This morning I joined Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) in announcing the release of the 2008 Congressional Pig Book. CAGW has been releasing the Pigbook as an expos of the wasteful pork-barrel spending in Washington for the past 18 years.
For FY 2008, CAGW found that the porkers in Congress stuffed 11,610 separate pork projects into the 12 appropriations bills. This marks the second highest total ever of pork projects, totaling $17.2 billion. That is a 337% 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. Out of the 11,610 projects in the 2008 Pig Book there were 11,146 disclosed projects worth $13.8 billion and 464 undisclosed projects worth $3.4 billion.
The CAGW Pigbook highlights many of the earmarks of which I have called to question on the floor of the house including Chairman Charlie Rangel’s infamous “Monument to Me”.
Some other egregious examples 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.
You can find a PDF copy of the 2008 Pigbook here, or at my website. www.campbell.house.gov
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