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Fight Arizona Pork

September 19, 2005, 11:17 am

President Bush's call for Katrina spending to be offset by budget cuts has spurred a blogosphere effort to identify local pork urge Congress to cut the pork.  I am 98% behind this effort (the missing 2% being that the effort is spurred by a desire to spend the money somewhere else, rather than sending it back to taxpayers where it belongs).  Glenn Reynolds post that got the ball rolling is here.  His followup posts are here and here.  I will note the irony that I recently compared Don Young (of Alaska bridge to nowhere fame) to Huey Long (of multiple bridges to nowhere fame), given that we are looking to cut Don Young's pork to help Huey Long's old stomping ground.

Porkbusterssm

Edward at Zonitics has already identified one of the most visible chunks of AZ pork, that is our earmarks in the recent highway bill.  These include nearly five million for a couple of pedestrian bridges, plus hundreds of millions for a rail system to run empty trains to compete with our empty buses.  Why does the rest of the country need to pay for Phoenix's growth?  Heck, we just took the money the feds saved us on this junk and spent it subsidizing a stadium for the Cardinals, for god's sakes.   I will note that of the mere 8 people who voted against the highway bill, 2 were from Arizona, including my 3rd district Congressman John Shadegg and libertarian Jeff Flake.  Flake, consistent with his libertarian principles (or in retribution for them?) represents the only district in the country without an earmark in the highway bill.

So, to push the ball forward, I will add another bit of Arizona pork.  I wanted to include some items form the energy bill, but I can't find a state by state impact.  But I can find, thanks to the environmental working group, a nice summary of farm subsidies to Arizona.  Here is a summary for the most recent year they have data:

Rank Program
(click for top recipients, payment concentration and regional rankings)		 Number of Recipients
2003		 Subsidy Total
2003
1 Cotton Subsidies   1,339   $103,125,972
2 Subtotal, Disaster Payments   1,966   $11,915,428
3 Env. Quality Incentive Program   254   $5,619,853
4 Wheat Subsidies   1,018   $5,192,003
5 Dairy Program Subsidies   128   $4,925,610
6 Livestock Subsidies   1,460   $3,050,869
7 Corn Subsidies   514   $1,500,291
8 Barley Subsidies   729   $660,236
9 Apple Subsidies   17   $271,523
10 Wool Subsidies   1,219   $259,616

And here is the same data but cut by recipient, with just the top 20 included:

1 Colorado River Indian Tribes Farm Parker, AZ 85344 $2,102,881
2 Ak-chin Farms Maricopa, AZ 85239 $1,499,278
3 Gila River Farms Sacaton, AZ 85247 $1,406,582
4 Catron Cotton Co Tonopah, AZ 85354 $1,156,539
5 Tohono O'odham Farming Authority Eloy, AZ 85231 $1,078,480
6 Bia Sacaton, AZ 85247 $1,064,062
7 Eagle Tail Farming Partnership Buckeye, AZ 85326 $1,045,584
8 Tempe Farming Company Maricopa, AZ 85239 $947,811
9 Fort Mojave Tribe Mohave Valley, AZ 86446 $938,843
10 P R P Farms Buckeye, AZ 85326 $899,098
11 G P A Management Group Tempe, AZ 85284 $893,672
12 Gin Ranch 94 Buckeye, AZ 85326 $889,764
13 H Four Farms III Buckeye, AZ 85326 $863,086
14 Brooks Farms Goodyear, AZ 85338 $861,762
15 Green Acres Farms Buckeye, AZ 85326 $812,583
16 Martori Family Gen Ptn Scottsdale, AZ 85260 $788,150
17 Falfa Farms 95 Queen Creek, AZ 85242 $779,426
18 Associated Farming 92 Laveen, AZ 85339 $749,947
19 A Tumbling T Ranches 95 Goodyear, AZ 85338 $709,455
20 Rogers Brothers Farms Ptnshp Laveen, AZ 85339 $706,305

I don't know all these folks, but I can say that all of the first three have extremely profitable casinos they operate.

I am writing my letter now to the my Congressman and Senators, and will post a copy as an update when I am done.  The ubiquitous NZ Bear has a data base he is building of pork identified.

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Category: Politics

3 Comments

  1. Thomas Galvin:

    The link to your blog from NZ Bear doesn't work. Maybe you should inform him.

    Keep up the good work.

    September 19, 2005, 11:57 am

  2. BridgetB:

    As an aside cutting Cotton Subsidies would also go a long way to reducing the load on the already overused water supply in Tuscon and the other very dry areas of AZ. Cotton is the biggest user of water, as cash crops go. Why is is grown in such abundance in an arid land with a limited water supply?

    Cut the PORK!

    September 20, 2005, 1:13 pm

  3. Porkopolis:

    I've been tracking Ohio Pork as well:

    I've put together a spreadsheet of 5,091 earmarks (all 50 States) as part of the analysis of the Highway Bill with respect to Ohio's pork.

    Spreadsheet (in zip format): detailing $14,823,809,666 in earmarks can be found at:

    http://porkopolis.blogspot.com/2005/09/5091-highway-porkbuster-earmarks.html

    September 21, 2005, 9:49 am