Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris was named the 2018 Porker of the Year Thursday, based on online polling conducted by the nonprofit Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW).
CAGW traced her reputation for pork barrel spending to a rent subsidy bill she proposed in July that would have raised rent prices and cost billions per year, according to CAGW.
“We would like to thank the taxpayers who voted for all of the ‘worthy’ candidates. Senator Harris’s proposal is a prime example of the fiscal foolishness that flourishes in Washington, D.C., and rightly earns her the distinction of 2018 Porker of the Year,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said in a press statement.
Harris’s rent subsidy bill was very similar to a Terner Center for Housing Innovation at University of California-Berkeley proposal that would have cost an estimated $76 billion per year, according to the independent Tax Foundation.
Harris’s program would have distorted the housing market by providing tax credits for renters who earn less than $100,000 and spend over 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities.
It would have perversely incentivized individuals to move to locations where rent cost more than 30 percent of their income, and it also didn’t contribute to lowering demand for housing by increasing supply, according to the Tax Foundation, which labeled the program a “well-intentioned misfire.”
Democratic Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer was runner-up for 2018 Porker of the Year because, in part because of his “absurd proposal to bring back pork-barrel earmarks,” according to CAGW.
Other politicians in the top five included Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers was the only Republican on the list of porkers.
CAGW bills itself as “the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.” It releases a yearly Prime Cuts report with hundreds of recommendations for how to save taxpayers money.
CAGW has also tracked the nation’s increase in pork spending, which continues to thrive despite a congressional ban on earmarks.
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