Every year, Citizens Against Government Waste combs through the minutiae of appropriations bills to find examples of what every taxpayer objects to: government waste. Every year, CAGW exposes that waste in its annual “Congressional Pig Book.”
The 2016 Congressional Pig Book shows 123 instances of earmarked, pork barrel spending in the federal FY 2016 budget. Combined, they cost taxpayers $5.1 billion. That’s up from $4.2 billion last year. “While the increase in cost over one year is disconcerting, the two-year rise of 88.9 percent over the $2.7 billion in FY 2014 is downright disturbing,” the group says.
That $5.1 billion is less than one percent of the federal budget. Cutting waste alone won’t put the budget on sustainable footing, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. That $5.1 billion is better off in taxpayers’ hands. “Earmarks create a few winners (appropriators, special interests and lobbyists) and a great many losers (taxpayers).”
Cutting that waste also ensures it doesn’t grow into a bigger problem — in 2006, earmarks hit a record high cost of $29 billion.
Here are five of the biggest single earmarks:
$1 billion: DDG 51 ship. The $1 billion price tag covers only one extra destroyer. Citizens Against Government Waste says the DDG 51’s history with earmarks goes back to 1998, when then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., requested $720 million for the DDG 51.
$225 million: F-35 Fighters. The $225 million price tag covers only two extra planes. Some question whether the F-35 will be any better than the A-10 it’s replacing. Instead of asking whether the F-35 should continue to be developed, Congress decided to fund two extra planes.
$164 million: Fund for the Improvement of Education. The fund is a perennial earmark, having received more than 2,500 earmarks costing $1.8 billion since 2001. It only distributes grants. President Obama didn’t seek funding for the program in 2011 or 2012, but it lived on anyway.
$100 million: Port Security Grant Program. A 2014 report from the Government Accountability Office found the program “is unable — due to resource constraints — to annually measure reduced vulnerability attributed to enhanced PSGP-funded security measures.”
$85 million: For renovations of House office buildings. Legislation didn’t specify where or how that money was to be spent. The Pig Book cites the recent renovation of the Capitol Visitor Center, also done by the Architect of the Capitol, which cost $400 million more than projected.
While Congress claims the budget is earmark-free, Citizens Against Government Waste says it used a different definition. Most of its earmarks meet two 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; or,
• Serves only a local or special interest.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
