Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named newly-minted Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood its January 2009 Porker of the Month. 

In his new position, Secretary LaHood will preside over the distribution of tens of billions of tax dollars for transportation projects in the stimulus package that is moving forward in Congress.  In addition to control over these vast sums, Secretary LaHood will be involved in the transportation reauthorization bill that will be implemented in 2010.  Similar legislation, including the 2005 reauthorization bill, has increasingly become a vehicle for billions in congressional pork-barrel earmarks, including the notorious Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska.

As a member of Congress from Illinois between 1995 and 2007, then-Rep. LaHood made the most of his seat on the House Appropriations Committee and over time became adept at spending more and more of the taxpayers’ money.  His congressional rating with the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste went from a mediocre 68.8 percent during his freshman year to an abysmal 11 percent in his last year in Congress.  In fiscal year 2008 alone, Rep. LaHood was responsible for securing 52 earmarks totaling $58.9 million, among them a $250,000 earmark for the Lakeview Museum Planetarium along with an additional $198,000 for the installation of green technology in the Planetarium at a time when the nation faced tens of billions in transportation maintenance backlogs.  A January 14 Washington Post article noted that in 2008 he sent $9 million worth of earmarks to campaign contributors, and that he ranked in the top 10 percent of all members who obtained earmarks.  Secretary LaHood expressed his derision for the taxpayers’ money when he told the Peoria Journal Star last year that the reason he “went to the Appropriations Committee, the reason other people go on the Appropriations Committee, is they know that it puts them in a position to know where the money is at, to know the people who are doling the money out and to be in the room when the money is being doled out.”

In October 2005, CAGW named then-Rep. LaHood Porker of the Month for his role in preventing the closure of 713 of the 2,351 Farm Service Agency offices, which would have saved taxpayers $50 million per year.  He also submitted a proposal to reject the 2005 base closing commission’s recommendations to close or realign 182 military bases.  As a representative from Illinois, Mr. LaHood has supported the controversial and exorbitantly costly O’Hare Modernization Project (OMP), with an estimated price tag of $20 billion.  The OMP is entangled in legal battles and is now even opposed by the airlines that must fly through O’Hare.  The current stimulus package contains $3.4 billion in money for the Airport Improvement Program, and there is apprehension that the new secretary will direct some of it to the OMP, instead of higher priority and less controversial projects.

For his long-standing disregard for the taxpayers’ money and an abundance of concern over how he will administer the Department of Transportation, CAGW names Ray LaHood January Porker of the Month.

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