Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today announced the nominees for its 2008 Porker of the Year.  Citizens may cast their ballots for the politician they think was the most reprehensible porker of 2008 in an online poll at www.cagw.org.  The five finalists were chosen by CAGW staff from among 12 worthy Porkers of the Month for 2008.  The candidates are:

• Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) - Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) was named CAGW’s June Porker of the Month for accepting a preferential mortgage deal from a company which stands to benefit from the mortgage bailout bill he was pushing through Congress.
  
  ​Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) - According to the Orlando Sentinel, on July 8, 2008 Rep. Mica said, “There’s no way in hell I would support banning earmarks … That’s our job, getting elected and making decisions.  Yes, there are bad earmarks, like there are bad members of Congress.  And what you do is get rid of them.”  Rep. Mica was responsible for 21 earmarks totaling $16.9 million in fiscal year 2008.
• Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) - CAGW named Rep. Moran (D-Va.) its November Porker of the Month for remarks he made during a speech in October, 2008 in which he supported taking money from some people and giving it to others:  “We’ve had the highest productivity…But it hasn’t been shared and that’s the problem.  Because we have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in this simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it and they have an antipathy towards the means of redistributing wealth.  And they may be able to sustain that for awhile, but it doesn’t work in the long run.”

●     House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) - CAGW named the two leaders its August Porkers of the Month for leading a do-nothing Congress into its five-week August vacation after 89 percent of the legislative initiatives passed to that time were to name government buildings or lands, extend or make technical corrections to existing laws, or passed either by unanimous consent or with less than 10 dissenting votes.  The accomplishments included “Frank Sinatra Day,” “National Plumbing Industry Week,” and “National Day of the Cowboy.”

●     Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) - CAGW named outgoing Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) its December Porker of the Month to honor him one last time for his lifetime of pork-barrel overachievement.  “Think of this final Porker of the Month Award as a sort of ‘swine song,’” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “Sen. Stevens will be the subject of both encomiums and censure over the next few weeks and CAGW wanted to be sure that the taxpaying public doesn’t forget his 40-year legacy of explosive earmarking.”  Currently, former Sen. Stevens is cooling his heels awaiting sentencing on his conviction for failing to report $250,000 in improper gifts he received between 1999 and 2006.

CAGW is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.  Porker of the Month and Porker of the Year are dubious honors given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.