Barack Hussein Obama (D-IL)

 Former Community Organizer and Now

Leftist Moonbat-In-Chief

Mr. Obama has gone well above and beyond to earn this week’s Moonbat Award and a special picture, which we may adopt as our new award logo.

As reported by the Associated Press:

Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America’s head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.

The stately East Room, where portraits of George and Martha Washington adorn the walls, was transformed into a concert hall as President Barack Obama presented Stevie Wonder with the nation’s highest award for pop music on Wednesday.

A week before that, the foot-stomping sounds of Sweet Honey in the Rock, a female a cappella group, filled the East Room for a Black History Month program first lady Michelle Obama held for nearly 200 sixth- and seventh-graders from around the city.

Cocktails were sipped during at least three such receptions to date, all held on Wednesdays.

The governors’ dinner, also on a Wednesday, was “a great kickoff of what we hope will be an atmosphere here in the White House that is welcoming and that reminds everybody that this is the people’s house,” Obama told the state chief executives after they had dined on Maryland crab, Wagyu beef, Nantucket scallops and citrus salad. (Emphasis LCs)

As a side note, Wagyu beef sells for $100.00 per pound on average!

Last month Obama lectured private-sector executives:

“You can’t get corporate jets, you can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime,” is living large in the Executive Mansion that we taxpayers have generously provided him.

While economy rapidly shrinks and the stock market plummets with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 50% since its October 2007 peak, and some 30% just since Election Day. Obama’s response? He dismisses the relentless decline as “fits and starts.”

Obama is comparing the stock market to the daily tracking polls used during campaigns, saying that paying too close attention to Wall Street’s “fits and starts” could lead to bad long-term policy.

If a candidate’s performance in tracking polls had been declining steadily for three months, surely it would be time to change strategy or drop out of the race. A 30% decline is a heck of a fit, and Wall Street hasn’t had anything that can be called a start since before Obama’s election.

Obama also has begun dispensing investment advice, as ABC’s Jake Tapper reports:

President Obama told Americans to take a look at investing in the stock market [yesterday] afternoon, a remarkable utterance for an American president, especially as the Dow Jones Industrial Average proceeds on its course Southward.

“What you’re now seeing is . . . profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it,” the president said on a day that trading continued to hover under 7,000.

The president predicted that Americans’ consumer confidence would improve as they see the stimulus bill “taking root.”

Also serving as Investment Advisor-In- Chief, Obama is spending taxpayer money traveling across the US to sign spending bills, has not commented on the Omnibus earmark bill (9,000 porker’s attached, maybe he will veto it), a tanking economy, a record deficit Obama now owns, much more spending to come under the guise of healthcare, nationalizing the auto, banking and mortgage industry and we’re only 6-7 weeks into this destructive administration, yet he lectures everyone from CEOs to average citizens on the merits of doing with less.

Moonbat-in-Chief, Indeed!

Moonbat is a special feature of Liberally Conservative and posted each Saturday. For previous awards visit Moonbat Awards.

Sens. Baucus and Smith

Washington D.C - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and member Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) Porkers of the Month for July, 2007.

They have led the effort to expand, instead of reform, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). SCHIP was created in 1997, and approximately $40 billion has been spent over 10 years to help states provide health insurance coverage to children in low-income families who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid. The original eligible population was families with incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which is about $40,000 for a family of four in 2007. Several states, using Medicaid waivers, have expanded the eligibility level to 300 percent of poverty and added new populations, such as pregnant women and other adults, costing taxpayers additional monies. The Bush administration’s budget included a five-year $4.8 billion increase in SCHIP over current levels, which was estimated to provide coverage for the families within the program’s original level of 200 percent of poverty.

The Senate Finance Committee, led by Chairman Baucus, approved a $35 billion expansion over current funding levels for SCHIP on July 19, putting the new price tag at $60 billion over five years. It will expand eligibility to families at 300 percent above the federal poverty line, or $61,950 for family of four. The legislation phases out some adult coverage, but the bill could be amended on the Senate floor by lawmakers wanting to restore such eligibility and expand coverage to those families at 400 percent of poverty, or $82,600.

Expanding access to federal government healthcare will dramatically increase the power of the government in all healthcare decision-making, including treatments, drug and physician availability, and medical research, paving the way toward universal healthcare. Families who currently have private coverage will have a strong incentive to switch to the SCHIP program, crowding out private insurance and raising the price for everyone else.

To pay for SCHIP’s higher costs, Sen. Smith proposed raising tobacco taxes up to $1.00 per pack, an increase of 61 cents or 156 percent.  The Finance Committee bill includes such an increase, as well as a 20,000 percent rise in cigar taxes, from five cents to $9.95 per cigar. Ironically, cigarette taxes target those SCHIP is supposed to help: the working poor, who are statistically more likely to smoke. Excessively high excise taxes lead many consumers to circumvent the tax by purchasing products out-of-state, online, or through illegal sales. It also reduces the number of smokers. Paradoxically, the Heritage Foundation found that the government needs 9 million more smokers in the next five years to pay for the program, and 22.4 million by 2017. Since that is unlikely, projected excise tax revenues will not materialize and all taxpayers will foot the bill for SCHIP in other ways.

For pushing a program that is the first step in creating government-controlled universal healthcare, instead of enacting reforms such as adopting tax credits or converting SCHIP into a defined contribution to allow low-income families to purchase private health insurance, and increasing taxes in a manner that will not provide sufficient funding, CAGW names Sens. Max Baucus and Gordon Smith its July 2007 Porkers 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.

House Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management

Washington D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW)  named all 18 members of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Porkers of the Month for rejecting every credible proposal for reform of farm subsidy programs, and instead unanimously voting to extend the current archaic, costly, and wasteful system.

In a statement regarding the decision, Subcommittee Ranking Member Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) said, “I believe the work of the Subcommittee today was a step in the right direction. The work we accomplished today reinstituted the safety net of the previous Farm Bill that many producers are comfortable with.” Subcommittee member Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) suggested that his Agriculture Committee colleagues “circle the wagons” against reforms to the current system.

Of course the farm lobby and subcommittee members are content with a continuation of the most expensive farm subsidy payments in history, which has cost taxpayers an average of $20 billion annually for the last five years. Farm income is soaring along with land values, so only in Washington does it make sense to give farmers more handouts at the taxpayers’ expense. Payments in the districts of the 18 subcommittee members totaled $10 billion from 2003-2005, according to the Environmental Working Group.

Although a primary justification for continuing the failed agriculture policies of the past 70 years has always been that they are essential to protecting “small family farmers,” subsidies overwhelmingly go to the largest farmers and agribusinesses. In 2003, the top 10 percent of farm subsidy recipients collected 72 percent of total subsidies and the top 5 percent collected 55 percent of payments. Many of these farmers have net worths exceeding $2 million.

Farm subsidy programs actually hurt small family farms by driving up land prices and encouraging farm consolidation, which drives small farmers out of business. A June 20 Washington Post article documented this phenomenon in the Mississippi Delta, where 95 percent of the more than $1 billion for the region went to large, commercial farms between 2001-2005.

Agriculture subsidies also raise prices for consumers, encourage farming on environmentally-sensitive land, undercut subsistence farmers in developing countries, and invite retaliatory tariffs that hurt producers of non-subsidized commodities. The farm program is simply a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers and consumers to the wealthy, politically-connected producers of a handful of crops.

For failing to move farm programs into the twenty-first century, ignoring free-market reforms, subverting trade agreements, and hurting those they claim to want to protect, CAGW names all 18 members of the Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management its June 2007 Porkers 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.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)

Washington D.C Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Representative John Murtha (D-Pa.) the May Porker of the Month for throwing a temper tantrum and threatening his colleagues over a challenge to a $23 million pet project in the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2008.

Rep. Murtha became infuriated by Rep. Mike Rogers’ (R-Mich.) motion to challenge his earmark for the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) in Johnstown Pa.

According to The Politico, Rep. Murtha, who is not on the Intelligence Committee but does chair the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, confronted Rep. Rogers on the floor of the House and threatened to remove both any of his earmark requests in the defense appropriations bill and any other earmark “now and forever.” Rep. Rogers responded, “This is not the way we do things here and is that supposed to make me afraid of you?” To which Rep. Murtha arrogantly replied, “That’s the way I do it!”

Rep. Murtha also assailed Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) for voting with Rep. Rogers against the NDIC during the Intelligence Committee markup of the bill. Rep. Murtha threatened a Boeing project in Rep. Tiahrt’s district.

Rep. Rogers submitted a resolution charging that Rep. Murtha violated a House rule which forbids members from blocking earmarks based on how a colleague votes. The resolution seeks a formal reprimand from the House. Rep. Rogers said, “This is exactly why Americans are disgusted with out of control federal spending. In order to restore the faith of the American people in Congress, we must do better. We can’t allow members to be threatened and intimidated when they stand up for hard-working taxpayers’ money.”

The Hill reported that Rep. Murtha also skirted the rules by submitting his required earmark certification late.The deadline was March 23, but Rep. Murtha’s letter was only sent on May 1, the day before the bill mark up.

The Murtha outburst exemplifies how earmarks corrupt the legislative process.The NDIC, which is funded through the Drug Enforcement Administration, was cited last year by the House Government Reform Committee as “an expensive and duplicative use of scarce federal drug enforcement resources.” CAGW’s 2007 Prime Cuts and the President’s budget both recommended that the NDIC should be eliminated. But it will probably be funded, not based on merit, but out of fear of Rep. Murtha’s power as an appropriations cardinal.

Rep. Murtha sees Congress as a place where threats and power plays control spending decisions. While pushing the pork-filled 2006 defense appropriations bill through the House last year, Rep. Murtha unleashed his money-hungry wrath upon his colleagues, “If you vote against this bill, you won’t have any input at all the next time.” The congressman barrels through legislation while inserting whatever he can to serve himself and his district. Since 2005, Rep. Murtha has obtained a total of $26,877,250 in pork. Rep. Murtha claims that when submitting an earmark he asks, “Is this worthwhile not only to your district but to the country?” However, it is difficult to ascertain what the country gets out of pork projects such as the $194,000 he secured for the construction of a new community center in Green County Pa. in 2005.

For filling important intelligence and defense bills with pork and threatening anyone that challenges his authority and arrogance, CAGW names Rep. John Murtha its May 2007 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.

Washington D.C – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Representative Don Young (R-Alaska), the “Congressman for all,” as Porker of the Month for defending earmarks and pledging to continue his state’s disproportionate harvest of federal tax dollars.

During an April 9 KTUU-TV (Channel 2, Anchorage interview, Rep. Young said, “People don’t understand that this so-called cry for stopping earmarks, it does not add to the national debt. If you have a budget that’s the budget we just voted on that that we work in, what we do is decide within the budget where those dollars will go.” He also called the President Bush’s criticism of earmarks “dead wrong.”

The annual budget resolution is non-binding. Since Congress can exceed its spending limits without penalty, the budget does not negate the cost of earmarks. Second, Congress has no obligation to spend all of the money in the budget. Instead of going to pork projects, the money could go toward reducing the national debt or, even better, back into taxpayers’ wallets. In 2006, the last year all appropriations bills were passed, total pork spending reached $29 billion. With roughly 300 million people in the, each person could have received almost $100.

Earmarks add to the national debt by acting as the gateway drug to Congress’s spending addiction. Pork-barrel spending allows politicians to target benefits to specific groups at taxpayers’ expense. That vote-buying mentality spills over into other areas of the budget, like entitlements, leading to higher overall spending. Pork also conditions voters to re-elect incumbents based on their ability to “bring home the bacon.” Democracy is corrupted when Congress stops acting in the national interest and becomes source of handouts to lobbyists and special interests.

Although members of Congress profess the wisdom to fund the most worthy projects, the record of congressional earmarking is rife with waste, abuse, and inequity. Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees make off with the lion’s share of pork. TUU reported that Rep. Young “is confident will continue to be successful securing more than its share of federal funding.”

Last week, the Office of Management and Budget’s 2005 earmark database confirmed CAGW’s Congressional Pig Book Alaska as the number one state in pork per capita. Members routinely seek projects that benefit themselves, relatives, or campaign contributors. The 2005 highway bill included an earmark of $229 million for the Knik Arm bridge in Alaska, which was to have been renamed “Don Young’s Way,” before public outrage forced Congress to remove the earmark. The elimination of earmarks would filter more money through competitive grant programs, making it harder for such narcissistic boondoggles to pass muster.

For ignoring the detrimental effect of earmarks and pledging to fortify Alaska’s status as America’s earmark welfare state, CAGW names Rep. Don Young its April 2007 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.

Washington, D.C. -  Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) Porker of the Month for adding $25 million for spinach growers to the fiscal 2007 emergency supplemental bill. The House of Representatives will soon vote on the U.S. Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act of 2007, which costs $21 billion more than the President’s request mostly because of domestic spending unrelated to military operations.

Last year’s E. coli outbreak caused the Food and Drug Administration to issue a warning against eating fresh spinach, leading to losses for growers. Rep. Farr’s district is home to many spinach farms and has been referred to as “The Salad Bowl of the World.” The source of the outbreak was eventually traced to a farm in his district.

According to The Salinas Californian (3/16/07), Rep. Farr said, “The funds I fought for in today’s emergency supplemental are for those growers and first-handlers that acted with due diligence, did the right thing and pulled their product.

Supporting our spinach producers is not just important for our local economy, it’s important for our national health.” Rep. Farr sits on the House Appropriations Committee and on three of its subcommittees, including Agriculture. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) offered an amendment to remove the spinach provision from the bill, but was defeated. He noted, “A $25 million bailout for spinach owners demeans the bill. It holds Congress up to ridicule.”

Rep. Farr countered, “It’s easy to make fun of spinach, but if we had eaten more of it, we would be a stronger society.” While spinach does provide health benefits, compensation to its growers does not contribute to a stronger military, which was supposed to have been the focus of the bill. Spinach growers deserve no special reward for pulling a deadly product from store shelves.

The growers can plan for and survive temporary slumps just like any other business. Non-subsidized businesses must constantly adjust to unforeseeable events to stay profitable in the free market.Spinach growers are using lobbyists and Rep. Farr to obtain special privileges at taxpayers’ expense.

Emergency spending is basically a giant loophole. The costs of supplemental bills are not counted in official annual budget figures, but still get added to the national debt. The projects and programs slipped into supplementals often would not pass muster in the regular budget process.

Presidents are historically reluctant to veto funding meant for the troops, which makes such bills a magnet for pork; President Bush has threatened to veto this particular bill. Other extraneous provisions in the supplemental include $283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract Program, $74 million for peanut storage costs, and $60.4 million for salmon fisheries in the Klamath River region in California and Oregon.

For exploiting the emergency supplemental to direct an unrelated and unnecessary subsidy to a special interest in his home district, CAGW names Rep. Sam Farr its March 2007 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 (CAGW) today named House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) Porker of the Month for his hostility toward agriculture policy reform.

Although the primary justification for agriculture policies has always been that they are necessary to protect “small family farmers,” subsidies overwhelmingly go to the largest farmers and agribusinesses.  According to the Environmental Working Group, between 1995 and 2005, the largest 4 percent of farms garnered half of commodity subsidy payments, while the largest 10 percent pulled in 73 percent.  Many of these farmers have net worths exceeding $2 million.  The subsidies drive up land prices and put smaller farmers out of business.  Present farm policy is a case of Robin Hood in reverse that devastates rural communities. 

President Bush’s 2007 farm bill proposal would eliminate subsidy payments to individuals with an adjusted gross income of $200,000 or more.  In truth, the proposal does not go far enough and leaves intact the overall payment limitation of $360,000, which should also be lowered.  Even modest reform is too much for Rep. Peterson, who thinks agriculture would be “better off not having any payment limits at all” (Western Farm Press, 2/7/07).

Farm subsidies raise prices for consumers, encourage farming on environmentally sensitive land, undercut subsistence farmers in developing countries, and invite retaliatory tariffs that hurt U.S. producers of non-subsidized commodities.  The farm program is simply a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers and consumers to the wealthy, politically-connected producers of a handful of crops.    

Referring to the Doha round of World Trade Organization negotiations, Rep. Peterson said, “There’s pressure on us to change the farm bill because ‘that’s the only way we can get a trade deal.’  Now, I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough of these trade deals.  And unless we can get something good out of it, I don’t give a darn if we get one.” 

Taxpayers, consumers, and the overall economy benefit enormously from the expansion of free trade.  By “we,” Rep. Peterson is probably referring to the sugar beet producers located in his district.  With a well-oiled lobbying machine in Washington, Big Sugar’s strategy has always been to keep its government subsidies and protect itself from international competition.  Import quotas force American consumers to pay two to three times the world market price for sugar, costing about $2 billion annually.  The higher prices have almost destroyed the domestic sugarcane refining industry and forced candy manufacturers to relocate outside the U.S.  In 2005, the sugar lobby nearly sank the Central America Free Trade Agreement even though virtually all other segments of U.S. agriculture supported it.  Rep. Peterson is so dedicated to protecting the sugar and farm subsidy racket that he “told Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, a Republican, to ‘quit making those speeches’ about the need for ‘wholesale reform’” (Associated Press, 1/20/07).

For supporting corporate welfare and for opposing farm policy reform and free trade in order to protect special interests in his home district, CAGW names Rep. Collin Peterson its February 2007 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 (CAGW) named freshman Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) Porkers of the Month for voting to table, or kill, an amendment to strengthen earmark provisions in the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007 (S. 1).

The original definition of “earmark” in S. 1, the Senate’s ethics reform package, covered only about 5 percent of projects, making it an impotent reform.  Sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), S. Amdt. 11 broadened the definition of “earmark” to include projects in report language and those for federal agencies.

Sen. DeMint based his definition of “earmark” on the House rules changes passed on January 4 under Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).  Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) defended the Senate language on the grounds that his staff had worked really hard at it and the House did not know what it was doing.

The Senate rejected Majority Whip Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) motion to table the DeMint amendment by a vote of 46-51.  The other three Senate freshmen, Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.), voted against Sen. Durbin and with Sen. DeMint.  By voting to kill the DeMint amendment, the seven Porkers were voting for the status quo and against transparency and accountability.

Corruption played a pivotal role in the 2006 elections, and the 110th Congress has a clear mandate for ethics reform and fiscal restraint.  The secrecy of earmarks encourages widespread waste and abuse.  Former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) is in jail for taking bribes in exchange for earmarks while other members of Congress are being investigated for allegedly profiting from earmarks or directing earmarks to campaign contributors, including House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee Chairman Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.).

In fiscal 2006, pork-barrel spending ballooned to 9,963 projects costing a record $29 billion, as documented by CAGW’s Congressional Pig Book.  Projects included $1,000,000 for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative and $500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, N.C.

Although both sides eventually came to a compromise and a revised amendment was passed unanimously a few days later, the freshmen senators used their fifth vote in Congress to try to keep earmarks in the dark.  For failing to live up to campaign promises to reform earmarks or eliminate corruption and attempting to preserve a giant loophole in earmark reform legislation, CAGW names the seven freshmen senators who voted to kill the DeMint earmark amendment its Porkers of the Month for January 2007.

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.

In GOP Flake Out (subscription), The Wall Street Journal reports House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), removed Rep. Jeff Flake from the Judiciary for being a “pork buster.”

Flake is being punished for his strident opposition to earmarking and Boehner has decided to punish him for trying to clean up the addiction to pork in Congress. WSJ states about Mr. Flake:

He and a few comrades sponsored more than 40 House floor amendments last year to strip pork projects from spending bills. The National Taxpayers Union ranked him the most fiscally conservative member of the House. None of that sits very well with his House colleagues, who blame Mr. Flake for shining public attention on their spendthrift ways.

Apparently Mr. Boehner doesn’t get it and feels ethics and earmarks are not important to voters. To demonstrate Boehner’s hypocrisy in removing Mr. Flake from the Judiciary Committee he has kept the GOP House “Earmark King”, Jerry Lewis (R-CA) as ranking member on the House Appropriations committee.

Mr. Lewis was Porker of the Month in September 2006 and was responsible for 13,997 earmarks in the 2005 budget and led his committee to 9,963 pork projects worth $29 Billion in fiscal 2006 appropriation bills.

Mr. Boehner ran for majority leader as a budget reformer but is no better than the new leadership on the left when it comes to keeping campaign promises. It hasn’t taken long for politicians on both sides of the aisle to renege on promises to clean up pork but they continue to deceive the public.

If Boehner was honest Mr. Flake would be leading the minority in the Appropriations Committee and Jerry Lewis would be in his office licking his wounds. Instead Boehner has the fox watching the chicken coup in a sequel to “business as usual.”

Washington, D.C. – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) Porker of the Month for proudly proclaiming himself to be an unabashed supporter of earmarks.

On November 25, The New York Times published a story on incoming Appropriations subcommittee chairs, or “Cardinals.”  The article quoted Sen. Harkin as saying, “I happen to be a supporter of earmarks, unabashedly.  But I don’t call them earmarks.  It is ‘Congressional directed spending.’ ”

This is a prime example of Washington double speak because all federal spending is directed by Congress.  Sen. Harkin implies that Congress can spend money however it wants and that earmarking is a normal part of the budget process.  In reality, earmarking is a secretive, corrupting, and wasteful practice that bypass’s normal budget procedures.  That is why most earmarks are properly called “pork.” 

Furthermore, the proliferation and widespread abuse of earmarks is a relatively recent phenomenon. The Times also noted Sen. Harkin’s habit of earmarking millions of dollars in defense spending for breast cancer research.  He responded, “Now, was that bad?  If you left it to the Defense Department, they never would have done it.”

The reason the Defense of Department does not conduct cancer research on its own accord is that such spending, along with thousands of other pork-barrel projects costing nearly $15 billion last year, falls outside its national security mission.  In fiscal 2005, the federal government spent $560.1 million on breast cancer research through the National Cancer Institute.  If Sen. Harkin wants more funding for breast cancer research, his proposal should be debated, authorized, and integrated into the federal government’s existing research framework not snuck into an unrelated bill.  The duplication of efforts across different departments and agencies weakens the government’s overall approach to all research.

Sen. Harkin, set to chair the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee in the 110th Congress, has helped to pull in $275,503,642 in pork for his state since 2000, including $1,000,000 for development of an American River Museum in Dubuque (2002) and $250,000 for the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo (2006).

A recently announced, year-long joint resolution, will apparantly stave off the earmarks in the nine unfinished appropriations bills for fiscal 2007. Also, a “moratorium” on earmarks is in place until budget reforms are passed. For defending earmarking in the face of widespread agreement over its defects, for bringing home hundreds of millions of dollars in pork-barrel spending, and for muddying the priorties of federal departments, CAGW names Sen. Tom Harkin its Porker of the Month for December 2006.

The 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.