Help pick the 'Porker of the Year'

Citizens Against Government Waste (the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government) has released its list of nominees for 2009 Porker of the Year.

The six finalists were chosen by CAGW staff from among 12 worthy Porkers of the Month for 2009, and voters are free to pick anyone else they believe deserves this dubious achievement award.

You can vote online at www.cagw.org/porkeroftheyear/

"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, according to CAGW.

The candidates are:

-- Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) - Named July's Porker, Rep. Carnahan was caught on videotape by a vigilant citizen blogger at a town hall meeting held in St. Louis where he grossly misrepresented the costs associated with the controversial healthcare reforms bills under consideration in Congress.

-- Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) - Named August's Porker, Rep. Abercrombie ranked first in earmarks in the House in fiscal year (FY) 2009 with 44 projects worth $256.8 million; he routinely abuses an already-stretched Pentagon budget to reward favored contractors and supports funding a wasteful and unnecessary alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter.

-- House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) - Named March's Porker, Chairman Frank had expressed outrage over reports that insurance giant and TARP recipient AIG had distributed millions in bonuses to its executives. The Chairman has made ample contributions to the nation's current economic meltdown, spending years defending the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and once telling The New York Times that the companies were not facing "any kind of financial crisis."

-- Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) - Named October's Porker, the four-term Texas senator claims to be a fiscal conservative, but requested 149 projects worth $1.6 billion for authorization and appropriations bills for fiscal year 2010, exemplifying the tiresome hypocrisy of some members of Congress who claim the badge of fiscal conservatism while continuing to abscond with billions of dollars in pork.

-- Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood - Named January's Porker, the then newly-minted Transportation Secretary and long-time porker in the House was about to preside over the distribution of tens of billions of tax dollars for transportation projects in the stimulus package passed in February, 2009.

-- Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) - Named June's Porker, Rep. Waters provoked a tussle with House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) over her intention to obtain an earmark for the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center, a facility within the Los Angeles school system, reminding taxpayers that members of Congress still have not banned the practice naming projects after themselves.