Pig Book 2008

http://www.cagw.org/…

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released the 2008 Congressional Pig Book, the latest installment in an 18-year exposé of pork-barrel spending.

“When Congress adopted earmark reforms last year, there was hope that the number and cost of earmarks would be cut in half.  By any measure, that has not occurred,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.

In fiscal year 2008, Congress stuffed 11,610 projects (the second highest total ever) worth $17.2 billion into the 12 appropriations bills.  That is a 337 percent increase over the 2,658 projects in fiscal year 2007, and a 30 percent increase over the $13.2 billion total in fiscal year 2007.  Alaska led the nation with $556 in pork per capita ($380 million total), followed by Hawaii with $221 ($283 million) and North Dakota with $208 ($133 million).  CAGW has identified $271 billion in total pork since 1991.

For the first time, the names of members of Congress were added to the projects.  The top three porkers were members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, beginning with Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) with $892 million; Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) with $469 million; and Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) with $465 million.

The Pig Book Summary profiles the most egregious examples, breaks down pork per capita by state, and presents the annual Oinker Awards.  All 11,610 projects are listed in a searchable database on CAGW’s website www.cagw.org.   Examples of pork in the 2008 Pig Book include:

 $3 million for The First Tee;
$1,950,000 for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service;
$460,752 for hops research;
$211,509 for olive fruit fly research in Paris, France;
$196,000 for the renovation and transformation of the historic Post Office in Las Vegas;
$188,000 for the Lobster Institute in Maine; and
$148,950 for the Montana Sheep Institute.

“Americans do not send their hard-earned tax dollars to Washington so that Sen. Daniel Inouye can bring home $173 million in defense pork and receive the Pacific Fleeced Award or get sapped by $4.8 million going to wood utilization research, on which the government has spent $91 million since 1985,” concluded Schatz.

Only the 2nd highest pork year? Come on Congress… next year go for gold. Not like you have to tax us directly for much of it.

http://www.humanevents.com/…

If you forgot to get a Christmas present for Charlie Rangel, don’t worry. The congressman picked one out for himself, and he’s sending you the bill: $2 million for a shiny new Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College.

The New York Democrat’s Monument to Me was one of about 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill Congress approved before going on vacation. Most represented a more subtle form of self-aggrandizement, aimed at maintaining power and prestige by currying favor with voters.

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, the total cost of the 11,000 or so earmarks in the omnibus bill and an earlier defense bill is about $14 billion, which is not much in the context of a $2.8 trillion federal budget. But the same tendency that explains the persistence of earmarks — the habit of staying popular by pretending your constituents can get something for nothing — also explains the failure to address the federal government’s increasingly dire fiscal predicament.

The root of that predicament is not earmarks, which represent less than 1 percent of federal spending. Nor is it the war in Iraq, which at $100 billion or so a year accounts for less than 4 percent.

So-called entitlement programs are the reason “America faces escalating deficit levels and debt burdens that could swamp our ship of state,” as Comptroller General David Walker put it in a recent speech. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for 40 percent of federal spending and are expected to consume 51 percent in a decade.

I wasn’t going to post this story originally. While I believe his $100 billion Iraq figure is disingenuous given that there is also other military discretionary and non-discretionary spending. Totaling just shy of $700 billion for 2007. Regardless he makes very important points but they are fairly well known. The reason I had to post this is because of one of the comments. Comment #2 from Charles in Ohio:

We need to raise taxes, bust up corporations, mandate living wages for workers, and cap salaries for executives. We need a one child policy to prevent overpopulation, send more money to public schools, and oversee a total dismantling of the military.

What Democrat will do that? Any?

It’s time this country realized that the way to pay for all these illegal wars by an unelected president is to tax at 100% levels any rich person, that is, anyone making over $100,000 per year. Then we end the wars, tax corporations at historically high levels to erase the deficit, nationalize health care and ban all private medical practice forever.

The government is the solution and must provide basic needs to all Americans. That is FAIR! Watching retired generals and former defense contractors show up in welfare lines is FAIR because of all they stole from the poor.

Which Democrat will do that? Any?

Will any Democrat dare do what is FAIR and start taxing by race and gender? Blacks, Latinos, women, and gays should be given tax breaks and rich white men’s taxes should be raised to pay for those breaks and that is FAIR!

Will any Democrat do this?

At first I thought it was your average egalitarian socialist but Charles goes a whole lot further. I wish he would have told us who will do what he proposes.