“[May 13, 2015], Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released its 2015 Congressional Pig Book, the 23rd edition of the group’s exposé on pork-barrel spending.  CAGW President Tom Schatz was joined at the Phoenix Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.).  Also in attendance was a live pot-bellied pig named Faye, from Richmond, Virginia. The number of earmarks decreased slightly between fiscal year (FY) 2014 and FY 2015, from 109 to 105, but the total cost jumped by 56 percent, from $2.7 billion to $4.2 billion.  While those figures are far below the record $29 billion in FY 2006, and there are no earmarks for screwworm research or teapot museums, there are some troublesome expenditures. For example, $2,604,000 was earmarked for the Denali Commission, an agency that is so deserving of extinction that its own inspector general said Congress should put its money elsewhere.  There was $25 million earmarked for the Starbase Youth Program, which helps teach science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to at-risk youth in and around military facilities.  In 2012, the Government Accountability Office identified 209 STEM programs in 13 agencies; while the number of STEM programs has been reduced over the past several years, Congress has earmarked $55 million for the Starbase program since the report was published.  The Department of Defense comptroller said in 2012 that the department’s health budget could be decreased by eliminating “one-time congressional adds,” which totaled $603.6 million at that time.  In FY 2015, there were 27 earmarks costing $1.1 billion for health and disease research under the Defense Health Program, a 77 percent increase over the 2012 amount.  In relative terms, the decrease in the defense earmark for alternative energy research from $60 million in FY 2014 to $20 million in FY 2015 is a positive development, but there is still no reason to force the Pentagon to spend a single penny on this program. “The 2015 Pig Book continues to prove that any earmark is a bad earmark,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “At a time when members of Congress from both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol continue to call for a restoration of earmarks, taxpayers should deliver a loud and clear message that it is time for earmarks to be permanently banned.”