It’s not an award for girth but, rather, a distinction handed out by the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste to the federal lawmaker who squanders, or attempts to squander, the most taxpayer money. The envelope, please. And the winner for 2014 is Democratic Senator and 1/32 American Indian Elizabeth Warren, for her inane suggestion that the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service should start acting as a bank.
CAGW, a non-profit, gives the award annually to the lawmaker, government official, or political candidate who has shown the most “blatant disregard” for taxpayers that year. Warren won over six other candidates with 34% of the vote in a public online poll.
She won the award because in 2014 she suggested the USPS fix its financial troubles by rebranding itself as a bank. If USPS offered basic bill paying, check cashing, and small loans, Warren argued, it could make enough money to provide those services and shape up its finances. It could, she wrote in an op-ed published by the Huffington Post, “make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don’t have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods.
The USPS has been on the Government Accountability Office’s annual High Risk List since 2009, because it “continues to face great uncertainty and risk related to its financial condition.”
CAGW said in a statement Thursday:
For her supremely inane idea to allow the USPS to take on financial services under its current flawed and bloated management structure in order to chase profits, while setting the stage for another enormous taxpayer bailout, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is CAGW’s 2014 Porker of the Year.
Leading Porker in a Supporting Role went to Consumer Finance Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, with 29%. Honorable Porker awards went to Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo, and former U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel.
This report, by Rachel Stoltzfoos, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
