{"id":28019,"date":"2016-04-13T19:11:59","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T23:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=28019"},"modified":"2016-04-13T19:11:59","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T23:11:59","slug":"the-pig-book-summary-is-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=28019","title":{"rendered":"The Pig Book Summary Is Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every year <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Citizens Against Government Waste\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cagw.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">Citizens Against Government Waste<\/a> puts out a <a href=\"http:\/\/cagw.org\/reporting\/pig-book\" target=\"_blank\">Congressional Pig Book Summary<\/a>. The book summarizes the wasteful spending by <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"United States Congress\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=38.8897222222,-77.0088888889&amp;spn=0.01,0.01&amp;q=38.8897222222,-77.0088888889 (United%20States%20Congress)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here is an explanation of how programs are chosen for the honor of being in the book:<\/p>\n<p><strong>The projects in the <i>2016 Congressional Pig Book Summary<\/i> symbolize the most blatant examples of pork. As in previous years, all items in the <i>Congressional Pig Book<\/i> meet at least one of CAGW\u2019s seven criteria, but most satisfy at least two:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Requested by only one chamber of Congress;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Not specifically authorized;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Not competitively awarded;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Not requested by the President;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Greatly exceeds the President\u2019s budget request or the previous year\u2019s funding;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Not the subject of congressional hearings; or<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Serves only a local or special interest.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some examples:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>$10,000,000 for high energy cost grants within the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Rural Utilities Service\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rural_Utilities_Service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Rural Utilities Service<\/a> (<a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Russia\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=55.75,37.6166666667&amp;spn=10.0,10.0&amp;q=55.75,37.6166666667 (Russia)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">RUS<\/a>). The RUS grew out of the remnants of the Department of Agriculture\u2019s Rural Electrification Administration (REA) of the 1930s. The primary goal of the REA was to promote rural electrification to farmers and residents in out-of-the-way communities where the cost of providing electricity was considered to be too expensive for local utilities. By 1981, 98.7 percent electrification and 95 percent telephone service coverage was achieved. Rather than declaring victory and shutting down the REA, the agency was transformed into the RUS, and expanded into other areas.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8230;$60,000,000 for construction of research facilities at the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"National Institute of Standards and Technology\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nist.gov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)<\/a>. According to the legislation, the funding is to initiate \u201cthe design and renovation of its outdated and unsafe radiation physics infrastructure in fiscal year 2016.\u201d Though the legislation does not designate a location for the funding, NIST\u2019s Radiation Physics Division operates facilities in <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Boulder, Colorado\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=40.0194444444,-105.292777778&amp;spn=0.1,0.1&amp;q=40.0194444444,-105.292777778 (Boulder%2C%20Colorado)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">Boulder, Colorado<\/a>, and <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Gaithersburg, Maryland\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=39.1319444444,-77.2263888889&amp;spn=0.1,0.1&amp;q=39.1319444444,-77.2263888889 (Gaithersburg%2C%20Maryland)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">Gaithersburg, Maryland<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8230;$1,150,800,000 for 28 earmarks for health and disease research under the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Military Health System\" href=\"http:\/\/www.health.mil\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">Defense Health Program<\/a>, which is a 7.8 percent increase in cost over the 27 earmarks worth $1,067,115,000 in FY 2015. Former <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Tom Coburn\" href=\"http:\/\/www.coburn.senate.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">Sen. Tom Coburn<\/a>\u2019s (R-Okla.) November 2012 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dtic.mil\/dtic\/tr\/fulltext\/u2\/a570614.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a>, <i>The Department of Everything<\/i>, pointed out that the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"United States Department of Defense\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=38.8709888889,-77.0559611111&amp;spn=0.01,0.01&amp;q=38.8709888889,-77.0559611111 (United%20States%20Department%20of%20Defense)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">DOD<\/a> disease earmarks added by Congress mean that \u201cfewer resources are available for DOD to address those specific health challenges facing members of the armed forces for which no other agencies are focused.\u201d According to the report, in 2010 the Pentagon withheld more than $45 million for overhead related to earmarks, which means those funds were unavailable for national security needs or medical research specifically affecting those serving in the military.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These are only a few examples from the book. The book is available online or to download. The next time Congress complains that it cannot cut the budget, take a look at this book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every year Citizens Against Government Waste puts out a Congressional Pig Book Summary. The book summarizes the wasteful spending by Congress. Here is an explanation of how programs are chosen for the honor of being in the book: The projects &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=28019\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9892,7546,2093,9893],"class_list":["post-28019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-boulder","tag-citizens-against-government-waste","tag-colorado","tag-sen-tom-coburn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28020,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28019\/revisions\/28020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}