’re kind of a one-trick pony. Perhaps that’s unavoidable. Having rigid criteria for “pork” does help deflect charges of partisanship.
I am ashamed to say that my two Senators, Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker are sure to be near or at the top of the Pig List. Both Republicans and both run as conservatives.
“henry”, assuming you’re not the “useful idiot” (defined by Lenin) you claim to be, you must know that US DOD budgets have been actually decreasing (as a percent of GDP) ever since WW2. In fact, even under Ronald Reagan, the percentage merely held steady…
If you are actually an American, or merely living in America and thus enjoying the fruits of the “evil empire” you claim to detest, why not be intellectually honest and move to a “Worker’s Paradise” like North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, or even Cuba?
Perhaps you’d find more there to your liking…
Henry, cutting the military is always suggested as a way to balance the budget. In today’s world we can’t be isolationist and ignore everything outside. And with the state of threats today, we can’t sit on our borders and stay protected. Can the military reduce waste and unf*#$ it’s contracting? Yes, but we won’t get anywhere if we don’t cut spending to our social programs. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc. are unsustainable. Additionally, the entire bureaucracy is so bloated and redundant, that we can’t even fart without being regulated. This is not conducive to growth. I say reduce taxes to encourage growth, and cut spending by a modest 1% across the board from last year’ budget as a start. Also get rid of automatic adjustments for spending, completely cut funding for AGW research/enforcement (EPA, NOAA, NASA GIS) the arts, NPR and PBS. There are so many more agencies we could gut, and you’d be surprised how much our lives improve.
I have an idea- let’s cut the Army’s budget in half and double or triple the size of the Marine Corps. The Marines are much leaner and deadlier than the Army; they’ll get our national security objectives completed better for less money than the Army.
If that happened, I’d never be able to make it onto Lejeune on time.
The rules on transparency and distribution of “special interest” Pork have to be further modified and changed to equally divide the Pork without regard to Seniority in Office. The old farts in Congress just have too much influence in how these dollars are spent.
Ideally, NO pork should be allocated without a specific bill for that pork so that it could easily be identified. With today’s technology that could easily be accomplished. The glorified lawyers in Congress and the Congessional aides who intentionally obfuscate bills would be held in check this way.
“Pork” is a euphemism for “Theft”. Stealing from the generic electorate to benefit ones constituency is still theft. Thieves go to Hell; not Heaven.
Drastic changes must be made in the legislative process to stop this thievery. Perhaps if each bill had to pass on its own merits; not as an attachment to another bill?
Legislating “pork” should be a criminal offense, requiring a very long period of confinement; and that at hard labor. The executive who signs such theft into law should receive double punishment. And the clowns who vote for such executives and legislators should not be permitted to vote.
Does one suppose that “pork” might become scarce?
Wow, look at that, after the democrats took over they increased transparency and brought down pork spending. Why is it that the fiscal conservatives think it is a good idea to bring the Republicans back into power?
I don’t believe the article contains much justification for the statement that the Democrats have increased transparency. We know that the recent Obamacare fiasco did nothing for transparency nor cut down on pork barrel spending. We know that the so called stimulus bill increased pork barrel spending. IMO, every thing that the Democrats do is designed to hide every thing they can. We have never had less transparency.
How about the fact that the article explicitly supports my statment
“The reforms that were adopted when Democrats took over Congress in 2006 can be attributed to many years of work exposing earmarks, especially the outpouring of public outrage over projects such as $50,000,000 for an indoor rainforest in Iowa and $500,000 for a teapot museum in North Carolina. The changes include greater transparency”
Congress needs a dose of swine flu.
As government grows it will always get less transparent, less accountable and less concerned about how much it spends and for what. There is no need to debate which party is more abusive in these regards (even though the Democrats surely would be perennial winners in the obfuscation and pork barrel spending sweepstakes).
The only answer is limited government and eternal vigilance on the part of citizen taxpayers to make sure that those limited things are delivered competently and efficiently. We are so far from that and we are so hosed at this point.