New Pig Book is Out

Citizens Against Government Waste has released their annual report outlining the pork barrel additions to spending bills from Congress. Some of my favorites are:

  • $3,000,000 for the Animal Waste Management Research Laboratory in Kentucky
  • $1,099,000 for alternative salmon products in Alaska - WTF are alternative salmon products?
  • $6,435,000 for wood utilization research in Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Mich., Minn., Miss., N.C., Ore., Tenn., Wash., and W.Va. Since 1985, $86 million has been sapped from the taxpayers for this purpose - Um we've kinda got an idea how to use wood, don't we?
  • $1,000,000 for the Gaming-Technology Software Initiative in Michigan- huh?
  • $13,500,000 added by the House for the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), which has released a five-year strategy focusing on grassroots reconciliation and cross-community projects such as: the construction of Creggan Community Café and Catering Ltd., the Newcastle YMCA, the Donegal Town Waterbus, the Leitrim Food Center of Excellence, the Chef Development Program, and funding toward the World Toilet Summit. - World Toilet Summit, come on...
  • $46,908 for Hampton Jitney, Inc. The Jitney is known primarily for shuttling wealthy New Yorkers to their summer homes in the Hamptons.
  • $4,000,000 for a visitors center at the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska - yet another pork barrell project from Sen Stevens. What gets me about this one is A, $4 million is a lot for a visitor center, and B, this is a guy who basically wants to ruin another wildlife refuge in Alaska for the sake of oil. Will the visitor center at Kodiak have pictures of the other, to make up for the loss?
  • $21,750,000 added for the National Writing Project, a program established by Congress and developed by the DoE, which aims to enhance the writing skills of grade school teachers
  • $100,000 added by the House for the Harpers Ferry Police Department in West Virginia. The population of Harpers Ferry was less than 400 in 2004 and the police force today consists of two full-time and one part-time police officers..
  • $5,880,000 for the Zora and Main Street Interchange in Missouri- Joplin requested the funding, purportedly to maintain safety and prevent congestion in the town of 50,000 people
  • $500,000 for construction of the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, North Carolina - yep, you read that right

Those are just some highlights of the highlights, I’m sure there are even more mind blowers in there.

No webmentions were found