Congressional Pig Book now available

Check out Cal Thomas' column in today's Northwest Herald. Page 11A (the editorial page) of the print edition, if you still part with $13.27/month to support your local paper delivery person. Online? Good luck.

Cal tells us where our tax dollars are going and uses the Citizens Against Government Waste (www.cagw.org/) as his information resource.

The 2010 Congressional Pig Book Summary is now available for your late-night reading enjoyment (or irritation). Cal's favorite this year is $7,287,000 to continue the Harkin Grant program of - who else? - Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who received The Narcissist Award.

According to Thomas' column, there were 35 anonymous earmarks for $6,056,565,000 in the defense category. Although they represented only 2% of the 1,752 projects, they scarfed up 59% of the $10,300,000,000 in the pork barrel.

The CAGW website indicates there were 9,129 earmarks for a total of $16.5 Billion.

If you think it doesn't pay off to be a power player in Congress, check out this prime example:

"$5,000,000 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the Presidio Heritage Center. A December 21, 2009 article in the San Francisco Chronicle described this ironic earmark as follows: 'After the Presidio was included in a round of military base closures, Pelosi helped craft a public-private agreement to keep its valuable real estate from being carved up by developers. The congressional requirement promised that the park would be free of federal subsidies by 2013. The $5 million earmark will fund close to 25 percent of the center’s estimated renovation and help leverage other donations from corporations and foundations, said Tia Lombardi, director of public affairs at the Presidio Trust. In other words, the trust needs federal subsidies to lure private investment – so it no longer has to rely on federal subsidies.'” (emphasis added)

Are we heading for a revolution in this country?