During the Congressional "Memorial Day District Work Period,"  Members of Congress, back in their home districts, had to answer to constituents about their voting records and positions on issues of importance to most Americans, such as immigration, energy and the War in Iraq, to name a few.  Surely, another issue that was widely discussed was rampant government spending and Congress' obsession with "pork."

Recently, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) published its annual Congressional Pig Book, highlighting the most egregious pork barrel spending projects approved by Congress.  Tom Schatz, President of the CAGW, joined CFIF Corporate Counsel & Senior Vice President Renee Giachino on "Your Turn – Meeting Nonsense With Common Sense" on WEBY 1330AM, Northwest Florida's Talk Radio, to discuss the 2006 Congressional Pig Book Summary.  What follows are excerpts from the interview.

GIACHINO:  Down here in the south, we have a strong like for pork, particularly the type smothered in barbeque sauce.  But in Washington, D.C. they share a strong taste for pork, however, within the beltway, it is a different kind of pork.  I'm talking about pork projects.  It is reported that in Fiscal Year 2006, Members of Congress added 9,963 earmarks to 11 appropriations bills, adding $29 billion in federal spending to the budget.

Recently Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released its annual report, dubbed the "Pig Book," which lists nearly 10,000 items put into appropriations bills for this fiscal year that it says weren't scrutinized during normal congressional procedures or required to meet grant requirements.

Joining us this afternoon to talk about pork projects in our federal budget is Thomas A. Schatz, the President of CAGW and its lobbying arm, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW).  Mr. Schatz is a nationally recognized spokesperson on government waste and has appeared on hundreds of talk radio and national television shows.  Prior to joining CAGW in 1986, Mr. Schatz spent six years as legislative director for Congressman Hamilton Fish and two years practicing law and lobbying.

Mr. Schatz holds a law degree from George Washington University and graduated from the State University of New York with a BA degree, With Honors, in Political Science. 

Please welcome to "Your Turn" Mr. Schatz.  Thank you so much for joining us.

SCHATZ:  Thank you very much.  I am glad to be on.

GIACHINO: Can you please tell us more about Citizens Against Government Waste and how the listeners can learn more about your organization?

SCHATZ:  The organization was started, as you mentioned, back in 1984 following the Grace Commission Report.  We now have more than one million members and supporters throughout the country.  And our website, www.cagw.org, is really the best place to get information.  Or you can call our 800 number at 800-BE-ANGRY.  Don't be too angry, but be angry.  Save that for our Members of Congress who are wasting our money.  And the group follows the expenditure of tax dollars here in Washington.  The most significant publication that we put out is the Congressional Pig Book once a year that identifies what we call pork-barrel spending in the appropriations bills which Congress moves through each year.  And the first pig book came out in 1991.  We have identified, as you mention, 963 projects this year, which is lower than last year but also a record amount of $29 billion which is up about 6% over last year.  There are lots of examples of how Congress is wasting our money.

GIACHINO:  Can you help me and the listeners to better understand how Citizens Against Government Waste defines pork?

SCHATZ:  The definition was created back in 1991 in conjunction with the Congressional Pork Busters Coalition and I guess the simplest way to say it is that it is projects swept in at the last minute behind closed doors without any scrutiny.  A more formal way of saying that is projects not competitively awarded, that were not the subject of hearings, that were not authorized, that were requested only by the House or only by the Senate, and that also were not requested by the various federal agencies that are in charge of various programs.

I think people understand that these are projects that are added outside the normal review process, mostly added in the states and districts where there are members of the Appropriations Committee and a lot of them are added in the final conference between the Senate and House, where the other members of the House and Senate never really have a chance to see or vote on them.

GIACHINO:  Okay.  Let me back up just a second.  Can you help us better understand how the appropriations process works?  What is the normal procedure outside of a pork project?

SCHATZ:  Well the authorizing committees, mainly meaning the House Armed Services Committee or Labor and Health and Human Services Committee, well different committees in the House, and then there are separate appropriations committees.  The authorizing committees are supposed to review various appropriations within their jurisdiction and make various recommendations on how much money should be spent and also how it should be spent.  They are basically the ones who pass the laws that allow these programs to exist.  The appropriations committees are there essentially to allow the expenditure of that money.  And they are dispensing this money where the authorizing committees are essentially approving the expenditure.  That is the way it is supposed to work.  And the authorizing committees are supposed to provide the details necessary to make sure those programs have received some scrutiny.  But they don't do a good job of that.

So the appropriations committees get these bills, their own appropriations bills, and have lots of opportunities to add various projects that have not been subject to any review.  So it again does not work as it is supposed to.  And the members of Congress who end up voting for these appropriations bills end up getting enough of these projects that they may not like the other provisions and they may not like the overall level of spending but they have gotten a few projects and that is how a lot of these bills get through.

GIACHINO:  You mentioned that there are lots of opportunities to add things into appropriations bills.  Are there equal opportunities to take things out?  Are we an equal opportunity Congress?  Can we take out line-item appropriations?

SCHATZ:  You've asked the appropriate question.  The answer is no.  And that is one of the reasons that we are very supportive of current efforts to reform this process to allow members to make it easier to get things out as it is to get things in.  The way it works now is that legislation goes onto the floor of the House and Senate and sometimes amendments are allowed and sometimes they are not.  There is also a side deal, called the Committee Reports, which do not have the force of law yet that is where most of the projects are added.  And the Senate, for example, cannot amend a House Committee Report.  It can amend the bill as it is called, but not the report.  So the projects just sit there.  And even though they are not part of the legislation, the federal agencies really have to fund those projects because the appropriations committees have made it very clear that if they don't those agencies' funding will be in jeopardy the next year.  So what you essentially have is an extra-legal system of funding these projects because the Constitution is very clear when it says "Congress shall appropriate money" and it is spent under a law.  And if you don't have a law, as is the case with these Committee Reports, Congress is really sneaking around the Constitution.  And this is an accepted practice here in Washington.

GIACHINO:  So where is the legal challenge to this?  My gosh, we are challenging everything else under our Constitution.  Where is the legal challenge to this?

SCHATZ:  Well it is an informal way of spending the money and as I said extra-legal.  And the challenge really could only come from Members of Congress.  Of course the agencies are not going to do it.  Taxpayers unfortunately don't have standing and they have challenged lots of things like this and don't succeed.  And I think it is like undeclared war.  You are supposed to declare war when you go somewhere yet I think it is very rare.  And this is the same type of activity – you are supposed to include these projects in the legislation.  Now the changes that are under consideration, what is called earmark reform, would require those projects to be in the legislation, both directly and indirectly.  The direct way by saying that anything in the Committee Report can be ignored by the federal agencies.  It is something that we are working very hard to get into these various reform bills that are moving through Congress, albeit very slowly.  And of course the appropriations committee members do not like this because it would mean that they have less power.

GIACHINO:  I may be reaching on this, but I am highly offended by the fact that as a taxpayer I do not have standing to challenge the fact that these committee items get funded and appropriations are made. Is there any creative way to make the argument that this is taxation without representation?  If they have found a cute way to get this stuff paid for without getting it into the legislation, couldn't we make some sort of argument that would give us taxpayers the standing to challenge these pork projects?

SCHATZ:  That is certainly worth a shot.  In all honesty, we are not going to devote the resources of our organization to suing them because we have limited resources and they have more than ample resources to say the least.

GIACHINO:  Yes, our resources.

SCHATZ:  Right.  But it is a good question.  In all honesty it is a good question for anyone listening to this show.  And I know that it is a little complex but obviously when you see your legislator – your congressman or senators back home, ask them that question.  How can they spend money out of Committee Reports that do not have the force of law?  I bet a lot of Members of Congress do not even themselves understand that that is the case.

GIACHINO:  I think the question that I have for our legislators is almost the opposite.  Our state, Florida, is ranked 50^th in your book in terms of pork per capita for the state.  My question is what are we doing wrong?  Where is all that money and why is it not coming to Florida?

SCHATZ:  Now that is good, we like that.

GIACHINO:  I know it is a good think.  I am joking.

Let me turn for a minute to the book itself.  The title is Citizens Against Government Waste 2006 Congressional Pig Book Summary.  Then the subtitle says "The Book Washington Doesn't Want You to Read."  Tom, do you think Congress thinks that we the taxpayers are not paying attention?  Are we not paying attention?  Is the media not paying attention?

SCHATZ:  A couple of answers.  If they thought the taxpayers were paying attention they would not be doing this.  In a sense taxpayers are culpable because they do not complain enough and they seem very accepting of the projects that come to their districts and states.  When you look at the overall expenditures -- $29 billion in pork, for example the $500,000 for the Teapot Museum in North Carolina, would you go to your next door neighbor and say that you would like your share of the Teapot Museum and give it to me and I'll send it to Washington.  But that is what happens.  The projects that might look good in your own backyard are in fact tied up with a lot of these other projects that people are unhappy about.  And I think we have been lulled into a sense of complacency about this, in part because we have our taxes withheld and we don't write checks unless you are a small business owner and in part because we have been sold a legal form of bribery when our money goes to Washington and gets washed around and comes back and it looks like they are doing us a favor.  And it is also the nomenclature, the way that we are saying these things, the "government's money."  It is not, it is the taxpayer's money.

Congressman Tom Feeney from Florida was at a press conference with a number of groups recently, it was Citizens Against Government Waste, the American Conservative Union, Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, National Taxpayers Union, Club for Growth, and about half a dozen Members of Congress.  Congressman Feeney said that when he went home he heard two things:  high gas prices and wasteful spending.  And obviously as a very good fiscally conservative Republican he said they are not a majority yet and he said something needs to get down up here.  He said that if we would at least elect a Democrat Senate or House then there would be grid lock up there and we would not be wasting so much money.  When you come to that point, maybe that is what they need to hear to actually do things differently.

We don't just have the record pork, we also have this new supplemental emergency bill for Iraq and Hurricane Katrina and the House agreed to $92 billion what the President asked for and the Senate added $14 billion, including $4 billion for drought relief in the Midwest.  What does that have to do with the hurricane?  In fact, it's quite the opposite of the hurricane.  And what does it have to do with the war?  And what about the $700 million railroad to nowhere in Mississippi?

GIACHINO:  Let's name a couple of the other ones.  I went through the book and found it fascinating.  And it is something that we as taxpayers should be obliged to read and understand so that we know how our money is being spent.

You mentioned the $500,000 that went for a Teapot Museum in Sparta, North Carolina.  The book also identifies $1 million going to the Water Free Urinal Conservative that Representative Vernon Ehlers from Michigan added to the defense budget.  Have you any idea what that is?

SCHATZ:  Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like.  It is a water free urinal and in certain places it might be useful but I think that during the middle of a war the Pentagon thought that the regular flushing toilets were adequate because they did not ask for these water-free urinals in the Pentagon's budget.  And that is the simple answer.  It may or may not be cost savings and it may or may not be useful, but let's guess that the congressman has a company in his district that makes these.  That's why it is in there.

GIACHINO:  We are talking with Tom Schatz, the President of Citizens Against Government Waste, and we are going over their recently released 2006 Pig Book Summary which includes in it $13.5 million added by the House for the International Fund for Ireland which funds such projects as the World Toilet Summit.  Is that right?

SCHATZ:  That is correct.  Talk about flushing our tax dollars down the drain.  The International Tax Fund for Ireland has gotten hundreds of millions of dollars since the inception of support for that organization in the 1980s.  The Irish economy might even be better than ours and there is even peace over there.  The original purpose has certainly been superseded and so there is no reason to continue to send them this money.

GIACHINO:  Some argue that one person's pork is another's essential public service.  I know some folks in Congress have been known to say "oink, oink" to your pig book and call it off the mark, suggesting that even a project that meets all seven of the criteria that you spell out in the book may still be necessary and not necessarily pork.  Tom is that a fair criticism?

SCHATZ:  I don't know.  I wonder what people think of $100,000 for Toledo, Ohio to build their ice skating rinks.  Should the federal government be involved in that?  How about purchasing an historical farm in Green, Ohio?  Building a YMCA Community place?  All of these things are worthy and maybe they deserve support, but it does not seem to me that all of these should be in there.  You have $100,000 for Ft. Ann in New York to construct the Adirondack Golden Goal Complex, the crown jewel of youth soccer arenas.  It gets more absurd every time you read this.

These are not subject to any review process so you cannot tell which ones should be included and which ones should not based on merit which is why you look at the process – and getting around the regular budget process, that we talked about and that's how we pick out these projects and say they fall within the criteria.  We are not necessarily going to judge their worth, although you can in some cases say that it is absurd under any circumstances.  Whether it's a defense project or a new library or a bicycle path, they are all equally fitting within the criteria.

GIACHINO:  It sure makes sense then when you hear about the proposal like the one from Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona that would require earmarks to be clearly identified with the House member proposing it? I think greater transparency could bring greater accountability.

Tom, we have a caller on the line, can we take the call?

SCHATZ:  Sure.

GIACHINO:  Go ahead caller, it's your turn.

CALLER:  It seems like Congressman Ron Paul is the best one up there.  I wonder if you have any comments on him.

SCHATZ:  Congressman Paul is very good and obviously libertarian more than conservative, basically trying to stick to what the original intent was of the Constitution – a limited federal government, leaving most of the rest of the efforts and spending to the states and local governments.  We wish in many ways that there were more Members of Congress who viewed our national government in a similar manner so that we would have a lower deficit, less control of our lives here in Washington and give more money back to the people.

CALLER:  I think they tried to get a bill through where they had to say whenever they spent money how it fit in the Constitution.  Is that right?

SCHATZ:  That's right.  I don't believe that is the law but I know that he has tried to do that.

CALLER:  Thank you very much.

GIACHINO:  Thank you, we appreciate the call.  The unlucky day of April 15^th (tax day) has passed.  The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C., estimates that tax freedom day this year is April 26th, three days later than in 2005. What that means is that is the day when Americans have earned enough money in the year to pay their taxes if every cent of their earnings were turned over to the government. From that point on, theoretically we get to keep all of our money.  Tom, how do you think things would change if we can eliminate some of the pork projects?

SCHATZ:  Certainly we would have more money to ourselves, hopefully.  Or on the other hand we would hopefully be able to end the decreases in the deficit and the debt because the other side of the coin in terms of what is happening to the future of the country is that we are leaving this expense to our children and grandchildren.  It certainly is unfair.  And speaking of the founding fathers and the Constitution, it is totally opposed to what they considered.  Thomas Jefferson said we should not be leaving debts to future generations and he was one of the many who said that.

This is not what we should be doing.  We are supposed to be leaving a better economy and a better country and the continued waste of our money is just an abdication of responsibility and again people have to look a little bit beyond their new bricks on the sidewalk or in some cases where the federal government puts in some lighting on streets, this is not what the federal government should be doing.

GIACHINO:  Okay Tom, one last opportunity.  Please let the listeners know how they can read this wonderful book – The 2006 Congressional Pig Book Summary.  Is it available on line?

SCHATZ:  Yes it is.  It is at www.cagw.org.  You can down load it.  It is long.  It is 48 pages and that is just the summary.  You can look at the larger list of 9963 projects and go state by state.  Or you can call our 800 number at 1-800-BE-ANGRY and we will be happy to send a pig book along with your support of our group and of course that will enable us to do more work to fight wasteful spending.

GIACHINO:  Thank you very much.  Also, in the back of the book you might be interested in reading the list of "oinkers" for 2006.  Tom Schatz thank you very much for your hard work on behalf of all of us taxpayers and we thank Citizens Against Government Waste for putting out this book.

SCHATZ:  Thank you.