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president or wherever books are sold. back we are back with the president and we will talk about this year's congressional pig. first, tell us what this is ? >> citizens against government waste was founded in 1984 with president reagan so we've been around a long time. since then we have of course been investigating, researching, exposing and exposing government fraud and abuse and the rest around since 1991 and we have identified hundred 11,000, 114 earmarks with 314 billion dollars so when people say just a little here are a few thousand there but adds up and they are corrupting, costly and equitable and we could talk

more about them but it's one of the many publications that we put out each year, and certainly something we've been working on for a long time . >> since we are talking about money, the viewers always have this question, so how does government waste get funded? >> we are funded by individuals and by associations and foundations so the vast majority of our money comes from individual taxpayers and always has . >> so we will also talk about federal earmarks so that set the stage for what is an earmark ? >> this is our definition of the seven criteria that we developed back in 1991 with the congressional pork busters coalition. this was added by the house or senate not thickly authorized or hearings serving only local or special interest greatly exceeding the president budget or last year's funding. this is been the same criteria

since 1991 and again is something we've been doing and exposing for a long time. >> so, what did you find in this year's search for government waste and what are the things we should look for in this year's congressional pig book? >> the numbers themselves are higher than last year, $15.3 billion, 4% increase over the $14.7 billion in fiscal year 2018 and it's more than double the $6.8 billion in fiscal year 2017 so it's going in the wrong direction and the number by the way is more than half of the record $29 billion from 2006. the number of earmarks is 282, 22% from the 232 last year so, the numbers are not going in the right direction. there is good news, the chair of the house of appropriations committee said that they will

not have earmarks in fiscal year 2020 and the upcoming appropriations bills they are working on now in the senate republicans, this is the first time ever that any group of members of congress has agreed to a permanent ban on earmarks so another subject to the moratorium and were still finding earmarks by definition but they agreed to occur in advance and that's just a rule, not a law. so, it's a good step in the right direction and i think part of it is that they've seen that the number keeps growing . >> so when you say that the center republican has a ruler not allow what is the difference? does it mean that there is not really this in existence, what you mean? >> it is in existence a means they won't add earmarks to any of the bills while they are considering them in the senate appropriations . >> just the republicans . >> but again, they are the republican majority. that means -- by their definition they will not add into the appropriations and that is one of the reasons that the house of appropriations chair said, we don't have a

bipartisan agreement to for earmarks on the bill so the house is supposedly not going to do them as well. so, it's a little complicated because it's a lot easier to say the house passed a law in the senate passed the bill but that they do a lot of things based on the rules for which they can change every congress and sometimes they go over to the next congress but it's an important step in something that really, hopefully, it set an example for the rest of congress . >> what were some of the big things you found and earmarked and some of the things you found that look weird? . >> weird is fruit fly quarantine, $9 million, the last time they added any of this money for fruit flies was 10 years ago so, a lot of these things go in and out with $13.2 million for wildhorse and borough management and there is also $7.9 million for fish screens and $863,000 for

controlled ground tree snakes in guam . >> wow. so, where do the earmarks come from and who is putting these into these bills? expect that is the great question, who is putting these in? there was a rule requiring members to add their name to the earmarks so there was a list the name of the member, project, how much it would cost and during that time to share the inequity of earmarks, the 81 members of the house and senate appropriations committee constituted 50% of the entire congress they got 51% of the number of earmarks and 61% of the money so this is an incredibly inept noble process where the majority of the earmarks and the money go to a strong small group of members. this is the only when we know for sure $16.7 million for the east/west center in hawaii

which was the entire budget, the entire federal share of the budget. they got rid of the north-south center and funding was cut off but it still exists. so the center should go out on its own as well because only because of one member of congress the money went in there . >> some people defend earmarks and ford are former virginia republican tom davis offered his defense of earmarks in his we had to say . >> so earmarks are merely project designations and it's and article 1 constitutional responsibility of the house of representatives and you look at the first 150 years of the republic and almost every project was earmarked there was any earmarking congress with roads, bridges and how they built it so with the constitutional responsibility of the house of representatives. earmarks due to other things, allow members to verbalize their districts and show can issuance is a reason for keeping them around because

they can bring back certain projects that may not be able to get funded if they have to go through the bureaucratic model otherwise. and third, and the most important thing is it makes the default vote yes on the appropriations bill is a rose to know. if i have a bridge or something in the bill makes it easier to pass that it's kind of the glue to hold the legislation together and brought republicans and democrats together because they both have something going on. >> in my district i wasn't on daisy davis a republican because they never carried my diss tricked i was in a district designed more or less as a swing or more democratic district but i was mr. woodrow wilson's bridge, i was mystified 123 and the guy who got 3000 acres of land given to the county, people may not like my party but they saw redeeming qualities in keeping me around that allowed me to be more independent in my voting record at this point because i had earmarks and other things to fall back on than just voting with the party on certain

issues. the members now don't have this so they are judged by their party and as a result of that people vote for the party not the person and i think it continued to advance the movement from the democratic model to a parliamentary model in terms of how were electing people and i think it's been bad for government so i bring it back i bring it back more transparency. >> so, respond to former representative davis is earmarks there . >> at least he didn't go to jail in 2000 like some of these colleagues because it's a corruptive process but is former senator john mccain said when the members who have the power use that power to corrupt to the system, it's not an exact quote but he talked about the fact that as i said a few minutes ago, the members of the appropriations committee get the majority of those projects. so, it's not equitable, it goes to people in power and so, it always amazes me that otherwise

a liberal or conservative people look at this and say oh, wait, i agree we should spread the money around the country words needed which by the way is where 99.9% of the money goes, so so the article 1 power mention that >> we will open up our regular lines for this and democrats you can call this number and independence your number is 202- 748-8000 two and we are always reading on social media, twitter at c-span wj and on facebook@facebook.com/c-span. let's let harold who is calling from east alton illinois join the conversation, harold good morning .

>> the earmarks are another way to bribe a congressman or somebody to vote their way on a bill that they normally wouldn't vote on. i think the money and the politics of the main problem with all of this, maybe we should have term limits. i think the congressman will do whatever they can to stay in their and they only make $175,000 per year and most of them are harvard educated lawyers that could be six- figure employees but they chose to keep the job for some reason and i think the lobbyists that go in there, lobbying used to be where you get a number of people to sign a piece of paper saying they all agree with that but you take it to your congressman and you don't take an envelope full of money from a big bank and say i need this bill passed so could you get it

through with one of the earmarks on it or something . >> good response . >> we called it legalized bribery except when it became illegal, do coming him lobbyists, staff, it could certainly become corruptive, there's no doubt about it and yes, it's something that members do to help themselves get reelected but it's not really a big piece of what they do and not all of them of done it and that's why we are happy to see republicans agree to permanent ban expect one of the earmarks you found goes for the f 35 fighter and we actually had a flyover in dc of one of the jets earlier this week. in fact let's look at the footage of the flyover provided to us by abc news. back so, you can

all hear the flyover that happened earlier this week of the fighter. what did you find out about the f 35 fighter and why is it in this year's congressional >> it's almost twice the amount per plane they thought it would be. the lifetime maintenance cost and operation cost will be $1.2 trillion up 20% from 1 trillion a few years ago. the most expensive weapon system in history. the reported problems this week, they had a $1.8 billion in additional joint strike fighters and 16 planes across the services and certainly happen to be on another network talking about earmarks and there it was. so, we should be creating your weapon system and we should be working and will not be wasting

money like that . >> is a question from a social media follower that wants to know, what youth think of the thought that earmarks are tools used to establish consensus in congress? >> if that were true they have a moratorium for the past eight years and they would not have as many as they had prior to that. as they said that record was $29 billion in 2006. now about halfway back but before they agreed to this bipartisan budget agreement at the beginning of 2017, earmarks with three to $4 billion per year which is very low and historically low back to where we started in 1991. so, it does not actually help, it helps past more expressive legislation because as the first caller pointed out members get a few million dollars and vote for very expensive bills and those of the projects that will benefit them. most of the money that is spent is divided up on the

population, need, if you're bridges falling apart you get on the list and apply for the money and that's the way most of that is being done and that the highway project, a major construction project not an earmark and a lot of the things you mentioned as well earmarks because even in the district it wouldn't of been more than 1% of the funding . >> lets dr. lynn calling from bountiful utah, good morning . >> good morning. thank you. i would say that nothing has improved since we did away with earmarks the budget is exploding worse than it ever did . and, as far as the list of examples for i guess what you would call ridiculous or unjustified earmarks, the 13 billion he listed for the horse and borough program is just

enough to keep it inefficient. if we had more in the budget we could have a system where it would ultimately bring taxpayer costs and warehousing down. >> the $13 billion being offered is just enough to give them very humane inhumane sterilization, pcp, birth control and killed tens of thousands of them, that's just the cost of renting them up and killing these environmentally beneficial animals. >> were not necessarily judging how wasteful they are but we have 35 proven to be more expensive than expected. so, we look for the appreciations bills and we see whether the project match the criteria we developed back in 1991 with the coalition.

these projects may have merit on their own but if you go through the same process that every other process goes through in washington, 99.9% of these is money being spent in washington and provided by formulas, not because a member of congress decided on their own to added in . >> earmarks are normally associated with congress, what is the white house view so what is trump have to say about it? >> trump said once that he thought earmarks might help get legislation passed, he hasn't said that since and i would like to think they've been pointing out that they've reached the white house so they haven't mentioned it again. and again, with the republicans in the senate saying no earmarks it doesn't make sense for anybody to be saying it should be going on right now. but others talk about it a lot . >> another comment from a social media follower, the emergency funding for natural disaster, is it considered earmarks, flint water contamination?

>> no. emergency appropriation, would not be considered an earmark it's a project they add to the emergency appropriations bills that have nothing to do with the existing emergency or, it may be something that happened many years ago and we see this all the time. the solution to that, by the ways to have a and they do have more than they used to, and emergency fund that can be used when emergencies occur we pretty much know, other than obviously very serious events like hurricane katrina and some other situations the average spent each year on emergencies. female another agency should have a specific amount of money based on the history that they can use without congressional appropriations to immediately deal with exigent circumstances like an emergency but they have

to run back and forth because a minute congress gets a bill they add stuff onto it. >> let's talk to tim whose calling from wisconsin on the independent line. good morning . >> yes, hello . >> you are on the air . >> you can correct me if i'm wrong but i believe a lot of earmarks are used because it's the biggest form of socialism we have in the country, probably i think and then you talk about government waste, most of the departments you have , like the department of education, of agriculture, those are totally unnecessary and we can save a ton of money if we just get rid of those departments. i say that but things like funding planned parenthood with taxpayer dollars, there is so much waste that could just be taken away but there are so many people in congress that have a vested

interest in a lot of earmarks because i can't remember the congressman's name on before but mr. davis said that the way to get reelect but since then is that a way to get a program in, just so he could get reelected? i think it's one of the biggest most corrupt things in washington . >> if they think not getting earmarks will help them not get elected that the incentive were looking for, doing other positive things for the country and they're not getting earmarks and in so that i think would help reduce spending . >> let's go to linda calling from iowa on the republican line, linda, good morning. >> hey, i was curious . >> good morning expect i was curious about the timing contributing to this cause he has and how does he get his

funding >> well, we mentioned funding earlier, the vast majority is from individuals and we get some from foundations and some from associations. so again, the organization has been around since 1984 following the report of the grace commission. i joined in 1986 so i've been doing this for quite some time . >> now, you said earlier that republicans in the senate said that they were not going to do earmarks. you talked about nita lowy in the house but if i remember directly, didn't years ago congress said they will stop doing earmarks . >> moratorium. so our definition is not the same as congress although we point out every year since the moratorium that projects that were earmarked but we are still

finding and consider them to be after the moratorium and the center is a perfect example and they added it to the appropriations bill and the state department didn't request money that's one of the criteria and they added it on their own to the senate . >> let's have to bill from crescent city florida on the independent line, good morning . >> good morning. i have a few observations regarding the overall spending versus military spending and, i wanted to know, my understanding is 50% of the tax dollars go to the military and

remember, a member the file world dress -- farewell address from the military-industrial spending in the ndaa bill, if you remember the year the national defense authorization act. when these bills come about, you could pretty much throw anything in it and then if anyone questions it, they come back with the old, you're not supporting our troops. then, there was a cost plus spending i learned of from the film iraq for sale about 15 years ago and i wanted mr. schantz to address these things i just brought up . >> that's a much longer conversation talking about military spending but we do care about it in the congressional pig book and we identify spending on defense and reagan found $24.4 billion of

wasteful spending and 25% of that was defense. defense is not 50% of the budget, by the way. it is half of discretionary spending but remember there's also nondiscretionary entitlements vending which is so 60% of the budget these days. . >> let's talk to paul from new york on the republican line. paul, good morning . >> good morning gentlemen, how are you . >> i want to terminate the president's fund, annual taxpayer subsidized payments to past presidents. think about it. president carter has been getting $500,000 per year for 38 years and i will take my answer off the air . >> it something we talked about there is a minimum bipartisan report for to reduce funding for future presidents, we can't do it for past presidents but

they are passing some restriction on how much money a future president can make and how much money they get for staff to i'm sorry not how much they can make a how much they get from taxpayers, they can make whatever they want but many years ago, past presidents are former presidents didn't make a lot of money and they needed the pension of a clearly that's a different situation . >> looking at yuri for, there was a study incline through 2005 and it went down to zero in 2011 and 2013. it seems to be creeping up again, is there a cause for this rise and fall? >> the enterotomy was 2011 and 13 because they had a continuing appropriations bill, so they didn't identify individual bills so we literally couldn't find earmarks cannot that they want their but they just kept the spending at the prior year's level without being specific about where the money is going

everything that happened before going so the trend was after the moratorium to average about 3 1/2 billion dollars per year and now it's back up over the past two years to an average of $15 billion. the difference has been this bipartisan budget agreement. they increase overall spending by 13% but, they increased earmarks by more than 70% over that period of time. so, this is been a massive increase for far greater than the increase in overall spending and again, one of the reasons why they bring them back, they will again be out of control . >> now, is it easier hard for voters to find out who is behind these earmarks? >> it's a lot harder than it used to be because they claim they are not adding earmarks so therefore they don't have the transparency. the rules they had for transparency only applied during the hundred and 11th congress which is why we know that the 15% of congress they appropriated have more than half of the earmarks and more than half of the money . >> let's talk to maria calling

from westville new jersey on the independent line, good morning, maria . >> good morning. i have a couple questions. for many years we've been promised an audit of the pentagon spending and this never happened. i want to know who is responsible for doing the audit and why it hasn't been done. as for earmarks, i'm more concerned with international earmarks that we have. we give to nato and we never get any sufficient money back from them. they have a lot of benefits, free university in europe and they have a month off and our citizens are getting screwed. our social security fund has been looted and i want to know, when the american eagle will do a giant call back on the pentagon and all the people in office who actually are traitors to their own country? thank you very much. tors to thr own country. tors to thr guest: the pentagon has not

passed their audit and we think it's important to protect citizens against government waste. the chief financial officers set in motion the idea that these should be -- and a regarding nato, this is a very small part of the budget and it's not earmarked exactly. on theavid is calling democratic line. good morning. caller: hello, how are you. host: i'm doing good, go ahead. listening, this is the first time c-span has ever answered the phone during the first ring of the phone and it just came through. howuestion has to do with they got that tagline, with people drawing social security and the necessary spending for waterways,d our

these areitalization, all things that are necessary and they have a tagline on it, and i forgot the word that you've all used and i think it's shameful. already making it to her people cannot make a living anymore. -- how can people pay attention to their politicians if they have to work two or three jobs? guest: in most people's cases the largest payment they make his taxes. if you look at the other investments you may can you make sure it's being spent wisely and i think people need to do that with their tax dollars. calling from west

virginia on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question as to who is authorizing all of this spending for trump to fly all over the and holdvery week these campaign rallies which probably cost a million dollars a trip. did congress authorize this spending? who is paying for all of these campaign rallies? thet: the campaign pays for campaign rally, they have to reimburse the government as every campaign is had to do for every president regardless of which party they represent we had -- represent. host: we would like to thank , and the citizens against government waste to just put out the congressional pig book that

that is followed by a discussion on government spending with tom schad, the president of citizens against government waste. whistleblowers recently testified at a house veterans affairs subcommittee hearing on the role they played in exposing issues facing patients at va healthcare facilities throughout the country. the whistleblowers recounted their experiences, exposing failures in the agencies system, and the retaliation they faced by coming forward. this is just under 2 hours. >>