CAGW’s 2007 Pig Book Exposes Billions in Pork
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has released the 2007 Congressional Pig Book, its annual compilation of all the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget.
The newest edition identifies 2,658 pork projects at a cost of $13.2 billion in the Defense and Homeland Security Appropriations Acts for FY2007. Only two of the 11 appropriations bills were enacted by Congress and the remaining nine were subject to a moratorium on earmarks. CAGW has identified $254 billion in pork since 1991.
CAGW’s Web site www.cagw.org features a complete database of projects, while the Pig Book summary profiles the most egregious examples. Highlights in the defense bill include:
–$1,190,000,000 for full funding of 20 F-22A fighter jets, which the Government Accountability Office criticized as unnecessary and out of date;
–$5,500,000 for the Gallo Center to study the effects of alcohol and drug abuse on the brain;
–$1,650,000 to improve the shelf life of vegetables;
–$1,350,000 for the Obesity in the Military Research Program; and
–$1,000,000 for a telescope searching for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.