Congress Labels Excessively Fatty Foods Unhealthy, Yet The Bill is Stuffed With Pork

(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today condemned the billions in pork-barrel earmarks that are contained in the healthcare reform bills currently being crafted on Capitol Hill.  According to reporter Michael Kranish of The Boston Globe, both the House and Senate versions contain language that would fund billions of dollars in pork-barrel items such as walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and farmers’ markets, which proponents are describing as an attempt to upgrade “health infrastructure” and transform communities.

“It is appalling that members of Congress have withheld critical details related to some of the most important and costly aspects of this bill, grossly misrepresented the economic assumptions underlying their cost estimates, and refused to commit to giving taxpayers a reasonable amount of time to review a new law that could disrupt 18 percent of the economy,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.  “Yet they found time to cram the bill with billions of dollars in self-serving pork-barrel items for boondoggles such walking paths and farmers’ markets.” 

According to The Boston Globe article, the language to fund these pork-barrel items “was inserted at the urging of a nonprofit, nonpartisan group called Trust for America’s Health.”  The Senate bill, commonly referred to as the Kennedy-Dodd bill, contains the most explicit descriptions of these projects, including a section which matches, word-for-word, language that was provided by the group, calling for the creation of an “infrastructure to support active living and access to nutritious foods in a safe environment.’’  In December 10, 2008 congressional testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Trust for America’s Health provided detailed examples of the kind of taxpayer-funded healthcare infrastructure they support, including grants for bike paths, jungle gyms, and lighting.  The group has also lobbied Congress to establish a “Community Makeover Program,” which apparently entails spending money to beautify streets.

During the June 23, 2009 HELP Committee markup of the bill, Sens. Michael Enzi (R-Wyoming) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) offered several amendments to prohibit taxpayer dollars from being spent on such wasteful projects but their amendments were defeated. 

“The healthiest thing that Congress could do for the American people would be to reject the bloated, wasteful, unaffordable Kennedy-Dodd bill and any similar plans.  Instead, healthcare reform should be aimed at creating an authentic, robust market in which consumers and patients control their healthcare dollars, force new efficiencies and squeeze the fat out of the system, and push for higher quality care and better health outcomes,” concluded Schatz. 

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.