Can PigFoot present US Rep. Murtha the 2007 Porker of the Year award? Video

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has the latest video on the legendary "PigFoot", their mascot. Here, he tries to give their 2007 Porker of the Year award to US Rep. John Murtha (Dem-PA) during his annual dinner with defense contractors, many of which he gives earmarks to in exchange for campaign contributions!

Here is that video...

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Tell your US Senators to vote YES for year-long earmark moratorium

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is running an internet grassroots campaign to remove earmarks from the federal budgeting process.

Right now, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are offering an amendment to the 2009 budget resolution that will impose a year-long moratorium on congressional earmarks.

Earmarking invites fraudulent behavior, hollows out or national defenses, and diverts lawmakers' attention from important national business like saving Medicare and Social Security for our children and grandchildren. Many congressional offices even have one or more staffers dedicated solely to procuring earmarks.

A year-long moratorium is a critical step forward to stopping Congress’s addiction to earmarking. It will give members time to reform the process, devote more effort to critical issues, and help keep money in taxpayers’ wallets instead of being diverted to Washington where it can be converted into pork.

Please tell your Senators to support the DeMint-McCain Amendment to keep wasteful, pork-barrel spending out of the 2009 budget!

You can also call them through the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

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US Reps. Lois Capps and Devin Nunes named Porkers of the Month

From CAGW's Porker of the Month page:

" Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Reps. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Devin Nunes (R-Calif) Porkers of the Month for attempting to impede the recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicare overpayments. Using Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs), private-sector auditing companies that specialize in uncovering improper payments, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has recouped $357.2 million in overpayments to Medicare providers in California, Florida, and New York since 2005. A demonstration project slated to roll out nationwide next month, the RAC audits have deterred fraud and reduced Medicare’s improper payment rate, according to CMS officials. However, with their home-state hospitals objecting to having to account for $120 million in improper payments, Reps. Capps and Nunes have introduced H.R. 4105, which would place a one-year moratorium on the RAC program, blocking the nationwide rollout and essentially ending the three-state pilot project. For being more interested in kowtowing to pressure from hospitals in their districts that billed for millions they were not entitled to than in shielding the Medicare program and taxpayers from huge losses, CAGW names Reps. Capps and Nunes its February, 2008 Porkers of the Month. "

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U.S. Rep. John Murtha is 2007 Porker of the Year

Well, it's been voted on by you, the citizens at Citizens Against Government Waste-- U.S. Representative John Murtha (Dem.-PA) is the "coveted" (by Murtha) 2007 Porker of the Year!

You saw him throw a temper tantrum and threaten fellow appropriations committee members where his earmarks are often made last May, and voted him Porker of the Month.

But he didn't stop there. Rep. Jack Murtha has long been known inside the Beltway for using threats, power plays, and backroom deals to control spending decisions. There is an area of the House floor known as “Murtha’s Corner,” where the legendary appropriator dispenses earmarks.

Get more of the sordid details of this legendary porkmeister at a webpage devoted just for this "coveted" prize at Swine Line blog.

UPDATE: Judicial Watch's Corruption Chronicles blog shares with us the annual appreciation dinner for Rep. Murtha by the same contractors that enjoy the free federal money known as earmarks:

" To show their appreciation, the contractors hold an annual payback dinner for Murtha at a fancy Washington-area venue. This year’s event (“an evening with Jack and Joyce Murtha”) is scheduled for February 27 at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City in Virginia, across the Potomac from Washington. Diners (earmark recipients) will pay $1,500 a person to eat with Murtha and his wife.

Of interesting note is that the invitations to the costly dinner were sent out right before the annual deadline for earmark applications. Murtha ended up getting more earmark dollars than any other legislator in the massive 2008 military spending bill. He secured 48 earmarks for a total $150.5 million. "

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Program that can recover billions of dollars for Medicare/Medicaid neglected by Congress

The Citizens Against Government Waste newsletter E-News from CAGW reports on a new way to audit and recover billions of dollars per year for Social Security. Unfortunately, the ways of Washington haven't given it the consideration American taxpayers must demand from them.

CAGW reiterated support for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) efforts to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in improper payments made to hospitals and healthcare providers using the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) Program. RACs, which are private-sector auditing companies that specialize in uncovering improper payments, have offered a commonsense solution to the leakage of billions of dollars in overpayments and underpayments to federal healthcare contractors. Audits being conducted in three states (California, Florida, and New York) as part of a CMS demonstration project launched in 2005 have exposed $299.5 million in improper payments, and CMS recently announced that the payment error rate has dropped significantly, translating into $11 billion that the government has retained instead of seeing it paid to healthcare providers who billed for it erroneously. Nonetheless, parochial interests are prompting some politicians to line up to gut the program before it rolls out nationwide. “This program is reducing billing errors, fraud, and abuse, and now it is being undermined by the very people who were elected to protect taxpayers,” declared CAGW President Tom Schatz. Read more about efforts to stymie Medicare provider audits.

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Tell the U.S. House Republican Steering Committee to place Rep. Flake on the Appropriations Cmte.

Citizens Against Government Waste is asking us to help put U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake onto the important House Appropriations Committee. Rep. Flake has been a tireless leader against corruption in Congress, including the unethical earmarks being spent by the billions of dollars each year. If you agree, please write the Republican Steering Committee and urge them to place Rep. Jeff Flake on the House Appropriations Committee.

CAGW has this to say about the dire need to equip this spending committee with fiscally responsible representatives:

Dear __,
Right now, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is seeking to be placed on the House Appropriations Committee. Rep. Flake has been the House’s leading champion for smaller, less wasteful government and has helped spearhead the drive to restore fiscal discipline in Washington.
I urge you, before you do anything else today, to write the Republican Steering Committee and urge them to place Rep. Jeff Flake on the House Appropriations Committee! Rep. Flake has an unblemished record on congressional earmarks, having never requested a single pork-barrel project, and has been a tireless advocate on behalf of all taxpayers. The explosion of earmarks over the 12 years of Republican leadership corresponded with a collapse of fiscal restraint and personal ethics in Congress. While some have argued that the cost of earmarks represents an
insignificant portion of total federal spending, they ignore the outsized role earmarks play as the “currency of corruption” in Washington. They also ignore - at their own peril - how "Bridges to Nowhere" and other poster children for pork undermine the public’s image of Congress.
If Republicans wish to restore fiscal discipline and end the culture of corruption that has consumed Washington, Rep. Flake boasts the credentials to help lead the way. If appointed to the Appropriations Committee, he will help restore integrity to the
appropriations process and refocus Congress’s role on issues of national importance, not on parochial concerns better left to state and local governments, such as bike paths, teapot museums, and peanut festivals.
Time is of the essence. Please tell the Republican Steering Committee to place Rep. Flake on the House Appropriations Committee today!
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Schatz, President

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CAGW Names U.S. Rep. Clyburn Porker of the Month

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has released its November Porker of the Month! He is U.S. Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.). He airdropped a $3 million earmark for the First Tee golf program into the fiscal 2008 Department of Defense Appropriations Act conference report. First Tee’s mission, according to its website, is “To impact the lives of young people by providing learning facilities and educational programs that promote character development and life-enhancing values through the game of golf.”

Rep. Clyburn is a multiple committer of federal government funds to the honorable game of golf. In August 2007, the City of Columbia Golf Center was renamed the James E. Clyburn Golf Center and a statue of him was erected outside the facility. Great Scot! We have two wars going on right now! Does that mean anything anymore? I am teed off...

Congrats and salute to the most popular golfer in Columbia right now...

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Tell your Senators to vote YES for two Farm Bill amendments

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste has an urgent action request. The Senate will soon vote on the 2007 Farm Bill. Tell your Senators to put the interests of taxpayers and consumers first by voting in favor of amendments that would bring about true reform of Depression-era agricultural policies! Below is their request details; if you agree, please take action at this website or send a message on your own:

Dear _,
I urge you as strongly as possible to tell your Senators to support TRUE REFORM in the 2007 Farm Bill. The Senate will begin debating the Farm Bill tomorrow, so it is urgent that you send a message to your Senators right away!
The federal government’s Depression-era web of agricultural subsidies, price and supply controls, and import restrictions long ago outlived their justification. Rather than assisting small family farms, federal agricultural policies overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest farmers and mega-agribusinesses -- to the detriment of those farmers most in need. Today, 60 percent of farms receive either no subsidies or less than $2,000 annually, while the top 10 percent of farm subsidy recipients collected 72 percent of total payments in 2003.
What’s more, this handout to well-heeled, politically influential agribusiness is financed on the backs of American taxpayers and consumers like YOU!
At a time when agricultural income is at record highs and commodity prices are soaring, taxpayers have been paying an average of $20 billion annually for the most expensive farm subsidy payments in history. Sugar price supports alone cost us all $1.9 billion each year in higher prices at the grocery counter, not only for sugar, but also for sugar-containing products, like cereal, baked goods, and candy.
The Farm Bill passed by the House of Representatives in July not only failed to reform existing agricultural policies, it increased subsidy payments. The Senate Agriculture Committee made this bad bill even worse by raising taxes on U.S. businesses in order to pay for yet another disaster assistance program for farmers.
As the full Senate takes up the 2007 Farm Bill, Sens. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) will offer an amendment to replace existing farm subsidies with an insurance program that would enable farmers to mitigate weather and market risks. This would provide a real safety net for farmers, instead of doling out excessive payments to the wealthiest farmers whether they need them or not.
Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) will also offer an amendment to cap annual subsidy payments at $250,000 per farmer and close the loopholes that allow mega-farms to get unlimited payments by creating a complex web of multiple entities. Right now, some farmers receive taxpayer-provided subsidies in excess of $1 million annually!
Please tell you Senators to support taxpayers and consumers and bring TRUE REFORM to federal farm policy by voting in favor of the Lugar-Lautenberg and Grassley-Dorgan amendments!
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Schatz, President
***The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), the nation's largest taxpayer watchdog organization with more than one million members and supporters nationwide.

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CAGW Names U.S. Senator Shelby Porker of the Month

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) Porker of the Month for October 2007 for an $11 million Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) earmark for his alma mater.

Laurels of garland should adorn the esteemed Senators navel for this distinguishable recognition; salute!

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