This little piggy

Citizens Against Government Waste, that diligent, nonpartisan watchdog over the public pocketbook, has just released its 1999 Pig Book. As usual, this annual accounting of the success members of Congress had last year in larding up the home state is thorough, insightful and, in a revolting sort of way, rather entertaining.

And, as usual, you won’t find Maine anywhere near the feeding frenzy. It’s far from the trough, the second-littlest piglet in the Union, the malnourished oinker with the sunken cheeks and the protruding ribs.

CAWG identifies 2,838 projects worth $12 billion as pork: federal spending that serves only a local or special interest, that greatly exceeds the previous year’s appropriation, that was not requested by the president or by the relevant agency, that was not competitively awarded or subject to hearings.

The Big Sows, tipping the scales between $100-million to nearly $200 million, are Alaska, Hawaii, West Virginia and Montana. Not the biggest states, just the states with members of Congress who control the Appropriations Committee.

Alaska got $168 million for 77 pork projects last year, $273 per resident; Hawaii $185 million, $155 per. Maine? A mere $5.4 million; five projects, about five bucks a head. Only Delaware — tiny, polite, chemical/banking rich Delaware — got less.

Of course one taxpayer’s pork is another’s vital investment in the future. Here’s what vital investments were funded in Maine: $220,000 for blueberry research; $250,000 for a UMaine plant, soil and water lab; $375,000 each for land aquisition at the Petit Manan and Rachel Carson wildlife refuges; and, the biggie, $4.1 million to dredge Portland Harbor.

Here’s a few tasty Alaskan tidbits: $12.5 million to study how the energy of the Aurora Borealis might be harnessed; $10.4 million for a municipal garage; $2.4 million for police mobile data terminals; $2.5 million for the UAlaska museum; $2.5 million for a maritime school’s vessel simulator; $11.2 million to rehab buildings; $5 million to raze one that’s beyond rehab. More than $25 million for railroad, road and harbor improvements. Not to mention $750,000 for grasshopper research.

West Virginia has long been one of the best-fed states, thanks to years of diligent service by Sen. Robert Byrd. The senator who insisted on established procedure during the impeachment trial never let procedure stop him from bringing home the bacon — with last year’s $95 million, he became CAGW’s first billion-dollar man.

Such as: $16.7 million for a federal courthouse the Justice Department does not want; $13.5 military training center the military does not want; $15 million for bus stations for buses West Virginians don’t ride. Where better than this mountainous huib of high-tech to spend $3.5 million on a center to study positron emmission tomography? Where better, Mainers surely agree, to build the $2 million National Center for Cool and Cold Water Aquaculture than Leetown, W.Va.? Or to spend $750,000 on aquaculture marketing and product development.

Sparsely populated North Dakota ($28 million total) got nearly twice as much to build a fitness center as Maine got altogether. Utah is rewarded for turning the 2002 Olympics into a national disgrace with $40 million, including $9.5 million for buses to get spectators to the scene of the crime. New Hampshire (Live Free on the Dole) got more than $25 million: The state with about 10 miles of coastline got $5.8 million to create the Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology.

CAGW’s annual Luau Award went to, appropriately, Hawaii’s Sen. Daniel Inouye for congressional service both long and porcine. The $1 million appropriated for brown tree snake research must be the capstone of his career. Ohio Rep. Louis Stokes captured the Narcissus Award for using his leadership position on the VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommitee to shove through $20.8 million to build the Louis Stokes Veteran Affairs Center in Cleveland.

No doubt, Maine should be proud that the men and women it sends to Washington are so modest, so frugal. And it’s not just in Congress. CAGW specifically praised the Defense Department under Secretary William Cohen for low-fat budgetting. Still, as the state faces the challenges of the new millenium — rail to the ort of Eastport, a modern highway for its northern tier, crumbling schools, declining industries — one question rises above all others. What’ll it take to get Robert Byrd to move to Milo and run for Congress?