(Washington, D.C.) - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today announced the nominees for its 2015 Porker of the Year.  People may cast their ballots for the candidate they think was the most reprehensible Porker in 2015 in an online poll at www.cagw.org/porker.  The six finalists were chosen by CAGW staff from among 12 worthy Porkers of the Month from the previous year.  The voting deadline is January 21, 2016 and the results will be announced January 25, 2016.  The candidates are:

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro was named February Porker of the Month for exposing taxpayers to yet another housing-related bailout.  In testimony before a February 11, 2015 House Financial Services Committee hearing on the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Sec. Castro struggled to provide even basic information about the current value of the FHA portfolio, refused to admit that the FHA was operating outside of the law, and repeatedly delivered a series of meaningless platitudes about the benefits of homeownership.

Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Robert McDonald was named April Porker of the Month for his further bungling of the massively mismanaged agency.  Under Sec. McDonald’s leadership, VA facilities were still found to be lacking basic necessities like “toothbrushes, toothpaste, pajamas, sheets and blankets” for veterans even as those same facilities purchased solar panels, new televisions, and new furniture.  Sec. McDonald even snapped at Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) after he correctly charged Sec. McDonald with “glossing over the extraordinary problems” of the department. 

Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) was named May Porker of the Month for his misguided and costly proposal to gut the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program.  In the face of rising Medicare improper payments, Graves introduced a bill which attempted to gut the RAC programs’ most positive feature:  its contingency fee-based compensation model, which operates at no expense to taxpayers.  Removing it would lead to appropriations of substantial sums of taxpayer money to pay contractors to perform audits.

Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.) was named July Porker of the Month for his efforts to resurrect the wasteful Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank.  Elected in 2010 as a Tea Party fiscal conservative, he voted against the bank in 2012, but led the coalition that raised it from the dead.  About two-thirds of the bank’s payouts went to only 10 businesses in 2013, some of which had hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. 

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen was named August Porker of the Month for his long litany of incompetence and obstruction as head of the reviled agency.  During the investigation into IRS targeting of conservative groups, Commissioner Koskinen repeatedly stonewalled members of Congress in the search for Lois Lerner’s emails. 

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) was named November Porker of the Month for his absurd attack on government watchdogs who discovered gaping holes in Obamacare’s enrollment verification system.  After the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that 11 of 12 fake applicants were each able to qualify and receive $2,500 worth of subsidized coverage, even though they had used forged documentation for proof of income or citizenship, Rep. Pallone accused GAO of “trying to highlight the difficulties” with Obamacare exchanges, rather than applauding them for trying to protect the taxpayers’ money.

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.