No earmarks, but still plenty of government waste

President Trump is right about one thing. The federal government spends too much money. And much of that spending is a waste of our tax dollars. The latest Pig Book proves that. The Pig Book is an effort by the fiscal watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste to detail federal money set aside for lawmaker’s pet projects. They used to be called “earmarks”, which Congress ban on several years ago. The earmarks haven’t really gone away though. This year’s Pig Book uncovers 163 earmarks at a cost to taxpayers of $6.8 billion in the last fiscal year. The Group uses seven specific criteria to identify wasteful spending, including not being in the President’s budget, serving only a local interest, or being requested by only one chamber of Congress. Among the pork in the past year, $93 million to the Department of Defense for new uniforms for the Afghan Army. The problem is these uniforms, camouflage, don’t match the desert landscape. That is worthy of the Squeal Award. And the $2.5 million for a National Science Foundation Study on how speed dating can help determine the perfect first date. It may not be a bridge to nowhere, but it is hardly a good use of our tax dollars. Most troubling is that the spending on pork is up by 33% from the previous fiscal year. Congress may try to tell us that earmarks are gone, but this year’s Pig Book squeals no.