First, the good news this tax season: The amount of pork-barrel spending (patronage programs that reward narrow interests) in the federal budget took a dramatic dip this year, down from $29 billion in 2006 to about $13 billion in 2007.
Now the not-so-good news: It remains to be seen whether that reduction in pork was a one-time accident of politics.*
The non-partisan watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste uses seven criteria to identify the pork-barrel projects it lists in its annual “Pig Book.” Friday 5 asked the CAGW to pick the five worst examples of current government pork, and since only those bills authorizing spending for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security passed with earmarks last fall, all five of their 2007 picks come from those two departments.
One thing to bear in mind as you read this list: The issue at hand isn't the individual merits of individual programs, but the way in which these programs get funded. Citizens Against Government Waste classifies spending as “pork” based on one or more of the following criteria:
- Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
- not specifically authorized;
- not competitively awarded;
- not requested by the President;
- greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
- not the subject of congressional hearings;
- serves only a local or special interest.
The deadwood edition of Friday 5 comes with a handy icon reference that describes which criteria apply to each of the projects selected by CAGW. You'll have to bear with me here as I just use a number code.
CAGW's choices after the jump...
High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program
$3.2 million
Gakona, Alaska
Department of Defense
CRITERIA: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
This controversial project, recipient of $109.1 million in pork since 1995, is supposed to investigate methods to control “ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems.”
CAGW Vice President David Williams thinks it’s more about Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, bringing home the bacon. “It’s one of Stevens’ pet projects. It’s almost on automatic pilot now.”
For the record: I called Sen. Stevens' (best known on the Web as the man who described the Internets as "a series of tubes" during Senate hearings on net neutrality) office for comment last week. A spokesman said they'd get back to me.
Vegetable shelf-life research
$1.65 million
Seattle, Wash.
Department of Defense
CRITERIA: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7
Added by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who wrote in July that the funding “will help our troops in the field get fresh tomatoes.” The money is being directed toward a Seattle-based biosciences company.
Said the CAGW’s Williams: “It’s not that it’s necessarily bad research, but when there’s no competitive grants process, you wonder. Would Sen. Murray support this project if the company were based in Ohio?”
One of the things about pork, by the way, is that voters tend to like it when it's federal money that's coming home to their state or district. Wrote the CAGW: "In all, Sen. Murray claims to have 'secured $55 million in federal defense work
for
For the record: I called Sen. Murray's office a week ago to give them a chance to comment on this listing. They said they'd get back to me.
Allen Telescope Array
$1 million
Mountain View, Calif.
Department of Defense
CRITERIA: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7
The House of Representatives added this money for the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project, which is “dedicated to astronomical and simultaneous search for extra-terrestrial intelligence observations.”
CAGW comment: “No word on how it will help defend the world against an alien invasion.”
Alcohol and drug abuse research
$5.5 million
Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center
San Francisco, Calif.
Department of Defense
CRITERIA: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
The EGCRC at the University of California-San Francisco administers a variety of substance-abuse-related research (no small concern for a wartime military), and specializes in “translational” work that derives new treatments from previous research. Ray White, the Center's director, also said that the institution gets about $6 million a year in competitive government science grants.
One of the mysteries about this line-item was its origin, but it didn't take a rocket scientists to draw the implication that this might be traceable back to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was just the Democratic Congresswoman from San Francisco last fall. Williams said he didn't know, and White said he didn't know the details.
Drew Hammill, spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., confirmed Monday that the $5.5 million was one of Pelosi’s earmarks last fall. “Five million dollars in the scheme of things is a very insignificant amount,” Hammill said. “For this to be in anyone’s Top 5 list is, for me, very suspicious.”
Translation: Hammill suspects that the Gallo spending was selected because of Pelosi's high profile.
The CAGW’s Williams acknowledged that he had suspected Pelosi had secured the funding and said his group is watching the Democratic leadership’s efforts at Congressional earmark reform carefully. “We’re sort of champing at the bit to see whether this is what they really believe.”
Hammill's parting shot? Under earmarks reform implemented since Pelosi took over as speaker, anonymous earmarks like this one are no longer allowed.
Port Security Grants
$225 million
Nationwide
Department of Homeland Security
CRITERIA: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
CAGW agrees that port security is a bone fide national security priority but included this program on its Worst 5 list because of the way the grants are administered.
The group says pork-barrel funding for this program, which lets ports authorities and private companies apply for security grants, has doubled in two years. A DHS audit found the grants were being distributed in a broad, unfocused manner that offered “no assurance that the program is protecting the nation’s most critical and vulnerable port infrastructure and assets.”
Among the ports receiving grants: Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and six ports in land-locked Arkansas.
*Here's what I mean about a "one-time accident of politics": Last fall Republican lawmakers knew they were in trouble in
the upcoming 2006 mid-term elections and passed only two of the 11 annual spending bills,
thereby avoiding the tough decisions on the other nine bills and rolling them
over for the current Congress to resolve. Democrats won back control of
both chambers anyway, and then just passed the other required spending
bills without going through the earmarks process that tends to
encourage patronage spending.
Since then the Democratic-led House has enacted earmarks reform, but
skeptics in the CAGW remain... well, skeptical about lawmakers' ability
to stick to spending discipline. Stay tuned... dc
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