For Immediate Release June 24, 2011

Contact:  Leslie K. Paige 202-467-5334 Luke Gelber 202-467-5318

Washington, D.C. – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its preliminary analysis of the House version of the fiscal year (FY) 2012 Department of Defense Appropriations Act. The bill includes $530 billion for non-emergency defense spending – an increase of $17 billion over FY 2011 and $9 billion below the President’s request – as well as $119 billion in emergency spending for the Global War on Terror, an increase of $841.5 million above the President’s request.

Unfortunately for taxpayers, the bill contains $3.9 billion for 72 programs that either were not requested by the Pentagon, represent a substantial increase over the budget request, and/or were only added by the House, thus meeting CAGW’s long-established earmark criteria. Many of these initiatives are identical to earmarks from prior years; members of Congress have relabeled them “Programmatic Requests” in a transparent attempt to skirt the requirements of its ongoing earmark moratorium.

“Because of Congress’s earmark moratorium and the convoluted process by which the FY 2011 continuing resolution was passed, there was no 2011 Congressional Pig Book this year,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. "However, reports of the Pig Book’s death appear to have been greatly exaggerated. The FY 2012 Defense Appropriations Act is packed with pork, and many of the requests have nothing to do with the military, from funding for historically black colleges, to ‘tactical athlete’ programs, to health research that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called duplicative. On June 14, 2011, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) stated, ‘No bill or department should be immune from scrutiny during these difficult financial times.’ This opaque process will result in less transparency and accountability and more wasteful spending.”

The following are some of the most outrageous examples of pork that members of the House added to the Defense Appropriations Act:

• $1.5 billion for “miscellaneous equipment” for the Air Force, Army and Marine Reserves and the Air and Army National Guard; about 10 times the amount spent in this category in prior years.
• $499,100,000 for various medical research programs that also receive billions of dollars at other federal agencies, including studies of Parkinson’s disease, autism, ovarian cancer, and global HIV/Aids prevention.
• $54,000,000 for National Guard Counter-Drug Program State Plans and Young Marine Drug Demand Reduction.
• $25,000,000 for small business technology projects, at the same time Treasury Secretary Geithner is starting to release the first $11.5 billion out of $30 billion in loans approved by Congress last September.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.