Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named outgoing Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) its December Porker of the Month.  Even though Sen. Stevens has been a regular target for criticism by the group, CAGW chose 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.  In his vaunted position as either Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee over the years, Sen. Stevens scrupulously set the lowest possible standards of accountability in federal spending.  By opposing every effort at increasing transparency and accountability, Sen. Stevens provided invaluable leadership of the Senate and his party..straight into single digit approval ratings and a political wilderness that could last for years.” 

Sen. Stevens was narrowly defeated in his recent re-election bid by former Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D).  The loss came in the wake of his conviction in October on seven counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in improper gifts he received from 1999 to 2006.  He faces a possible five-year prison sentence on each count. 

Sen. Stevens helped bring home to Alaska a total of 1,452 pork-barrel projects worth $3.4 billion between 1995 and 2008.  Alaska has been the number one state in pork per capita every year since 1999 in CAGW’s Congressional Pig Book.  Among his many career highlights, Stevens defended the now-infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” on the floor of the Senate in 2005 by threatening to resign his seat, saying he would become a “wounded bull on the floor of this Senate” and that he would have to be “taken out of here on a stretcher.”  Among his many honors, he managed to glean the “Cold Hard Cash” Oinker Award for collecting $165.7 million in defense pork in the 2008 Congressional Pig Book.  He will also be remembered for such earmark classics as the $25 million for a supercomputer at the University of Alaska to study how to trap energy from the aurora borealis; $750,000 for grasshopper research; $500,000 for the Alaska Spruce Bark Beetle Task Force; $200,000 for the city of North Pole for recreation improvements; and $176,000 for the Reindeer Herder’s Association.

“In view of his disgraceful exit, the people of Alaska may be wishing now that Sen. Stevens had resigned during the debate over the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’” concluded Schatz.  “From the taxpayers’ perspective, his departure represents an early holiday gift.  Time will tell whether or not Sen. Stevens’ dramatic fall from power over egregious self-dealing will finally help usher in a new era of honesty, open government, and fewer earmarks.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.  Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.