Lawmakers pledge permanent ban on earmarks at 2017 "Pig Book" unveiling
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released its annual Congressional "Pig Book" on Wednesday, highlighting a list of the worst offenders in earmark spending.
While Congress enacted an earmark moratorium in 2011, CAGW still continues to uncover a variety of earmarks in current appropriations bills.
"The 2017 Congressional Pig Book reveals the sullied underbelly of the Washington swamp, said CAGW President Tom Schatz in a statement. "Even worse, some members of Congress are trying to return the wasteful and corrupt system to prominence even after taxpayers delivered a 'drain the swamp' message to DC less than one year ago." He's also calling for the adoption of a permanent ban on earmarks.
Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Joni Ernst of Iowa as well as Rep. Ron DeSantis of Florida were among the lawmakers present for the "pig book" unveiling in Washington and applauded the group's efforts to expose wasteful spending in Congress. The lawmakers pledged their support of a bill calling for a permanent ban on earmarks in Congress.
Ernst, who co-sponsored the bill, said "Washington is really filled with big time spenders," adding that her constituents sent her to Washington "to make them squeal." She highlighted some of this year's "Squeal Award" recipients, specific expense programs or concepts where there is fraud, waste or abuse found. Notable winners included a $93 million Department of Defense program for the Afghan National Army's uniforms which, according to Ernst the camouflage "did not match the environment of Afghanistan," as well as a $2.5 million National Science Foundation-sponsored Stanford University study on how speed dating could help determine the perfect first date.
"There are lot of expenditures we could do without, we need to understand where taxpayers dollars are going," Ernst added.
Rep. DeSantis echoed Ernst's call for transparency, saying by restoring earmarks, this size and scope of federal spending will increase.
DeSantis says by removing the ban on earmarks, lawmakers are making efforts to "deepen the swamp" in Washington, calling supports of removing the ban "totally tone deaf" with American taxpayers.
"By keeping the ban and making it permanent, it shows we're on the side of the taxpayers and against the swamp," added DeSantis, "We got to get our house in order."
According to the CAGW, since 1991, Congress has approved over 110,000 earmarks costing the American taxpayer $329.9 billion
CAGW uncovered 163 earmarks in fiscal year 2017, a 32.5 percent increase from the year before, which cost taxpayers $6.8 billion, a 33.3 percent increase from 2016.
