About Colorado Pork

Colorado isn’t in the top ten hog producing states in the United States.  It also doesn’t receive much federal pork, despite the fact that a majority of its Congressional delegation belongs to the majority party in Congress, the Republicans.  This is particularly surprising considering that Wayne Allard, the senior Republican Senator from Colorado, sits on both the budget and appropriations committees.

According to the 2005 Congressional Pig Book Summary (my source is hard copy) of the Citizens Against Government Waste, Colorado ranked 44th among all 50 states in federal money brought into the the state. With $20.18 per capita in pork spending (the national average is $33.03), Colorado gets more money than only the following states, in descending order: Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, California, and Texas (don’t cry for Texas by the way, they get oil and gas tax cuts instead).  The biggest boondoggles were found in Alaska, Hawaii and the District of Columbia. 

Apparently, our representatives were too busy thinking about sex and torture and immigration to bring home the bacon.