Washington, D.C - Citizens Against Government Waste today released an analysis of earmarks in the fiscal 2008 appropriations bills.  There are 8,967 projects worth $7.5 billion in H.R. 2764 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008), which, combined with the 2,076 projects worth $6.6 billion in the fiscal 2008 Defense Appropriations Act, brings the total to 11,043 projects worth $14.1 billion.  The last year in which all of the appropriations bills were enacted was 2006, when CAGW found 9,963 projects worth $29 billion in the 2006 Congressional Pig Book. 

In the 2008 bills, for the first time, the names of members of Congress were provided with the earmarks, which counts as progress in the battle to cut back and eventually eliminate pork-barrel spending.  The number of earmarks was increased by 1,080, or 11 percent from 2006, and the cost was reduced by $14.9 billion, or 51 percent. 

“There is good news and bad news for taxpayers in the appropriations bills this year,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “While the number of projects has increased, the cost of projects has been reduced.  Pork is still the most egregious form of wasteful spending in Washington.  The earmarks alone are reason enough to reject the Omnibus.  Adding the $11 billion in ‘emergency’ spending in the Omnibus bill to the $6.4 billion in such spending in the defense appropriations bill belies Congress’s claim that they met the President’s $933 billion request for domestic spending.”

Members of Congress took full advantage of the conference meetings on H.R. 2764 to add their own pork.  There were more than 300 projects added in conference; 114 of those were added in the Homeland Security Appropriations Act section of the bill where CAGW found 132 projects worth $171,216,000.  The 114 “airdropped” projects worth $113,140,914 constitute 86 percent of the total number, and 66 percent of the total dollars.  Even worse, 95 of those projects, worth $50,313,021, were added by members of the House Appropriations Committee for a competitive Predisaster Mitigation grant program within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). 

“Many members of Congress have criticized FEMA for its mismanagement of numerous programs over the past several years,” said Schatz.  “Once again, they are making an agency’s job harder by forcing staff to administer projects that may not meet the competitive program’s criteria and usurping the agency’s authority.  This is just one of many reasons why Congress should end earmarks altogether, and why the welcome reduction in the cost of earmarks is not good enough for taxpayers.”

CAGW’s lobbying arm, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, sent a letter to the Senate today urging the defeat of H.R. 2764.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.