There are no National Peanut Festivals, mariachi music grants or teapot museums in this year's edition of the Pig Book, the annual tome which identifies the pork barrel spending by our lawmakers in Washington.

Not because Congress has seen the light. No, it's because when the Citizens Against Government Waste put the little pink book to bed, only two of the 11 appropriations bills had been enacted. And the remaining nine were subject to a moratorium on earmarks.

But there is still enough pork to cause concern for taxpayers, the private, nonprofit, non-partisan organization says. More than 2,500 projects alone were "stuffed" into the Defense and Homeland Security Appropriations Acts, at a cost of $13.2 billion.

Because of the moratorium, the pink book is the thinnest its been since it was first published since 1999. But lawmakers are still bringing home the bacon. For example, in the recently passed House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Act, the 1.2 million member CAGW found $78.2 million in pork in one section alone.

The section in question -- Economic Development Initiative grants -- has 480 projects that are supposed to spur economic revitalization and development. But CAGW maintains it is "too often used as a pork depository."

Here are some of what the group labels as the "most outrageous examples" of fat members of the House added to the EDI section of the fiscal 2008 spending bill, which is appropriately nicknamed "THUD:"

• $250,000 for infrastructure renovations for awnings of the historic market for downtown Roanoke, Va.

• $250,000 for the construction of the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center in Prosser, Wash.

• $200,000 for sidewalks, street furniture and facade improvement in Tamuning, Guam.

• $150,000 for renovations to the Renaissance Art Center, a historic theater in Rupert, Idaho.

• $150,000 for the Troy, Mich., Chamber of Commerce to purchase a solar green house from Lawrence Tech University.

• $100,000 for signage and streetscape improvements for the Los Angeles Fashion District.

These and many of the other projects listed by CAGW may seem like small potatoes. But as the late Sen. Everett Dirksen once said, a million here and a million there and pretty soon you are spending some serious money.

Incidentally, to qualify as pork, the project must meet one of seven criteria: Requested by only chamber of Congress, not specifically authorized, not competitively bid, not requested by the White House, greatly exceeds the President's budget request or last year's funding, not the subject of Congressional hearings, or serves only a local or special interest. Most items satisfy at least two of these requirements.

In a related event, CAGW last month "celebrated" Cost of Government Day, the date on which the average American worker has earned enough money to pay his or her share of the tax and regulatory burden imposed by all levels of government. We began working for ourselves as of July 12.

That means the typical taxpayer now works more than half the year -- 192 days, to be exact -- to pay his share of the cost of government. Eighty four of those days are due to federal spending alone.

"Politicans are constantly finding new, outlandish projects on which to waste other people's money," says CAGW President Tom Schatz. "In exchange for surrendering more than half of their working lives to the government, taxpayers get $1.65 million to improve the shelf life of vegetables and $1 million for a telescope searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence."

Published: August 1, 2007

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When Lew Sichelman first started writing about housing in 1969, he was the youngest real estate writer in the country. Now, 37 years later, he's one of the oldest -- and most decorated. He has been rated the top housing columnist in the country by the National Association of Realtors as well as by his peers in the National Association of Real Estate Editors. Indeed, NAREE has recognized his work on numerous occasions. One year - due to his advancing age, he can't recall which one - he earned top honors in the annual NAREE Journalism Contest in three out of the four major writing categories. It was the first time one writer has won so many NAREE awards in a single year. Known for his ability to make even the most difficult topics understandable, Sichelman also has been honored by the National Association of Home Builders and the Mortgage Bankers Association. He began providing in-depth coverage of and consumer-oriented information about housing and housing finance at the Washington Daily News, where he was real estate editor. He held that same position for nine more years at the Washington Star, which purchased the News in 1972. The Star, a so-called "writer's newspaper" which also had the misfortune of being an evening paper, was put out of its misery in 1981, and Sichelman, who had begun self-syndicating his column in 1978, decided to become a full-time columnist. Today, his column, "The Housing Scene," is distributed by United Media to newspapers throughout the country. He also is on the staff of National Mortgage News, an independent newspaper which is considered the bible of the mortgage business. And he writes for numerous other publications, including MarketWatch.com, where he answers readers questions once a week, Sports Illustrated (don't ask), RealtyTimes.com, BigBuilder and others. Sichelman is married, the father of five and grandfather of eleven.