 By DAN K. THOMASSON Scripps Howard News Service
June 23, 2005
While looting the national treasury for favorite projects is as old as Congress itself, the business of greasing the electorate is particularly disgusting when the federal deficit is testing the nation's ability to stay afloat. The federal government's budget deficit this year will likely be close to $400 billion, and while that might not be a record in terms of percentage, it is enough to give us a borderline case of trichinosis, if that is possible. For the last 15 years, Citizens Against Government Waste has listed in its "Pig Book" those in Congress who are the major offenders in the annual pork-barrel contest. To qualify for listing, the projects must meet one of the CAGW criteria, including being requested by only one chamber of Congress; not specifically authorized; not competitively awarded; not requested by the president; greatly exceeding the president's budget request; not the subject of congressional hearings, and serving only one district. It is an admirable, although obviously futile, effort to slow down the process of gluttony. Every year, Congress seems to pork out at record levels despite the group's good work to focus attention on the growing corpulence. In fiscal 2005, for instance, the waste watchers found 13,997 projects stuffed into 13 appropriations bills, an increase of 31 percent over last year's total. The cost of these projects was $27.3 billion, 19 percent higher than the previous year's $22.9 billion, startling when one considers that the rate of increase is higher than even that for health care. In fact, the CAGW states, the total cost of the other white meat adds up to $212 billion since 1991. In defense of the lawmakers, if that is a stance one wishes to take, the top three increases between this year and last included homeland security, an expense that until recently wasn't even measured. The other two areas of accelerated "porking" were energy and water, and labor and health and human services. Number one in pork per capita is the state of Alaska (about $985). It received $645.5 million for the favorite home-state projects of its congressional delegation, led by the longtime senator, Republican Ted Stevens, who received the CAGW's Hogzilla Award for his efforts. While Hawaii wasn't far behind at third (the District of Columbia, where the government is headquartered, was actually second in per-capita pork, even without any voting congressional representation), with $573.9 million, its greater population kept the per capita to about half of Alaska's. Unsurprisingly, West Virginia, sporting one of the champion porkers of all time, the long-serving Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, was fourth in the annual review. It received $398.6 million. That earned Byrd the CAGW's "Flipping the Byrd at the Taxpayer Award." Actually, at one time there was speculation that Byrd's goal was to move most of the government, probably including the White House, to his home state. Among the more blatant examples of pork barreling this year were $1.7 million for the International Fertilizer Development Association; $1.4 million for various halls of fame like the Paper Industry Hall and the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall; $2 million to buy back the USS Sequoia presidential yacht; $8.2 million for a nondenominational chapel at Fort Lewis, Wash; $6.3 million for wood utilization research; and the almost certainly crucial award of $25,000 to a Nevada county school district to develop a curriculum to study mariachi music. There could be only one thing more pressing than the need for most of the examples of profligate spending on behalf of the few. That, of course, is the re-election of those members of Congress responsible for each of the expenditures. But then, why were they elected if not to serve up as much pork as possible for their constituents?
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