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CONRESS SPENDERS


Book Names 'Pork-Barrel Pigs' Of Congress

Mississippi Senator Spent $892M On Pork-Barrel Projects, Group Says

POSTED: 9:41 am MDT April 2, 2008
UPDATED: 3:45 pm MDT April 2, 2008

Congress spent $17.2 billion of taxpayer money on pork-barrel projects, according to the Citizens Against Government Waste.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit group released its annual book detailing congressional spending for the 2008 fiscal year.

For the first time, the names of members of Congress were added to the projects. The top three spenders were Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., with $892 million; Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska with $469 million; and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., with $465 million. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., was No. 13 on the list with $296 million in pork-barrel projects and her presidential rival Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was No. 69 with $97 million. Sen. John McCain R-Ari., was among five senators who didn't spend a single pork-barrel dollar, according to the list.

"Last year at this time, we had a tiny little 12-page pig book summary," said Thomas A. Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. "We were hopeful that it would be either the same size or smaller in 2008, but needless to say members of Congress who added the projects did not disappoint us and came up with the second-largest number of projects."

Alaska led the nation with $556 in pork per capita ($380 million total), followed by Hawaii with $221 ($283 million) and North Dakota with $208.

Citizens Against Government Waste counted 11,610 projects in the current spending plan. The 59-page Pig Book highlights 1,188 projects totaling $2.8 billion that "symbolize the most egregious and blatant examples of pork."
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