Tom Schatz discusses the missed opportunities for reform in the Farm Bill with CNBC’s Becky Quick on Squawk Box.
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Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on our April Porkers of the Month. Reps. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kans.) respond:
Dicks, Tiahrt ‘Porkers of the Month’ over tanker
George Behan, a spokesman for Dicks, discounted the criticism, saying Dicks believes that the Air Force decision in favor of the Airbus tanker was “flawed.”
Citing the Boeing tanker’s smaller size relative [...]
Filed under: Defense, In The News, Media Hits, Pork, Porker | 1 Comment »
Tom Schatz announced the April Porkers of the Month - Reps. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kans.) - on CNBC’s Pork Watch today. Rep. Tiahrt also appeared on the segment to defend his interference with the defense procurement process.
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CBS Evening News’ Sharyl Attkisson reports on an earmark for the wealthy Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.
This project is listed in the 2008 Congressional Pig Book:
$1,648,850 for the Shedd Aquarium by Senate appropriator Richard Durbin (D-Ill), Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), House appropriator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.). The aquarium’s website says the facility [...]
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King of Pork Sen. Robert C. Byrd had some choice words for CAGW in response to the 2008 Pig Book.
W.Va. Again Ranks High on Federal ‘Pork’ List
“This annual report, done by Washington insiders, is pure hogwash,” he stated. “An earmark may be pork to some political chatter box on television, but to many communities in [...]
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The Onion (a satirical newspaper) has a great blurb mocking wasteful and ridiculous earmarks:
Group Blasts Pork-Barrel Spending
The watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste has released its latest edition of the “Pig Book,” a list of government earmark spending the organization considers egregious. Here are some of the expenditures cited by the report:
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), [...]
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Watch Tom Schatz on this morning’s CNBC Pork Watch discussing Rep. John Campbell’s (R-Calif.) bill to allow people who say they are’t being taxed enough to give more than their required tax amount. It’s the Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act.
Filed under: In The News, Media Hits, Taxes, Video | No Comments »
Oink! Book Has Congress’ Biggest Porkers
Report Shows Where Billions Of Tax Dollars Are Going: Earmarks
…”You know, when you’re at war, and you know you got a war on two fronts, the first thing you think of is golf, isn’t it?” said Leslie Paige, vice president of the tax watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. “That’s [...]
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Update: video
Congress Serves Up $17.2 Billion in Pork
From Shrimp to Beer, ‘Pig Book’ Lays Out Congressional Pork-Barrel Spending Projects
This year’s “Pig Book” from the nonprofit Citizens Against Government Waste details some of these congressional earmarks : $7.5 million spent on grape and wine research; $460,000 for research on hops; and $3 million to $72,000 for [...]
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Here’s some more media coverage of the 2008 Pig Book
CNN coverage of the Pig Book Press Conference.
Video Pig Book on CNN (via YouTube)
Article ‘Pig Book’ names congressional porkers
Filed under: In The News, Media Hits, Pig Book, Pork, Video | No Comments »
Virginia Pork for Crabs and Sheep
The 2009 federal budget will include funding for some strange animals if one Virginia lawmaker has his way.
Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat from southwest Virginia, has requested $744,325 to study the horseshoe crab and $250,000 for hair sheep - a unique bread of short-haired sheep that does not require shearing.
Both [...]
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Watch Media Director Leslie K. Paige discuss the failure of the earmark moratorium in the Senate:
Watch Part 1
Then see Part 2
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Carper, Biden agree to disclose earmark requests earlier
Sens. Joe Biden and Tom Carper said Friday they will disclose all of their requests for special funding projects known as earmarks, marking a shift in policy for both senators and a move toward greater transparency in the budget process.
…Republican Rep. Mike Castle announced his intention in November [...]
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Earmarks Become Presidential Battleground
Last summer, Barack Obama released a lengthy list of all the earmarks he had asked for in the fiscal 2008 spending bills. The Democratic presidential candidate had made open government one of his campaign themes, and he wanted to show he was true to his word.
There was just one problem: The Illinois senator [...]
Filed under: Earmarks, In The News, Media Hits, Pork, Reform | 1 Comment »
McCain Touts Earmark Opposition on Hill
Sen. John McCain returned to Capitol Hill to cast a vote against pork-barrel spending, a centerpiece of the presumptive Republican nominee’s economic agenda and part of his broader campaign on government reform.
The amendment, which failed on a procedural vote late last night, was introduced by Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) [...]
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More reaction to the article from the post Earmark Moratorium in Washington Post
Earmark Halt Predicted to Fail
And the new management looks reluctant to make any changes. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) this week said a moratorium was “unrealistic.”
“Congressionally directed money . . . has been going in this country for 230-some-odd years,” he said.
As we mentioned [...]
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CAGW was featured in this article in the Washington Post regarding the DeMint-McCain earmark moratorium
Earmark Halt Predicted to Fail
…The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, is championing a one-year moratorium on funding for home-state projects known as earmarks. Both Democratic presidential candidates — Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton [...]
Filed under: Appropriations, Earmarks, In The News, Media Hits, Pork, Reform | 1 Comment »
Boeing Brouhaha
Lawmakers may be using the Boeing Tanker decision for their own political gain, says Tom Schatz Citizens Against Government Waste president, ; with CNBC’s Becky Quick
Filed under: Defense, In The News, Media Hits, Video, Waste | No Comments »
This Associated Press article on Medicare auditing quotes CAGW:
Audits Sting Hospitals, Physicians
While the contractors are often described as overzealous, that’s a compliment as far as one watchdog group is concerned.
“A little zealotry is what were looking for on the part of the taxpayers,” said Leslie Paige, spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste. “We think it’s [...]
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Roll Call reports on the link between campaign contributions and earmarks.
Earmark Season Arrives
Request Deadline Coincides With Fundraisers
Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), another earmark critic, is among a small number of lawmakers who have signed a Citizens Against Government Waste earmark pledge to back legislation that would “end the linkage between campaign contributions and earmarks.” (A CAGW [...]
Filed under: Appropriations, Earmarks, In The News, Media Hits, Pork, Porker | No Comments »
According to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, the entire Alaska delegation will now be posting their earmark requests online.
Murkowski, Young join Stevens in posting earmarks
Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young said Thursday they would join Sen. Ted Stevens in posting appropriation requests on their official Web sites.
“I am joining Sen. Stevens and Congressman Young in [...]
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Mention of the Murtha defense lobbyist dinner protest last night as well as Murtha’s Porker of the Year award on FOX News’ Brit Hume Political Grapevine. Watch here (about 45 sec. in).
Playing Defense
Three taxpayer advocacy groups plan to protest outside Congressman John Murtha’s annual fundraising event tonight for defense industry lobbyists who have benefited — or [...]
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Tom Schatz discussed 2007 Porker of the Year John Murtha this morning on CNBC’s Pork Watch. See Tom every Tuesday morning at 6:50am eastern - check your local listings.
Contrary to the statement from Rep. Murtha’s office, the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee which he chairs, did not reduce earmarks by 50% from 2007. 2008 Defense total is 2,109 [...]
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Watch last night’s edition of the Political Grapevine on FOX News’ Special Report with Brit Hume
Other People’s Money
The nonpartisan group Citizens Against Government Waste has named Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman John Murtha its “Porker of the Year” for 1987. Murtha received 63 percent of the vote in the group’s online poll.
Murtha was cited for what the [...]
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CAGW is quoted in a Weekly Standard article on “Republicans’ love-hate relationship with earmarks”:
Hey, Big Spenders
Appropriations seats are always sought-after, but this time as many as seven Republicans clamored for the prize. Contenders included vulnerable members like Washington’s Dave Reichert; Tom Cole, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, who wanted to use the [...]
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ABC15 in Phoenix had an explosive story on Friday night detailing how millions of Homeland Security dollars have been wasted while the security of hundreds of federal buildings has not been assessed. What has been assessed? Sen. Diane Feinstein’s $14 million home.
Watch the video here
ABC15 Uncovers Serious Gaps in Homeland Security
Potential targets include the Federal Court [...]
Filed under: Homeland Security, In The News, Media Hits, Video, Waste | 1 Comment »
CAGW is saddened that Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) was not appointed to the Appropriations Committee where he would have been an excellent defender of the people’s money and could have nipped wasteful earmarks in the bud. Now he goes back to challenging earmarks on the House floor where it is more difficult to remove them.
We [...]
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The Lexington Herald-Leader has a good article (below) on House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security ranking member Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) sending Homeland Security earmarks to a non-profit he created.
In May 2006, CAGW put out a press release criticising another Homeland Security earmark that went to a company that had given $17,000 to Rep. Rogers.
Our [...]
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See Tom Schatz discuss the Fannie/Freddie provision in the stimulus package on CNBC’s Pork Watch from this morning.
Related post: Congress Stimulates Fannie’s Sprawl
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On Friday, January 8, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric will be airing a piece by Investigative Reporter Sharyl Attkisson on improper payments in the Medicare program and the recovery auditing program’s successes in recovering millions in overpayments to hospitals in California, New York, and Florida, in which Leslie Paige is interviewed.
Check your local listings [...]
Filed under: Media Hits, Medicare/aid, Waste | 1 Comment »
