And this little piggy went to Congress

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 16, 1998 | by Sean Paige

Just when you begin to emotionally invest in the delusion that America's fiscal house is in order, stoked by sunny predictions of budget surpluses as far as the eye can see, along come the killjoys at Citizens Against Government Waste, or CAGW, to remind taxpayers what a pigsty Capitol Hill still can be when it comes to "bringing home the bacon."

Due to be released in early March, the group's eighth annual Pig Book pork-barrel report not only proves that the art of raiding the federal treasury is still well- practiced, but that the once-dreaded line-item veto is providing no deterrent to earmarks. The veto's cause has been hurt by Clinton administration bumbling and a federal judge's Feb. 12 ruling that it's unconstitutional, putting the measure on the fast track to the Supreme Court.

CAGW uses a seven-point, procedurally based criteria to determine what "pork" is, meaning that it doesn't pass their smell test if it shortcuts the established appropriations process. Among the trends the report is expected to reveal: a mysterious "realignment" of the pork universe that has Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's beloved Mississippi as fiscal 1998's biggest pork recipient.

Here's a sampling of the projects taxpayers will find in this year's Pig Book, which always is met with squeals of indignation on Capitol Hill:

* $17.5 million in spending added by the Senate for projects in the home state of Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Transportation member Christopher Bond, a Missouri Republican, including $8 million for buses and bus facilities, 4.5 million for Kansas City's Union Station and $500,000 for the Springfield to Branson commuter-rail project;

* $800,000 for the Viticulture Consortium to help the U.S. wine industry compete in the world market;

* $220,000 for lowbush-blueberry research in Maine ($1.8 million has been spent on such research since 1990);

* $150,000 for the National Center for Peanut Competitiveness -- something the U.S. peanut program effectively precludes, CAGW points out;

* $750 million to build a warship the Pentagon hasn't asked for at the Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi, where Lott's father worked, and $98 million for a space-based laser the White House opposes but also is likely to be built in Mississippi;

* $15 million in Department of Defense funding for electric-vehicle research, bringing the total to $121 million since 1994;

* Another $19.6 million to the International Fund for Ireland, an annual present from the House to former speaker, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, who long since has joined the leprechauns; and

* Almost $15.6 million for 16 projects in the home state of Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens of Alaska, including $2.2 million for construction at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, $500,000 for the Alaska Spruce Bark Beetle Task Force, $100,000 for the Alaska Gold Rush Centennial Task Force and $100,000 for the Aleutian World War II National Historical Area.