Porker of the Month

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Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.) Porker of the Month for working to thwart a budget reconciliation package that could save taxpayers $53.9 billion over five years. As ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Rep. Spratt preaches fiscal restraint yet refuses to offer savings proposals and even held a mock hearing to misconstrue miniscule spending reductions as deep cuts. The House is scheduled to vote today on the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (H.R. 4241).

(All together now, let's sing,
"John Spratt could eat no fat,
his party could eat no lean,
And so between the two of them,
They licked the platter clean.")

The fiscal 2005 budget resolution (H. Con. Res. 95) instructed House authorizing committees to find $35 billion in savings over five years to slow the growth in mandatory spending, the first spending reconciliation to be considered by the House since 1997. After hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast, House leaders raised the savings target to $50 billion to help offset the cost of recovery. But Rep. Spratt urged congressional leaders to cancel the reconciliation process altogether in the wake of Katrina.

Rep. Spratt and his fellow Democrats have balked at many provisions in H.R. 4241, including trimming the growth in Medicaid and student loan payments. Rep. Spratt says the burden will be born by ?Single mothers seeking child support from deadbeat dads?Students struggling to pay loans for their college education, foster children, the sick and poor whose only access to health coverage is Medicaid, or whose nutrition depends on food stamps?. Rep. Spratt?s mock hearing featured ?witnesses? from social and agricultural special interest groups.

In actuality, the proposed savings are not ?cuts;? they merely slow the growth of mandatory spending from an average of 6.4 percent to 6.3 percent per year (one tenth of 1 percent), still twice as high as inflation. (An interesting question should be asked here: absent any empirical data, why is the growth of any federal program higher than the rate of inflation?) Furthermore, the programs targeted are wasteful, inefficient, and plagued by fraud and abuse. (And guess who else has been singing this song?) Medicaid spending has soared 85 percent since 1997 to $295 billion in 2004, with an accompanying explosion in fraud. A year-long investigation by The New York Times found that the program misspends billions of dollars annually in that state alone. The reconciliation bill will slow the program?s average annual rate of growth from 7.7 to 7.5 percent over 10 years and will prevent payments to illegal immigrants. Other reforms will improve programs? performance. For example, the bill ends the guaranteed minimum 9.5 percent rate of return that lenders can receive on some student loans. Earlier this year, a lender in New Mexico took advantage of this loophole to reap $36 million in excess subsidies, according to the Department of Education?s inspector general. (His hide should be nailed to the wall.) Furthermore, H.R. 4241 actually increases funding student loans by $4.2 billion above fiscal 2005 levels.

Mandatory spending currently accounts for 54 percent of the federal budget. Left unchecked, it will absorb 62 percent in just 10 years and will eventually crowd out all other federal priorities. Rep. Spratt prefers to bury his head in the sand and punt the problem to future generations to deal with. He claims to favor across-the-board spending cuts as an alternative to the GOP plan. But Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) has proposed seven across-the-board cuts - of one percent each - to appropriations bills this year, and Rep. Spratt voted against every one.

For ignoring the looming crisis in mandatory spending, for using scare tactics to portray modest spending restraints as deep cuts, and for refusing to cut wasteful spending to offset hurricane recovery and reduce the deficit, CAGW names Rep. John Spratt Porker of the Month for November 2005.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation?s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

(As a nonpartisan contribution to this site, I'll be posting the monthly nominees from the CAGW, irrespective of political party.)

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Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski (R) Porker of the Month for backing construction of the infamous ?Bridges to Nowhere? and proposing a taxpayer-funded public relations campaign to repair the damage that the bridges helped inflict on Alaska?s national reputation. Congress earmarked $452 million in last year?s pork-stuffed transportation bill for the two bridges - $229 million for the Gravina Island Bridge, connecting Gravina Island (pop. 50) to the town of Ketchikan, and $223 million for the Knik Arm Bridge, linking Anchorage to a nearly deserted port. After the bridges became an embarrassing symbol of congressional excess, Congress removed the earmarks, allowing state authorities to spend the transportation dollars as they see fit. Gov. Murkowski, whose wife owns acreage on Gravina Island, has a vested interest in the island?s development, which would drive up property values. For favoring wasteful pork-barrel projects that may also benefit his own family, proposing the use of tax dollars in a hopeless attempt to prove that Alaska politicians are not porkers, and especially on behalf of its 2,733 members and supporters in Alaska, CAGW names Gov. Frank Murkowski Porker of the Month for January 2006.

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CAGW Names New York?s Senators Porkers of the Year

(Washington, D.C.) - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today announced the final results of its online poll for the 2005 Porker of the Year. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer (both D-N.Y.) received 45.5 percent of the vote, with Reps. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Don Young (R-Alaska) coming in a close second with 40.5 percent. The six finalists were chosen by CAGW staff from among the 12 Porker of the Month winners for 2005.

Sens. Clinton and Schumer were selected as February Co-Porkers of the Month for pledging to fight President Bush?s reforms of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. The President?s budget request for fiscal 2006 proposed merging the $4.7 billion program with 17 other economic development programs with total funding of $3.7 billion. The Bush plan would have required cities to submit their proposals in advance and compete for funds. Sen. Schumer called the plan a ?meat axe approach? to reducing the deficit and Sen. Clinton called the program a ?lifeline? for New York.

The administration?s Program Assessment Rating Tool categorized the CDBG program as ?ineffective,? citing an ?unclear purpose, loose targeting requirements, and lack of results.? Localities have wide latitude in using the grants and Congress does a poor job of tracking where the money is spent. Beneficiaries of CDBGs are often served by other state, local, for profit, and nonprofit programs. CDBGs can also drive local stores and real estate investors out of business. Past grants in New York have included $25,000 for construction of the Music Conservatory of Westchester (one of the wealthiest counties in the nation) and $500,000 for ?streetscape improvements,? also in Westchester. In the fall of 2004, the Buffalo News reported that Buffalo squandered much of the block grant money it had received over the past 30 years.

Sen. Schumer even made the absurd contention that federal handouts are the engine of New York?s economy. The real issues in New York are the negative economic impact of the highest tax burden of any state and the rent control laws that cause landlords to neglect capital improvements and abandon property. Unfortunately for taxpayers, Congress failed to enact the President?s CDBG reforms for fiscal 2006.

The runners-up, Reps. DeLay and Young, were named October Co-Porkers of the Month for resisting efforts to cut pork and wasteful spending after Hurricane Katrina. When asked about the possibility of offsets for emergency spending, Rep. DeLay was quoted in the Washington Times as saying that the Republicans had ?pared [the government] down pretty good.? Since fiscal 1995, the total federal budget has swelled by 67 percent and the number of pork-barrel projects has increased by 873 percent, as measured by CAGW?s annual Congressional Pig Book. When the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner asked Rep. Young about redirecting the combined $450 million in federal transportation funds from the infamous ?Bridges to Nowhere? in Alaska to hurricane victims, he told the reporter, ?They can kiss my ear.?

More information on the finalists can be found in the Porker of the Month Hall of Shame at www.cagw.org. The other finalists, in order of votes received, were: Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), 4.2 percent; Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), 3.2 percent; Rep. Charles Melancon (D-La.), 2.9 percent; and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), 1.9 percent.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month and Porker of the Year are dubious honors given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.