The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste urges

House to eliminate earmarks in annual spending bill

(Washington, D.C.) – In a letter to members of the House leadership, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), America’s largest taxpayer watchdog group, urges Congress to elimate $491.9 million in pork-barrel projects from the fiscal 2000 VA-HUD Appropriations bill (H. Rpt. 106-231).  The annual spending bill is expected to brought to a vote this week.

In the letter, CCAGW President Thomas Schatz commended the efforts of House leaders to pass appropriations bills in a timely manner, but warned legislators "it should not be done on the backs of taxpayers."  Additionally, Schatz reminded legislators that last year's VA/HUD bill contained 565 pork projects, costing taxpayers $789 million.

On August 2, Citizens Against Government Waste released a list of 274 pork-barrel items contained in the bill.  Among the unnecessary and ill-considered pork items in the bill are $2.5 million for the Windstorm Simulation Project at Florida International University in VA/HUD appropriator Carrie Meek's (D-Fla.) Miami district; $10 million for the Cayuga County Regional Application Center in the upstate New York district of VA/HUD Appropriations Chairman James Walsh (R-NY); $1 million for Sci-Quest, a high tech science museum located in Huntsville, Ala.; and $700,000 for a livestock pollution abatement study.

"The House should maintain the fiscal responsibility it has agreed to impose on itself," Schatz wrote.  Finally, he urged House members "to oppose this legislation until these parochial and low-priority items are stripped from the bill."

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