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CAGW Names Sen. Ben Nelson 2010 Porker of the Year

Sen. Nelson furnished the pivotal 60th vote for cloture on December 19, 2009, allowing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) healthcare bill to come to the Senate floor for final passage. Sen. Nelson held out until he was able to parlay his vote to secure, among other perks, a permanent exemption for Nebraska from the Medicaid expansion in the Reid bill, saving the state between $59 million and $281 million. The deal was dubbed the "Cornhusker Kickback."

In the immediate aftermath of the Cornhusker Kickback, Sen. Nelson stated that he had been under pressure from Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R) to negotiate the deal. However, Gov. Heineman denied that assertion, saying that "Under no circumstances did I have anything to do with Senator Nelson's compromise...The responsibility for this special deal lies solely on the shoulders of Senator Ben Nelson." The senator was excoriated by his own constituents, so he sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) asking that the language be removed, followed closely by a claim that the carve-out was always meant as a "placeholder" so that, eventually, all the states could get the federal government to cover their expanded Medicaid costs through 2017.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) remarked in a December 19, 2009 Politico article that Nelson may have done the "other 99 senators a favor because the federal government is paying for the entire Medicaid expansion through 2017 for every state...When you look at it, I thought well, God, good, it is going to be the impetus for all the states to stay at 100 percent [after 2017]."

The taxpayers are certainly not being favored. This month, as state budgets dip further into the red, dozens of governors are petitioning President Obama for relief from the rigid rules governing how they run the Medicaid program. The governors are caught in a fiscal buzzsaw; in order to be eligible for the $87 billion in stimulus money they used to offset exploding Medicaid costs, they were forced to maintain high enrolment levels and prohibited from tweaking eligibility rules. The Cornhusker Kickback extension to the rest of the country will only forestall the inevitable collapse of state finances that will be the ultimate result of Sen. Nelson caving in as the 60th vote on the healthcare bill.

For his Cornhusker Kickback boondoggle, classless CYA behavior, and opening the door to a healthcare bill that will help push the states toward bankruptcy, Sen. Ben Nelson wins the dubious title of CAGW's 2010 Porker of the Year.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Year is a dubious honor given to a lawmaker, government official, or political candidate who has shown the most blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers throughout the year.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW)
Leslie K. Paige, 202-467-5334
Luke Gelber, 202-467-5318