(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), America’s largest taxpayer watchdog group, today announced Vice President Al Gore as its October "Porker of the Month."  Gore received the dubious honor for his proposed new spending on the campaign trail, which CAGW believes would not only spend the entire general revenue and Social Security surpluses over the next five years but also return the nation to huge deficits.

Forget about Buddhist Temples; don’t worry about making the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom. Al Gore has a new way to try to win the election: with your money.  In a flurry of taxpayer financed campaign promises, the vice president is proposing to buy his way into the Oval Office, with a stunning $2.2 trillion in new spending for 2001-2005. That's $800 billion more than the combined budget and Social Security surpluses.

With federal spending and tax burdens at historic highs, with rampant inefficiency and waste in government, such largesse is hard to fathom.  As CAGW has consistently said for the last two years, if the surplus stays in Washington, and isn’t returned to taxpayers, the politicians would spend it.  Gore is proving us right. 

Teaching the children well would be expensive in a Gore regime.  He proposes spending more than $235 billion on education; yet his own Department of Education (DoEd) has been a failure in improving the quality of education or keeping track of its own money.   Financial weaknesses within DoEd have been documented by Ernst and Young, among others.

Gore’s $80 billion in technology “investment” just increases the government’s presence in this highly competitive marketplace.  For example, instead of stopping the Microsoft witch-hunt, Gore wants to make sure everyone is logged on to the Internet – not exactly a government responsibility.

By flooding the budget with an average of $440 billion in new money per year over the next five years, Vice President Gore is guaranteeing that careless spending will continue and escalate. For this massive attempted bribe of the taxpayers with their own money, Vice President Gore deserves CAGW's “Porker of the Month.”

CAGW's “Porker of the Month” award is a dubious honor, given to lawmakers and government officials who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.  Recipients of the award are listed on an online “Hall of Shame,” located at CAGW's website, www.cagw.org.  Past recipients of the award include First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) and Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

For more information, see CAGW's web site at www.cagw.org.  CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.