Congress Sets Record For Pork

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Congress Sets Record For Pork

Bolstered by a fat economy and budget surplus, the year 2000 budget set a new record in Congress for special projects like animal waste management research and revitalizing shopping malls. The budget contained $17.7 billion in pork-barrel spending—the total cost to taxpayers, 47% higher than in fiscal 1999, and 22% higher than the previous record of $14.5 billion set in fiscal 1997.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, was the big winner. Stevens is a master at sending copious amounts of taxpayer's dollars to Alaska (population 614,000—about the size of Milwaukee,) threatening to outdo even the legendary Senator Robert Byrd whose name adorns many highways and buildings in his home state of West Virginia.

Bacon Bits For Alaska

1. $7.9 million to build the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and visitor center in Homer.

2. $900,000 for an airport on St. George's Island, a tiny speck off Alaska's coast.

3. $2.5 million to train Russian and other foreign workers in oil field management in Alaska.

4. $2 million to monitor Alaskan skies for volcanic ash.

5. $15 million for the University of Alaska to study the aurora borealis, a perennial pet project of Stevens.

6. $100,000 to conduct a census of Pacific walruses.

7. $4 million to help stranded sea lions.

8. $5 million to monitor fish.

9. $2.5 million for buses for the Special Olympics in Anchorage.

10. $22 million in emergency funding over 3 years for four tiny towns in southeast Alaska that were hard hit by restrictions on tree cutting.

11. $900,000 to the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association. (Said the association's executive director Jude Henzler, “Senator Stevens, God bless him. You can't lard it on too thick.”)

Source: “Congress On Record Course For Pork,” Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times, November 16, 1999.

This article first appeared in Volume 5, Issue 4 of "The Social Security and Medicare Advisor" newsletter (March/2000). To receive future editions of "The Advisor" in its special, free e-mail version, please click here.