Legislation making its way through Congress that originally was intended to repeal a $5 billion export subsidy declared illegal by the World Trade Organization has picked up a few amendments along the way.

The riders are mostly intended to grant tax breaks totaling $170 billion or so to U.S. entities, prompting Tom Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste to complain that lawmakers "have gone hog wild with this legislation, adding special interest, corporate welfare provision to an otherwise unrelated bill."

Among the questionable tax breaks in the bill:

• $519 million for makers of small aircraft, including Learjet and Cessna.

• $310 million for such shipbuilders as Northrop and Grumman.

• $189 million for Oldsmobile dealers.

• $94 million for the Warrior Hotel in Sioux City, Iowa.

• $92 million for NASCAR.

But this is nothing new for the guys and gals we send to Washington. Though they talk a good game when the cameras are rolling and the topic is government waste, they throw the pork around like a major league pitcher when the lights go out and nobody's paying much attention.

Last year, according to CCAGW, Congress pigged out at record levels. For fiscal 2004, lawmakers stuck 10,656 of their pet projects in the 13 appropriations bills, an increase of 13 percent from 9,362 in fiscal '03.

The cost of these projects, which included $3 million for the First Tee Program in St. Augustine, Fla., and $15 million for overseas dairy development programs, was $22.9 billion, or 1.6 percent greater than was spent on pork barrel politics in the previous fiscal year.

The greatest increase in pork, according to CCAGW, were in fundings for Foreign Operations, Transportation/Treasury and Interior. But the Veterans Administration/Department of Housing and Urban Development accounted for their share, too.

"Appropriators are predictable," the watchdog group says in the latest edition of the "Congressional Pig Book Summary." "Every year, they use the VA/HUD Appropriations Bill as their personal ATM."

Their shopping spree in fiscal '04, which ended Sept. 30, included 1,774 items that meet CCAGW's definition of pork; that is, they satisfy at least two of the following criteria:

• Requested by only one chamber of Congress.

• Not specifically authorized.

• Not awarded competitively.

• Not requested by the President.

• Greatly exceeds the President's proposed budget request or the previous year's funding.

• Not the subject of Congressional hearings.

• Serves only a local or special interest.

To be fair, spending on pork last year by VA/HUD funders actually declined by nearly 50 percent, even though the total number of projects were up.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that taxpayers paid for a lot of stuff; everything from renovating a Coca Cola building in Georgia to who-knows-what for the Wichita Art Museum, which recently showed a collection of psychedelic rock posters advertising concerts in San Francisco from 1966 to 1970.

Just for the record, Coca Cola reported a net profit in 2003 of $676 million. But they still needed $100,000 of our money to repair a building in Macon?

Published: July 14, 2004

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