Pork barrel spending -- all you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2007 Pig Book Summary

The 2007 Congressional Pig Book Summary gives a snapshot of each appropriations bill and details 24 of the juiciest projects culled from the complete Pig Book.

http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2007

The Congressional Pig Book is CAGW's annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. The 2007 Pig Book identified 2,658 projects at a cost of $13.2 billion in the Defense and Homeland Security Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2007. Only two of the 11 appropriations bills were enacted by Congress and the remaining nine were subject to a moratorium on earmarks. A "pork" project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures. To qualify as pork, a project must meet one of seven criteria that were developed in 1991 by CAGW and the Congressional Porkbusters Coalition.

oink oink...

The 24 projects, totaling $2.4 billion, in this year’s Congressional Pig Book Summary symbolize the most egregious and blatant examples of pork. As in previous years, all of the items in the

Congressional Pig Book Summary meet at least one of CAGW’s seven criteria, but most satisfy at least two:

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Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
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Not specifically authorized;
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Not competitively awarded;
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Not requested by the President;
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Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
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Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
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Serves only a local or special interest.