Go Free Yourself

Who’s the biggest piglet in Illinois?

Citizens Against Government Waste and Illinois Policy Institute have teamed up to introduce the 2008 Illinois Piglet Book. Here’s a taste of the bacon:

• $1 million for the Illinois film office in Chicago
• $550,000 for the conservation of pheasants
• $40,000 for the Springfield Figure Skating Club

All in all, the Piglet Book details more than $686 million in state government waste. Check it out here, and watch our friend John Tillman talk about it on Fox News Chicago.

Today, Citizens Against Government Waste released the 2008 Congressional Pig Book and it’s chock full of important (yet horrifying) information about how your tax dollars were frittered away on pet projects this year—and which politicians were responsible.

The numbers speak for themselves. There were 11,610 pork-barrel projects—costing taxpayers $17.2 billion—in the fiscal 2008 budget, including:

• $4,840,870 for wood utilization research;
• $1,529,220 for the Appalachian Fruit Lab;
• $984,400 for Idaho’s strategic plan for managing noxious weeds; and
• $98,000 for a walking tour of Boydton, Va. (population 474).

Learn more about how the government is wasting your money by visiting CAGW’s website. They’re doing good work to help stop “the politics of pork” by informing Americans about how their hard-earned dollars are being misspent by elected officials. You can get involved, too—help spread the word!