The 285 earmarks in FY 2021 are a 74.8 percent increase from the 163 in FY 2017. The number of earmarks has also risen sharply. The $16.8 billion in FY 2021 is an increase of 147.1 percent from the $6.8 billion in FY 2017. While the increase in the cost of earmarks from FY 2021 is significant, it pales in comparison to the growth since FY 2017. Since FY 1991, CAGW has identified 111,702 earmarks costing $392.5 billion. The cost of the FY 2021 earmarks is 1.8 percent higher than the $16.5 billion in FY 2010, the last year prior to the moratorium.

This year’s Congressional Pig Book exposes 285 earmarks, an increase of 4 percent from the 274 in FY 2020, at a cost of $16.8 billion, an increase of 5.7 percent from the $15.9 billion in earmarks in FY 2020.

It is in this climate that Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) releases the 2021 Congressional Pig Book, which demonstrates that legislators continue to pack the 12 spending bills that fund the federal government with pork.įor the fourth year in a row, members of Congress have set a record for the cost of earmarks during the supposed earmark moratorium. On top of the multi-trillion expenditures, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have agreed to end the earmark moratorium, and the Transportation Committees appear likely to follow their lead. And that was before President Biden signed into law the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act and then proposed a $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan and $4 trillion tax increase. A January 2021 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report forecast a $2.3 trillion deficit in fiscal year (FY) 2021 and an increase in national debt held by the public to $35.3 trillion by FY 2031, which would be a record 107 percent of the gross domestic product. The current national debt of $28.2 trillion is going to grow at a record pace over the next decade. and global trade, production, consumption and stocks, as well as analysis of developments affecting world trade in pork, can be found in the Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Trade report.The United States is facing an imminent fiscal reckoning. exports to Mexico struggled in 2020 as a depreciating peso and weak economy stifled import demand. competitors increasingly focused on the Chinese market. However, exports to Japan also rebounded with implementation of lower tariffs under the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement and major U.S. pork as African swine fever (ASF) continued to limit China’s domestic pork supplies and buoy demand for imports. China overtook Japan as the top market for U.S. The top three markets, accounting for 66 percent of exports, were China at $2.3 billion, Japan at $1.6 billion, and Mexico at $1.2 billion. pork & pork product exports to the world reached a record $7.7 billion, up 11 percent from the prior year.

Hog and pigs report 2019