WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today announced the nominees for its 2011 Porker of the Year. People may cast their ballots for the candidate they think was the most reprehensible Porker in 2011 in an online poll at www.cagw.org. The six finalists were chosen by CAGW staff from among 12 worthy Porkers of the Month for 2011. The winner will be announced in mid-February. The candidates are:
- Energy Secretary Steven Chu – CAGW named Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu its November Porker of the Month for his weak oversight of DOE’s loan guarantee program (LGP) that resulted in huge losses to taxpayers when solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, the recipient of a $535 million loan guarantee, filed for bankruptcy in September.
- Representative Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) – CAGW named Rep. DeLauro (D-Conn.) its October Pooper – er, Porker of the Month for proposing the putrid Diaper Investment and Aid to Promote Economic Recovery Act (DIAPER). The bill would amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990 to include diapers among the items that may be purchased with the grants.
- National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis – CAGW named National Park Service (NPS) Director Jonathan Jarvis its December Porker of the Month for continuing to coddle the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Washington, D.C. at the same time the NPS has a $10 million backlog of unmet maintenance needs.
- Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) – CAGW named Sen. McCaskill its September Porker of the Month for suggesting that the United States Postal Service (USPS) could solve its financial problems by starting a new ad campaign. At a September 6, 2011 hearing, Sen. McCaskill stated, “I really believe that if somebody would begin to market the value of sending a written letter to someone you love, you might be surprised [by] how you could stabilize first-class mail.”
- House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) – CAGW named Chairman McKeon its June Porker of the Month for littering the fiscal year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act with pork via a slush fund dubbed the Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund (MFET). The final MFET contained 111 legislative provisions costing taxpayers $651.7 million, 53 percent of which were similar to projects defined as earmarks in CAGW’s 2010 Congressional Pig Book. Despite the earmark moratorium, pork lives on.
- Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) – CAGW named Sen. Reid the March 2011 Porker of the Month for his absurd belief that a federally-funded Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada (pop. 17,000) constitutes essential government spending. On March 8, 2011, he stated that were it not for the National Endowment for the Humanities’ grants, the Cowboy Poetry Festival and “the tens of thousands of people who come there every year, would not exist.”
CAGW is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month and Porker of the Year are dubious honors given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.