Our public officials in Washington continued to spend tax dollars like a bunch of drunken sailors in 2011, leaving taxpayers with a nauseating $15.2 trillion national debt hanging over their future. But who truly stood out as the worst custodian of your hard-earned money last year? Cast your vote for CAGW’s 2011 Porker of the Year!
Chosen by CAGW staff from among the 2011 Porkers of the Month, the nominees are:- Energy Secretary Steven Chu - for weak oversight of the Energy Department’s loan guarantee program, which resulted in huge losses to taxpayers when solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, the recipient of a $535 million loan guarantee, filed for bankruptcy last September.
- Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) - for proposing the putrid Diaper Investment and Aid to Promote Economic Recovery Act (DIAPER) that would make diapers eligible for federal grants when our nation is already swaddled in record debt.
- National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis - for continuing to coddle the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Washington, D.C. at the same time the Park Service has a $10 million backlog of unmet maintenance needs.
- Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) - for suggesting that the United States Postal Service could solve its financial problems by embarking on a new advertising campaign.
- Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) - for littering the fiscal year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act with pork. The bill, drafted and approved on Chairman McKeon’s watch, originally included a slush fund - dubbed the Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund (MFET) - that appeared to have been designed to circumvent the congressional earmark moratorium. Under pressure from the Senate, House members eventually stripped the MFET's 111 legislative provisions, which would have cost taxpayers $651.7 million, from the bill.
- Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) - for his absurd belief that a federally-funded Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada (pop. 17,000) constitutes essential government spending.
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Schatz
President
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