Bonehead Award goes to watchdog group

THE ISSUE A taxpayer watchdog group ranks Hawaii second only to Alaska in congressional funding received per capita.

An organization called Citizens Against Government Waste takes glee about this time every year by releasing its "Pig Book" focusing on what it regards as pork barrel spending. Hawaii always is near the top, which the group attributes to Senator Inouye's power as ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The group gives Inouye the Pacific Fleeced Award "for his $482 million in pork for Hawaii last year. Inouye certainly knows how to steer federal dollars to Hawaii, but the state's intake is better attributed to its critical location for military defense, which accounted for $385 million of the expenditures in the islands.

This year's report comes in the wake of the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., who received more than $2.4 million to arrange earmarks for particular defense contractors. No one ever has suggested that Inouye has engaged in such misbehavior.

The federal government spent an additional $20 million in the islands for projects related to ocean research and fisheries, unique to Hawaii. When military and ocean dollars are subtracted, funding of Hawaii projects not specifically requested by President Bush falls from $378 to $61 per capita. That is still nearly twice the national average of $31 per capita -- thank you, congressional delegation -- but not exorbitant or wasteful.

The organization takes particular delight in targeting projects it finds absurd. Some years ago, it cited expenditures to keep the brown tree snake out of Hawaii -- oblivious to the fact that the snake is an enormous threat to the islands' environment.

We present this year's Bonehead Award for the group's inclusion, as pork, of $2.1 million to combat the distribution and use of crystal methamphetamine in Hawaii. The report closely follows an equally flawed report by the Justice Department's inspector general that Hawaii receives too much anti-crystal-meth money, based solely on the number of meth lab seizures.