For Immediate Release                                    Contact:  Leslie K. Paige 202-467-5334
November 27, 2007                                                     Alexa Moutevelis 202-467-5318  

CAGW Uploads Database of Labor-HHS Earmarks

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today makes public a comprehensive, searchable database of the 2,243 earmarks worth $1 billion in the Fiscal 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Act, H.R. 3043.

“CAGW provides taxpayers with the information that Congress wants to keep under wraps:  a convenient, searchable database of earmarked spending,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “With our more transparent format, pork gems such as $882,025 for 25 'abstinence education' programs in the state of Pennsylvania, $500,000 for the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, Nevada, and $400,000 for Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York are more easily found.”

President George W. Bush vetoed the Labor-HHS bill on November 13, and told Congress, “This bill has too many earmarks.  I set out clear goals for the Congress to reform the earmarking process.  The Congress chose not to put earmarks in bill text, instead including nearly all in report language, and they did not reach the goal of cutting the cost and number of earmarks by at least half.” 

CAGW noted a 41 percent decrease in the dollar amount, as well as a 27 percent decrease in the number of projects compared to fiscal year 2005, the last year that a Labor-HHS bill included earmarks.  In that year, the 2005 Congressional Pig Book identified 3,071 projects worth $1.7 billion.  Democrats chalked up $458 million in pork, or 46 percent of the projects, while Republicans received $317 million in pork, or 31 percent of the projects.  The last 26 percent, worth $258 million, was requested by multiple parties.  (Percentages do not add up due to rounding.)

On November 15, the House failed to get the two-thirds majority needed to override the president’s veto, 277-141.  CQ Today reported on the same day that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, “The president vetoed our Labor-HHS bill.  We’re gonna now bundle these bills up, [and] send him a bill splitting the difference between the $22 billion that he says we’re over and his budget number.”

“While Congress dithers over whether to aggregate the Labor-HHS bill into another huge omnibus spending bill, or repackage it as a stand-alone bill to be sent back to the president, taxpayers will have the ability to search the earmark database and lobby their legislator to get rid of specific wasteful spending,” concluded Schatz.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. 

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