All the talk of “change” in Washington over the past year seems to have been little more than empty rhetoric, according to Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) 2009 Congressional Pig Book.  Released at an April 14 news conference at the National Press Club, the 2009 Pig Book identifies 10,160 pork-barrel projects in the fiscal 2009 appropriations bills, down 12.5 percent from the 11,610 projects in fiscal 2008, but costing taxpayers $19.6 billion, an increase of 14 percent over 2008’s tally of $17.2 billion.

The Pig Book’s hard numbers belie claims by Democratic congressional leaders that they have curbed the corrupt practice of earmarking and made it more transparent.  Not only is the cost of pork-barrel spending up, the dollar value of “anonymous” projects has risen both in real terms and as a percentage of total pork.  In defiance of rules that now require members of Congress to add their names to each earmark request, the 2009 spending bills contain 221 projects without the name of a representative or senator attached.  At a cost of $7.8 billion, these projects represent a whopping 40 percent of the total $19.6 billion in pork.  Fiscal year 2008 had more anonymous projects, with 464, but the cost was $3.4 billion, or 20 percent of the $17.2 billion total.  This year’s Defense Appropriations Act alone includes 142 anonymous projects costing $6.4 billion, or 57 percent of the total amount of pork in the bill. 

As it has for every year except one since 2000, Alaska led the nation in pork per capita with $322 for each resident, followed by Hawaii with $235 per capita, North Dakota with $222, the District of Columbia with $186, and West Virginia with $142. 

CAGW’s 2009 “Oinker” Awards went to plenty of deserving recipients, including Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who earned “The Porky Le Pew Award” for securing $1.8 million for swine odor and manure management research in his home state.  “The Narcissist Award” could have gone to many a lawmaker, but Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) won out by netting $2 million for the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program.  Last year’s “Narcissist Award” recipient, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), picked up yet another “Oinker” with “The Mighty Windbag Award” for taking home $47,575 for the Harlem United wind power project.

Media coverage of the 2009 Pig Book has included C-SPAN, which aired the April 14 press conference live; additional television broadcasts on CBS’s “Evening News with Katie Couric,” CNBC’s “CNBC Reports,” CNN’s “Situation Room, and FOX Business Network’s “FOX Business”; as well as articles in the Akron Beacon Journal, Chicago Tribune, FOXNews.com, National Journal, and Politico, to name just a few.

Get your own copy of “the little pink book Washington doesn’t want you to read.”

Porker of the Month:  Reps. Hunter, Jenkins, & Lance   CAGW has named freshmen Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.), and Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) Porkers of the Month for breaking the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CCAGW) earmark reform pledge, which they signed as candidates for Congress.  “Every year members of Congress betray the taxpayers’ trust by bloating the budget with earmarks, but this betrayal is particularly acute because these three representatives broke their signed campaign pledges just a few months after being sworn into the 111th Congress,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  Specifically, the three requested multiple earmarks in the fiscal 2010 appropriations bills that violate the plank of the 10-point pledge that committed them “not to request any earmarked funding or targeted tax benefit that does not serve a federal interest and/or have a federal nexus.”  For their record-breaking race to drink the congressional earmarking Kool-Aid and throwing their earmark reform pledges overboard, Reps. Hunter, Jenkins and Lance are CAGW’s April Porkers of Month.  Read more about the Porker of the Month.

Just prior to the publication of the Pig Book, CAGW released the 2009 Ohio Piglet Book in conjunction with the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions.  The report is the latest in CAGW’s series of Piglet Books, which expose wasteful spending by state governments, and the third issued in Ohio.  The 2009 Ohio Piglet Book shines a light on millions of dollars in egregious examples of waste, fraud, and abuse paid for by state taxpayers, including:  $80 million allocated for “broadband initiatives,” even though 92 percent of Ohioans already have access to broadband; $250,000 provided to Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for improvements to “public restroom fixtures,” among other items; and $1,295 granted by the Ohio Arts Council for a Brooklyn, New York apprenticeship in breakdancing.  Media coverage of the Ohio Piglet Book has included television news broadcasts on the Ohio News Network and WHIO-TV in Dayton and articles in The Lima News, The Plain Dealer, and Zanesville Times Recorder, to name just a few.  Read the Ohio Piglet Book online.CCAGW urged Senate Republican leaders this week to appoint Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) as Sen. Arlen Specter’s (D-Pa.) replacement on the Senate Appropriations Committee, after Sen. Specter announced that he was leaving the GOP for the Democratic Party.  “Sen. Tom Coburn is the perfect choice for the committee if Senate GOP leadership wants to signal a return to fiscal sanity and a new containment strategy for this spendthrift Congress,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.  Sen. Specter has always been a big spender.  His CCAGW Congressional Rating for 2007 was 29 percent, and CAGW named him Porker of the Year in 2003.  Among his many earmarks for fiscal year 2009, Sen. Specter was responsible for grabbing $21,600,000 for 12 projects in the Interior Appropriations Act and $37,479,000 for 186 projects in the Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations bill.  “Sen. Specter’s defection simply switches one letter in his monogram.  His anti-taxpayer voting record has been a source of increasing angst for many years,” concluded Schatz.  Read more about Sen. Specter’s defection and his record in Congress.