Susan Crabtree in Insight, November 11, 1996:

When Michael Parick Flanagan managed to unseat former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, he vowed he would end pork-barrel spending and reportedly wore a pig pin with a red slash through it on his lapel to demonstrate his commitment.

But since Flanagan, an Illinois Republican, has been in the House of Representatives, he has become accustomed to the ways of Washington. He has secured nearly $50 million in special-project spending for his district, including $22.5 million for the Chicago Transit Authority and $8 million to replenish the sand on the Chicago shoreline ...

Needless to say, Flanagan no longer wears the crossed-out pig on his chest. Flannagan's spokesman, Bob Manewirth, denies that his boss ever wore the symbol, but he maintains that Flanagan is still against pork-barrel spending "in a general sense. That doesn't mean that every dollar the government is spending is pork."

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