Remember earmarks? Those special projects that members of Congress called essential to their constituents – but critics called pork?
They were outlawed, but some say they never really went away.
Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog group, is releasing Wednesday its “Pig Book,” which details money set aside during the budgeting process for lawmakers’ pet projects. Among its findings are funding for theaters, museums, opera houses and aquatic plant control.
Following scandals like the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, Congress imposed a moratorium on earmarks in 2011 which has not been lifted. But budget-watchers say that hasn’t stopped the practice. It’s just made finding the projects more difficult.
“There used to be a huge list at the back of the appropriations bill, that’s not there anymore,” said Curtis Kalin, communications director for CAGW.
Its report takes aim at 15 pages worth of programs and their funding in fiscal 2017, the 12 month period that ends Sept. 30.
Kalin said the CAGW uses a more “comprehensive” definition of an earmark than Congress. To be considered pork, a budget item must meet one of seven critera. Those criteria include not being in the President’s budget, serving only a local interest or being requested by only one chamber of Congress.
Among the programs the Pig Book lists is the Appalachian Regional Commission, which it says got $32 million last year. The agency was created by Congress in 1965 to spur economic development in states like West Virginia, Kentucky and the Carolinas. It includes governors of the 13 Appalachian states and a federal co-chair.
“The commission is duplicative of dozens of other programs that exist at the federal, state, and local levels, and unfairly focuses on a region of the country that is no more deserving than other impoverished areas,” the Pig Book charges.
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Duplicative government programs are at the heart of government waste, but Congresspeople, not wanting to anger their constituents, have no incentive to eliminate schemes that send taxpayer dollars to their districts. Only a Convention of States can propose the necessary constitutional reforms to force a true end to pork barrel spending.
