CAGW OCTOBER 2009 PORKER OF THE MONTH: KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is CAGW’s October Porker of the Month

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) its October Porker of the Month. The four-term senator from Texas is loading up her goodie bag just before Halloween as she prepares to leave the Senate to run for governor. While claiming to be a fiscal conservative, Sen. Hutchison requested 149 projects worth $1.6 billion for authorization and appropriations bills for fiscal year 2010.

In a March 6, 2009 Dallas Morning News article, Sen. Hutchison said, “I do think that earmarks are a legitimate role of Congress. I don’t think that we should be earmarking things that do not have a national interest…Can it be overdone? Yes. Should it be transparent? Yes. But that is the role of Congress, to determine how we spend money.” On September 28, 2009, she told the Austin American-Statesman that “I’m proud of being able to garner Texans’ fair share of their tax dollars.”

“Sen. Hutchison is repeating the same old insidious quackery about the earmarking process: that it can be made accountable and that it somehow levels the spending playing field,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “The only fair way to distribute the taxpayers’ money is to eliminate the practice altogether and instead work to ensure that every dime of taxpayer money is spent using the budget laws and rules that they themselves established. Earmarking is a secretive, wasteful process that breeds a culture of corruption in Washington and distrust among taxpayers.”

According to CAGW’s pork database, Sen. Hutchison secured 130 projects worth $189 million in fiscal year (FY) 2009, and 145 projects worth $259 million for FY 2008. So far, the senator has appeared in several of CAGW’s Pork Alerts for FY 2010. In the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, she joined several other senators in getting $50.5 million for the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC). The Senate bill had already appropriated $132 million to the NDPC even before the earmark. In the Military Construction Appropriations Act, Sen. Hutchison took home five projects worth $25,045,000, equal to 8.2 percent of the total dollars in the bill. In the Senate Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, she grabbed earmarks for two light rail transportation (LRT) projects: $75,000,000 for the Houston North Corridor LRT and $75,000,000 for the Houston Southeast Corridor LRT.

For personifying the tiresome hypocrisy of some members of Congress who want to claim the badge of fiscal conservatism while continuing to abscond with billions of dollars in wasteful pork projects, CAGW names Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison its October Porker of the Month.

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.

Citizens Against Government Waste Slams Pay-for-Play Hawaii Cong Neil Abercrombie

Citizens Against Government Waste, one of my favorite D.C. Swampocrat watchdogs has named Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) its August Porker of the Month. Based on what CAGW reports, Abercrombie very richly deserves the award, as it sure does smell like he is another roll-in-the mud payforplaycrat. Here, I'll let y'all decide for yourselves:

Rep. Neil Abercrombie is CAGW’s August Porker of the Month

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) its August Porker of the Month. Rep. Abercrombie is a multiple threat to taxpayers. He ranked first in earmarks in the House in fiscal year (FY) 2009 with 44 projects worth $256.8 million and fifth in the House in FY 2008 with 29 projects worth $153.6 million.

Rep. Abercrombie’s latest outrage is to slip a provision (Sec. 2833) into the House version of the 2010 Defense Authorization Act that would double the construction costs of relocating 11,600 U.S. troops from Japan to Guam. The original cost estimate was $15 billion, $10 billion of which is associated with construction of living quarters for military personnel and their families. However, Sec. 2833 requires that the wages paid to construction workers match the “prevailing” wages in Hawaii, which are 250 percent higher than those on Guam. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this “would increase the need for discretionary appropriations by about $10 billion over the 2010-2014 period.”

OpenSecrets.org lists the Hunt Building Company, which is headquartered in Texas and would be one of the prime builders of the facilities on Guam, as among Abercrombie’s top five campaign contributors in the 2007-2008 election cycle. The Hawaii Free Press reported on August 4 that Hunt has contributed at least $32,500 to Abercrombie’s re-election since 2002.

Finally, Rep. Abercrombie has supported the unwanted and unnecessary alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which was first identified by CAGW as an earmark in the 2004 Congressional Pig Book and has been a target for elimination by the Pentagon and both Presidents Bush and Obama. In FY 2009, the alternate engine program got two earmarks for a total of $465 million. So far this year, the House-passed FY 2010 Defense Authorization Act has $603 million and the FY 2010 Defense Appropriations Act has $560 million for the alternate engine. President Obama has threatened to veto any bill that contains funding for the engine.

For abusing an already-stretched Pentagon budget to reward favored contractors and continue funding a wasteful and unnecessary alternate engine, CAGW names Rep. Neil Abercrombie August Porker of the Month.

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.

CAGW's Porker of da Month: Russ Carnahan

One of my favorite Washingtoon watchdogs, Citizens Against Government Waste, awarded Cong Russ Carnahan (D. MO) its not at all coveted award "Porker of the Month" for July. Russ, you richly deserve the recognition.

Here's the story:

Rep. Russ Carnahan is CAGW’s July Porker of the Month

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) its July Porker of the Month. Rep. Carnahan, who was caught on videotape by a vigilant citizen blogger at a town hall meeting held at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, who posted the remarks on his website and on YouTube, grossly misrepresented the costs associated with the controversial healthcare reforms bills currently under consideration in Congress. His statements were so patently false that when members of the audience reacted with disbelief and loud guffaws, he instantly became the public face of those in Washington, D.C. who are willing to blurt out anything they think will mask the reality of this heinous reform plan to try to slip it by taxpayers.

Rep. Carnahan first stated that “The overall cost of the package has been estimated at about $1 trillion over ten years. About half of that comes from savings and efficiencies in the system,” a statement which drew derisive chuckles from a skeptical audience. He then compounded his verbal misery by asserting that “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) most recently came out and analyzed the current plan and said that it was not only debt neutral, which has been one of the important factors of the President and congressional leaders, but also that over 10 years it would create a $6 billion surplus,” a statement which was both demonstrably false and elicited loud guffaws. In fact, on June 15, a month before these remarks, CBO estimated that the Kennedy-Dodd bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years. On July 16, four days before Rep. Carnahan’s comments, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee that every healthcare reform bill would increase costs, not reduce them.

Rep. Carnahan’s behavior seems to be part of a pattern. Democrats in the House seem to be willing to say anything to misdirect taxpayers. For example, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the legislation’s head cheerleader, said during the week of July 10 that “all of the cost of the healthcare reform bill can come from squeezing more savings out of the system;” soon thereafter she came out in favor of a $544 billion tax increase to finance healthcare reform. The President has said that he would only support a bill that is deficit neutral, and that reforms should mirror “what members of Congress are getting through the federal employee plan.” Yet he seems to be pushing for a bill that would not meet any of those criteria.

For his memorable walk-on cameo appearance in this political Comedy of Errors and his significant contribution to the unbridled bloviation emanating from Washington, most of which has been long on spin and short on facts, Rep. Russ Carnahan is CAGW’s July Porker of the Month.

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.

Three Duplicitous Rebublicans Earn Porker(s) of the Month Award from C.A.G.W.

Reps. Hunter, Jenkins, Lance are CAGW’s April Porkers of the Month

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named freshmen Representatives Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.), and Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) as its April 2009 Porkers of the Month. The three members of Congress broke their signed earmark reform campaign pledges with CAGW’s lobbying arm, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW).

“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 pledged “not to request any earmarked funding or targeted tax benefit that does not serve a federal interest and/or have a federal nexus.” Contrary to this pledge, all three requested multiple earmarks in the FY 2010 appropriations bills that violated that plank of the ten-point pledge. The earmark requests are listed on the members’ websites, as required by recently passed earmark reforms.

To read all of CAGW's commemorative dedication to these Republican scalawags, click here.

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That irrepressible slob Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), was the deserving winner of CAGW's March "Porker of the Month" prize. Congratulations Barney, YOU CERTAINLY EARNED IT!!!