Oink oink
The camera crews flocked to the National Press Club on Tuesday morning not to take a photograph of a Hollywood starlet or a member of Congress, but potbelly pigs Dudley and Winnie.
The pigs arrived Tuesday to mark the annual release of Citizens Against Government Waste’s Pig Book — the nonprofit’s exposé that reveals who in Congress are the biggest spenders.
The organization fully embraced the pig theme at the news conference — PigFoot, a man dressed in a huge pink pig outfit, posed with the pigs, and dozens of plastic pig noses were handed out to attendees. Even Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz wore a navy blue tie with multiple pink pig heads on it while discussing this year’s winners (or is it losers?).
Topping the Senate side with $653.1 million worth of project spending is Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss. The title of biggest spender on the House side goes to Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, who got 44 projects that totaled $256.6 million for his district.
But the group also handed out special awards to other especially big oinkers.
The “Porkasaurus Award” went to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for spending $143,000 on a Las Vegas National History Museum.
“Sen. Reid is fond of saying that earmarks have been around since we’ve been a country. Now he must be blaming it on the dinosaurs,” Schatz said.
Other special recipients included Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., earning The “Narcissist Award” for the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Programs. Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., now can add the “Taxpayers Get Tattooed Award” to his honors for getting $200,000 to clean up his constituents’ marked-up skin.
But the group may want to rethink some earmarks — Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, asked for $1.8 million for swine odor and manure management research.
In the afternoon, it was Americans for Tax Reform’s turn at the microphone. The conservative organization brought together a group of anti-tax activists at the Press Club, but ATR President Grover Norquist scored the most direct hits against President Obama.
Referring to the president’s promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000, Norquist pointed out that he raised taxes on cigarette smokers. “The only American who uses tobacco and makes more than $250,000 is named Barack Obama,” he said.
And later, referring to the grassroots nature of today’s Tax Day Tea Party demonstrations taking place around the country, he quipped, “We don’t have people on staff whose job it is to organize demonstrations. Those people are called ‘community organizers.’”
