-By Warner Todd Huston
Citizens Against Government Waste has issued their 2008 Pig Book, a report that details all the government waste snuck into the 2008 budget in Washington D.C.
The Congressional Pig Book is CAGW’s annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. The 2007 Pig Book identified 2,658 projects at a cost of $13.2 billion in the Defense and Homeland Security Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2007. Only two of the 11 appropriations bills were enacted by Congress and the remaining nine were subject to a moratorium on earmarks. A “pork” project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures. To qualify as pork, a project must meet one of seven criteria that were developed in 1991 by CAGW and the Congressional Porkbusters Coalition.
Wastes of money like $3 million of your tax money going to a golfing program in South Carolina, $3 million to help the diamond trade, $1million to manage noxious weeds in Idaho and there’s money for the National Mule and Packers Museum, and a walking tour of a tiny town in Virginia – with a population of 474.
We MUST stop government waste. The Great White Father in Washington is NOT our provider. Projects like the Pig Book keep the pressure on exposing government waste. Go check out this year’s pork project expose.
Continue reading “The 2008 Pig Book”