“This budget is chock full of waste and pork,” says Schatz 

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today called on Congress to hold the line on adding new and unnecessary spending to the already bloated Senate version of the fiscal 2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill.  The bill, which had already slipped from a $385 billion bottom line earlier this week to $390 billion by week’s end, is chock full of waste and pork, the budget watchdog claimed.

“It’s feeding frenzy time here on the banks of the Potomac,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “With the nation facing a possible war, a slow-growth economy, and growing deficits, some in Congress, particularly on the Democratic side, cannot resist clamoring for still more government spending.  If these ‘high priority’ items are so urgent, representatives and senators should prove their seriousness by pledging to forego their own earmarked projects and other less important spending to offset their add-ons.”

Preliminary reports on the Omnibus package indicate it is loaded with wasteful and unnecessary earmarks, such as:

• $1.2 billion to subsidize chronically mismanaged Amtrak (up from $762 billion), added by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.);
• $100 million to the Commerce Department for fisheries disaster assistance;
• $35 million to the shrimp industry in southern states;
• $35 million in earmarks to Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens’ (R) home state of Alaska;
• $5 million in earmarks to Appropriator Daniel Inouye’s (D) home state of Hawaii;
• $5 million to the blue crab industry;
• $2.5 million to the Orangutan Foundation;
• $2 million for the Center for Injury Sciences at the University of Alabama, Birmingham;
• $2 million for Boston’s Traffic Monitoring & Security System;
• $1 million for the North Dakota State University Advanced Traffic Analysis Center;
• $1 million for development of the Show-Me Aquatics Center in Missouri;
• $750,000 for boardwalk area revitalization in Daytona Beach, Fla.;
• $500,000 for the Tongass Coast Aquarium in Ketchikan, Alaska;
• $500,000 for the Boathouse Museum in St. Charles, Mo;
• $200,000 for the Forum Francophone Des Affaires in Maine, to facilitate exports to French-speaking markets.

“While the new spending add-ons are being justified through a pledge of across-the-board spending reductions, budget watchers know this is bunk,” Schatz said.  “The big spenders will fight to get their provisions and earmarks included now under any circumstances, and then later they will quash the across-the-board reductions behind closed doors.  The president and his allies in Congress must make clear they will not allow the appropriators and big spenders to violate the president’s spending limits, even if it means threatening a veto.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.  Its annual Prime Cuts publication recommends 543 cuts to the federal budget that would save $1.2 trillion over the next five years.