Fight Arizona Pork
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.
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.
Technorati tag: porkbusters.
