GovernmentExecutive.com

In a move that might cause indigestion for some lawmakers, the folks at Citizens Against Government Waste are going whole-hog with their famous "Pig Book" of special interest spending they believe is pork.

The watchdog group, which has compiled an annual "Pig Book" of yearly spending projects since 1991, has now put together what amounts to the "Best of the Pig Book," and the volume has just been published by St. Martin's Griffin books.

The immediate impact is that bookstores back home may be carrying the book for all to purchase; whereas the organization's annual book generally doesn't gain widespread public distribution. "We had talked about this for several years," said the group's president Tom Schatz. "We thought it was a way to reach a wider audience." Schatz, who proudly claims credit for coining the book's name, said he hopes this latest installment will "energize the public into deciding that something has to be done."

As usual, the authors are not subtle in their writing. "Over the last two decades, pork-barrel spending has become more notorious in part due to the ugly truth about members of Congress: They waste tax dollars like drunken sailors on shore leave (which may be insulting to our fine men and women, in uniform)."

And as usual, the watchdogs have picked out some juicy items:

• $1 million for the National Flag Museum in Pittsburgh.
• $1 million for a DNA study of bears in Montana.
• $90,000 for the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.
• $3.5 million to restore the Vulcan Monument in Birmingham, Ala.
• $350,000 to restore the House of Representatives Beauty Salon.

As is often the case, many of the projects cited are located in the states or districts of prominent members of the congressional appropriations committees.

Publication of the book may renew controversy over the criteria the group uses. To be classified as pork by the group, a project must meet one of seven standards. It must: be requested by only one member of Congress; not be specifically authorized, competitively awarded or requested by the president; not greatly exceed the president's budget request or the previous year's funding; have failed to be the subject of a congressional hearing or serve only a local or special interest.

Folks at the House Appropriations Committee did not want to comment on the group's activities. However, in the past, appropriators have said that members of Congress often are in a better position to determine where money should be spent rather than relying on bureaucrats in federal agencies to decide. They also have said that projects go through a strict review process and that the president's budget also contains specific earmarks.

Schatz said his group has used the same criteria since the book was first compiled and that members of the congressional "Porkbusters Coalition" use the same standards. "When something isn't authorized, it shouldn't be appropriated," he said. "Certainly the majority of these [standards] make sense." He argued that it is particularly unjust that appropriators receive a disproportionate share of the funding: "That is simply an unfair use of our tax dollars."

Of course, the accepted definition on Capitol Hill seems to be that pork is a project in someone else's district. And to the extent that the new collected works of the "Pig Book" will gain wider distribution now, the tussle over the definition of pork will not end. Some folks will accept it, but others will argue that Citizens Against Government Waste isn't being kosher in blasting members of Congress over pork.