CAGW Names Rep. Don Young Porker of the Month

From PR/US Newswire:

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Representative Don Young (R-Alaska), the "Congressman for all Alaska," 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 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 U.S., 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. KTUU reported that Rep. Young "is confident Alaska 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 2005 Congressional Pig Book ranking of 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.