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 om Schatz, president
of Citizens Against
Government Waste, discusses the latest edition of the Pig
Book, published by CAGW.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Did anything in
this year’s Pig Book surprise you?
Tom Schatz: The number of pork-barrel
projects increased by 46 percent, to a total of 6,333 versus
last
year’s total 4,326 projects. This meant that more projects were
spread around Congress, bringing more and more members to feed at
the trough. There was a four- percent increase in spending, from
$17.7 billion to $18.5 billion.
The least surprising items were the names of the members on our
FY 2001 “Dirty Dozen” list. Year after year, the names on this list
repeat themselves and these members are almost always led my our
March 2001 Porkers of the Month, Sen. Ted Stevens, Republican Appropriations
Committee Chairman of Alaska, and Sen. Daniel Inouye, Democrat appropriator
of Hawaii. It’s also not surprising that with more money in Washington
due to the budget surplus, there has been more and more pork. A
pleasant surprise would have been a refund of some of that money
to the taxpayers.
Lopez: Ted Stevens said that his pork
was requested by Bill Clinton. A valid argument?
Schatz: First of all, Sen. Stevens
did not say which of his projects were requested by former President
Bill Clinton. While there were projects in Alaska that were requested
by the former administration, if they were requested by both the
House and Senate, these projects were not included on our list.
There are other projects that have budget requests from the administration,
but where was money added to those requests by the Senate, in these
instances, the money (and only the money) added by the Senate is
considered pork. For example, if the original allocation made by
the president was for $400,000 and the Senate requested $700,000
while the House request remained at $400,000, we would count this
as $300,000 in pork since the Senate added $300,000 above the budget
request.
There are also projects for which there is a budget request and
for which the Senate fulfills funding but the House does not. We
still consider these projects to be pork as they are only requested
in one chamber.
It is difficult to answer Sen. Stevens’s claim directly, as he does
not cite specific projects. If he had, we would be able to tell
you exactly why those projects are considered pork, that is, which
of our seven criteria that project fulfilled. Unfortunately, it
seems that Sen. Stevens has once again decided to hide the true
facts by making broad, unfounded claims.
Lopez: In your experience, do CAGW
pork awards tend to see results? Do embarrassed senators change
their ways?
Schatz: Since pork has skyrocketed
by 297 percent since 1997 and since it seems that CAGW cites the
same members year after year, they apparently are just shameless.
Sen. Robert Byrd (D., W. Va.), the top Democrat appropriator, remarked
recently in George magazine that “you might as well slap
my wife as take away [West Virginia’s] highway money.” Shameless.
Our 12-step porkaholics anonymous program includes substantive changes
to the budget process. For example, CAGW advocates a line-item veto
and term limits for serving on the appropriations committees.
Lopez: Has Sen. Lott commented about
this year’s book? Has he ever?
Schatz: I don’t believe Sen. Lott has
commented directly on the Pig Book this year or in years
past. However, Sen. Lott has gone on record acknowledging that pork
is anything that “receives federal funding” and is “north of Memphis.”
We assume, from his attempt to mock the problem that he does not
take the book very seriously. However, taxpayers certainly take
his state’s number three ranking in per capita pork and his lack
of leadership in reducing pork barrel spending very seriously. Actually,
Sen. Lott’s most relevant comment about pork occurred prior to floor
consideration last fall of the final Omnibus Appropriations Act.
He congratulated Sen. Stevens for finishing the bill, and said,
“I look forward to knowing what is all in that bill.” That was not
the most responsible legislative leadership.
Lopez: What do you think about Sen.
Stevens’s idea of holding hearings to investigate what you’ve compiled?
Schatz: CAGW has used the same criteria
for the past ten years and stands behind its research. We must be
making our point for Sen. Stevens to call for hearings into our
methods. In fact, the Bush administration in compiling its budget
for fiscal 2002 found 6,138 projects--close to CAGW’s final number.
While the administration did not identify its criteria, the Bush
economic plan in the presidential campaign did use CAGW’s seven-point
criteria as an example of what to use in establishing a bipartisan
commission to eliminate pork barrel spending. That call for a commission
is reiterated in the Bush fiscal 2002 budget. We are confident that
Sen. Stevens will find that each of the 6,333 items in the database
meet at least one of our seven criteria for pork. We would hope
that Sen. Stevens, the House and Senate Appropriations committees,
and the rest of Congress for that matter, would spend as much time
vetting these appropriations bills before they are passed
as Sen. Stevens proposes to spend now, after they have long since
been signed into law.
Lopez: Do you think the Pig Book
will ever retire?
Schatz: Only when every member of Congress
has completed our 12-step program aimed at reforming members’ addiction
to pork.
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