Full Version: Put your pork here
The basic question for debate is: What is pork?
I see this question having a double meaning. On the one hand, the question is philosophical. WHen is government spending pork?
For Andrew Jackson is was the Maysville Road, which he vetoed because it only ran through one state. (His rival's (Henry Clay) state, Kentucky). Is any spending that only benefits one state pork?
Or is it something more practical, like it is any project that is relatively frivolous that benefits one politician's constituency?
This term is tossed about loosely (by me as well, but i am unsure of the best definition or definitions.
The second meaning is more literal. Is a specific project pork or not. I see this thread as being a good place to present a specific spending project and decide whether it is pork or not.
Without doing new research, the last time I looked up pork barrel spending projects, I found one project that involved using something like $2 million federal dollars to upgrade the statue of Vulcan that is one of the landmarks of the city of Birmingham, AL. I will come back with some recent pet projects that appeared as earmarks on the recent omnibus spending projects.
I find pork to be something that American complain about in a bipartisan manner and that politicians participate in with relatively little penalty in an equally bipartisan manner.
Edited to add:
After some research I found these
Link
Tennessee gets more `pork barrel' projects with Frist
2003-12-20
by Nancy Zuckerbrod
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- An analysis by Bill Frist's office shows Tennessee got a boost in federal funding for state-specific projects this year, and the senator's new role as majority leader likely had something to do with it
``There's no question, as majority leader, the platform from which I could speak in the appropriations process is much higher,'' Frist said in an interview this week.
He took over as majority leader a year ago after Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., was ousted for making insensitive comments about segregation at a party for the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C.
The 2004 spending bills include roughly $750 million for Tennessee-specific projects, up more than $100 million from the previous year, according to the analysis.
Tom Schatz, president of the government watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, called that a significant boost.
``I'd be surprised if other states had that large an increase,'' said Schatz, whose group produces an annual publication each spring ranking states according to the amount of pork-barrel spending they receive.
The group says examples of pork are pet projects inserted in a spending bill by a single lawmaker or added even though they weren't in the president's budget.
Tennessee has not traditionally received as much money as other states for projects, largely because it only has one representative -- Chattanooga Republican Zach Wamp -- on the committee that writes spending bills.
``Tennessee has never been one of the big porky states,'' Schatz said.
In contrast, neighboring Kentucky is always high on the list of states that get loads of earmarks in spending bills. Kentucky has three representatives on appropriations committees.
Tennessee could make up that difference if Frist pushes for state projects, said Vanderbilt University political scientist Bruce Oppenheimer. Frist doesn't even have to push that hard, because appropriators are going to want his support for their bills, Oppenheimer said.
Wamp said his fellow appropriators do pay attention to Frist's wish list.
``There's no doubt that everybody in the federal appropriations process is keenly aware of Senator Frist's priorities in the state of Tennessee,'' Wamp said.
The money highlighted in the analysis by Frist's office is for state-specific projects. It doesn't include the regular funding doled out to the states based on set formulas for transportation, health care and other basic needs.
Frist says he worked to get $7.8 million for the aging Chickamauga Lock on the Tennessee River in an appropriations bill and to include language authorizing some of the money to go toward building a replacement lock, even though the administration's budget didn't call for a new one.
``If I hadn't intervened on the Senate side, that would not have occurred,'' Frist said. Wamp, who also pushed for the measure, agreed Frist's support was essential.
Link
Link
I think this is the most cut-and-dried instance
An indoor rainforest in Iowa? That's so ridiculous that there must be a good reason for it.
Link
That's probably already too much.
I see this question having a double meaning. On the one hand, the question is philosophical. WHen is government spending pork?
For Andrew Jackson is was the Maysville Road, which he vetoed because it only ran through one state. (His rival's (Henry Clay) state, Kentucky). Is any spending that only benefits one state pork?
Or is it something more practical, like it is any project that is relatively frivolous that benefits one politician's constituency?
This term is tossed about loosely (by me as well, but i am unsure of the best definition or definitions.
The second meaning is more literal. Is a specific project pork or not. I see this thread as being a good place to present a specific spending project and decide whether it is pork or not.
Without doing new research, the last time I looked up pork barrel spending projects, I found one project that involved using something like $2 million federal dollars to upgrade the statue of Vulcan that is one of the landmarks of the city of Birmingham, AL. I will come back with some recent pet projects that appeared as earmarks on the recent omnibus spending projects.
I find pork to be something that American complain about in a bipartisan manner and that politicians participate in with relatively little penalty in an equally bipartisan manner.
Edited to add:
After some research I found these
QUOTE
At the behest of Rep. Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, the bill also includes $3.1 million for a pedestrian bridge in Yorba Linda to link Main Street to a shopping center and the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace.
QUOTE
A public swimming pool in Salinas, a pedestrian bridge in Yorba Linda and money to help Imperial Valley farmers produce ethanol are among the California projects in a massive spending bill passed by the House last month.
There's also help for San Francisco's Municipal Railway to build a subway, $225,000 for a youth center in the Sierra Nevada town of Groveland, $50 million for a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles and $324,500 for a literacy program at San Juan Unified School District near Sacramento.
There's also help for San Francisco's Municipal Railway to build a subway, $225,000 for a youth center in the Sierra Nevada town of Groveland, $50 million for a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles and $324,500 for a literacy program at San Juan Unified School District near Sacramento.
Link
Tennessee gets more `pork barrel' projects with Frist
2003-12-20
by Nancy Zuckerbrod
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- An analysis by Bill Frist's office shows Tennessee got a boost in federal funding for state-specific projects this year, and the senator's new role as majority leader likely had something to do with it
``There's no question, as majority leader, the platform from which I could speak in the appropriations process is much higher,'' Frist said in an interview this week.
He took over as majority leader a year ago after Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., was ousted for making insensitive comments about segregation at a party for the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C.
The 2004 spending bills include roughly $750 million for Tennessee-specific projects, up more than $100 million from the previous year, according to the analysis.
Tom Schatz, president of the government watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, called that a significant boost.
``I'd be surprised if other states had that large an increase,'' said Schatz, whose group produces an annual publication each spring ranking states according to the amount of pork-barrel spending they receive.
The group says examples of pork are pet projects inserted in a spending bill by a single lawmaker or added even though they weren't in the president's budget.
Tennessee has not traditionally received as much money as other states for projects, largely because it only has one representative -- Chattanooga Republican Zach Wamp -- on the committee that writes spending bills.
``Tennessee has never been one of the big porky states,'' Schatz said.
In contrast, neighboring Kentucky is always high on the list of states that get loads of earmarks in spending bills. Kentucky has three representatives on appropriations committees.
Tennessee could make up that difference if Frist pushes for state projects, said Vanderbilt University political scientist Bruce Oppenheimer. Frist doesn't even have to push that hard, because appropriators are going to want his support for their bills, Oppenheimer said.
Wamp said his fellow appropriators do pay attention to Frist's wish list.
``There's no doubt that everybody in the federal appropriations process is keenly aware of Senator Frist's priorities in the state of Tennessee,'' Wamp said.
The money highlighted in the analysis by Frist's office is for state-specific projects. It doesn't include the regular funding doled out to the states based on set formulas for transportation, health care and other basic needs.
Frist says he worked to get $7.8 million for the aging Chickamauga Lock on the Tennessee River in an appropriations bill and to include language authorizing some of the money to go toward building a replacement lock, even though the administration's budget didn't call for a new one.
``If I hadn't intervened on the Senate side, that would not have occurred,'' Frist said. Wamp, who also pushed for the measure, agreed Frist's support was essential.
QUOTE
Other funding Frist takes credit for helping to secure includes: $11 million for an aircraft maintenance facility in Nashville; $22.5 million for radiation detection equipment made by an Oak Ridge company; $4 million for the Memphis Biotech Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the biotech industry; $1 million to help build the Nashville East Commuter Rail; and $1 million for the Tennessee State University African American Museum.
Link
QUOTE
$100,000 for the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tenn.
Link
I think this is the most cut-and-dried instance
QUOTE
But it was a more meager appropriation - $225,000 to repair a swimming pool in Sparks, his hometown - that got Gibbons, 59, in hot water. He admitted that he had sought the money because he had always felt guilty about clogging the pool's drain with tadpoles when he was 10.
An indoor rainforest in Iowa? That's so ridiculous that there must be a good reason for it.
QUOTE
The spending bill, called an omnibus, is stuffed with an estimated 7,000 special interest provisions, from $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa to $150,000 for a stoplight and traffic improvements in Briarcliff Manor, New York. If the Senate approves it, total spending on pet projects - which has more than doubled in the past five years - will reach roughly $23 billion this year, the most ever, according to taxpayer watchdog groups that track federal spending.
Link
That's probably already too much.
Alaska is the pork barrel capitol of the US , thanks to Sen. Ted Stevens, a member of the appropriations comittee and the longest serving member of the Senate. Now, hes good for alaska, but not for your tax dollars:
'In fiscal 2003, CAGW (Citizens Against Gov. Waste) awarded Sen. Stevens the Gold Rush Award for smuggling a whopping $393 million in pork back to Alaska, making it the national leader in pork per capita at $611 for each person in his home state. CAGW says using money he filched from federal taxpayers this year, Stevens' allocations included :
$2,000,000 for the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport!
$750,000 for sea otter research in Alaska .
$225,000 for the Beluga Whaling Committee.
Over the past three years alone, Sen. Stevens has brought home $1.3 billion in pork. Citizens Against Government Waste says Stevens is already looking to set another pork per capita record this year, Sen. Stevens has added:
$42.3 million to the fiscal 2004 Military Construction Appropriations bill, including $1.4 million to replace a working dog kennel at Elmendorf Air Force Base. It is going to be a ruff (sic) year for taxpayers according to a CAGW news release.
Pork projects are disproportionately distributed to members of the appropriations committees, and therefore do not benefit all representatives and senators.
link
This year in the budget Alaska got $3 million for "ocean and weather research" at the University of Alaska. Quite a hefty sum. I wonder how much of it will go to the weather, or was this a boon for UofA?
The December 16, 2003 Los Angeles Times piece details the following incidents (against Ted Stevens), among other:
*Armed with the power his committee posts give him over the Pentagon, Stevens helped save a $450-million military housing contract for an Anchorage businessman. The same businessman made Stevens a partner in a series of real estate investments that turned the senator's $50,000 stake into at least $750,000 in six years.
*An Alaska Native company that Stevens helped create got millions of dollars in defense contracts through preferences he wrote into law. Now the company pays $6 million a year to lease an office building owned by the senator and his business partners. Stevens continues to push legislation that benefits the company.
*An Alaskan communications company benefited from the senator's activities on the Commerce Committee. His wife, Catherine, earned tens of thousands of dollars from an inside deal involving the company's stock. (vague, but this is LA Times)
In answer to the question What is Pork?
CAGW categorizes more than 600 pet projects in the " Pig Book" by committee and says every project meets one or more of the following criteria: they are unauthorized or unsupported by the president, proposed by only one member, and serve one special interest, are unhindered by any congressional hearing and are not competitively awarded.
Senator Stevens retires from the Appropriations committee next year, which is going to mean a hard time for certain alaskans. A friend of mine in the oil and transportation industry who has been here for 22 years tells me that when Stevens retires from the Senate, I might as well move back to the lower 48.
Stevens has a long and illustrious career and has truly served alaska, and his OWN interest very well.
Heres a semi-list of pork for 2004 from CAGW, in link for brevity:
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagena...lease_12182003b
Good topic Eeyore. The problem is, who will complain about federal funds being directed back to ones own state? There's always the forgetfullness that Fed tax is everyones money.
'In fiscal 2003, CAGW (Citizens Against Gov. Waste) awarded Sen. Stevens the Gold Rush Award for smuggling a whopping $393 million in pork back to Alaska, making it the national leader in pork per capita at $611 for each person in his home state. CAGW says using money he filched from federal taxpayers this year, Stevens' allocations included :
$2,000,000 for the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport!
$750,000 for sea otter research in Alaska .
$225,000 for the Beluga Whaling Committee.
Over the past three years alone, Sen. Stevens has brought home $1.3 billion in pork. Citizens Against Government Waste says Stevens is already looking to set another pork per capita record this year, Sen. Stevens has added:
$42.3 million to the fiscal 2004 Military Construction Appropriations bill, including $1.4 million to replace a working dog kennel at Elmendorf Air Force Base. It is going to be a ruff (sic) year for taxpayers according to a CAGW news release.
Pork projects are disproportionately distributed to members of the appropriations committees, and therefore do not benefit all representatives and senators.
link
This year in the budget Alaska got $3 million for "ocean and weather research" at the University of Alaska. Quite a hefty sum. I wonder how much of it will go to the weather, or was this a boon for UofA?
The December 16, 2003 Los Angeles Times piece details the following incidents (against Ted Stevens), among other:
*Armed with the power his committee posts give him over the Pentagon, Stevens helped save a $450-million military housing contract for an Anchorage businessman. The same businessman made Stevens a partner in a series of real estate investments that turned the senator's $50,000 stake into at least $750,000 in six years.
*An Alaska Native company that Stevens helped create got millions of dollars in defense contracts through preferences he wrote into law. Now the company pays $6 million a year to lease an office building owned by the senator and his business partners. Stevens continues to push legislation that benefits the company.
*An Alaskan communications company benefited from the senator's activities on the Commerce Committee. His wife, Catherine, earned tens of thousands of dollars from an inside deal involving the company's stock. (vague, but this is LA Times)
In answer to the question What is Pork?
CAGW categorizes more than 600 pet projects in the " Pig Book" by committee and says every project meets one or more of the following criteria: they are unauthorized or unsupported by the president, proposed by only one member, and serve one special interest, are unhindered by any congressional hearing and are not competitively awarded.
Senator Stevens retires from the Appropriations committee next year, which is going to mean a hard time for certain alaskans. A friend of mine in the oil and transportation industry who has been here for 22 years tells me that when Stevens retires from the Senate, I might as well move back to the lower 48.
Stevens has a long and illustrious career and has truly served alaska, and his OWN interest very well.
Heres a semi-list of pork for 2004 from CAGW, in link for brevity:
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagena...lease_12182003b
Good topic Eeyore. The problem is, who will complain about federal funds being directed back to ones own state? There's always the forgetfullness that Fed tax is everyones money.
One man's pork is another man's needed infrastructure.
Ted Stevens airport is a hub to the entire world from the "lower 48" to Europe, Russia and other places. It was in dire need of upgrades.
Alaska's infrastructure is the youngest in the nation, with over 80% of all infrastructure being built after 1980
Most of the "lower 48" major infrastructure projects were done in the "interstate" building hey days of the 50s, and we have had no such boom. We desperately need large scale infrastructure building that is far out of proportion to lower 48 per capita spending, just to keep up with population growth and mobility.
I think it is pork if it does not make a sustainable economy out whatever was spent, whether it be "urban renewal" or a super computer for a University. A "road to nowhere" that does not lead to a factory, or possible positive developement, is pork IMO.
We currently recieved many millions of dollars to repair a bridge that goes nowhere. Literally. It was the "million dollar bridge" in 1909-10. Part of it fell into the copper river. To repair it will cost many millions of dollars, and it literally leads nowhere. The rest of the story? It is one of the most profitable salmon bearing rivers on the planet. Fishing the bridge out of the river to keep it from causing an enviromental disaster is much more expensive.
Pork is case by case, and even then by careful review!
Ted Stevens airport is a hub to the entire world from the "lower 48" to Europe, Russia and other places. It was in dire need of upgrades.
Alaska's infrastructure is the youngest in the nation, with over 80% of all infrastructure being built after 1980
Most of the "lower 48" major infrastructure projects were done in the "interstate" building hey days of the 50s, and we have had no such boom. We desperately need large scale infrastructure building that is far out of proportion to lower 48 per capita spending, just to keep up with population growth and mobility.
I think it is pork if it does not make a sustainable economy out whatever was spent, whether it be "urban renewal" or a super computer for a University. A "road to nowhere" that does not lead to a factory, or possible positive developement, is pork IMO.
We currently recieved many millions of dollars to repair a bridge that goes nowhere. Literally. It was the "million dollar bridge" in 1909-10. Part of it fell into the copper river. To repair it will cost many millions of dollars, and it literally leads nowhere. The rest of the story? It is one of the most profitable salmon bearing rivers on the planet. Fishing the bridge out of the river to keep it from causing an enviromental disaster is much more expensive.
Pork is case by case, and even then by careful review!
Pork ,the age old problem of Politicians getting some money for their State, the worst offenders can be found in Military spending ,pork disquised as National Defense need.
Most of the absurd projects are tacked on to win a Vote from someone in order to pass the main spending bill.
My concern is getting back as much money as you paid in, State by State, Mississippi and some others get back lots more, factor in pork barrell Military spending Texas probably does too.
Most of the absurd projects are tacked on to win a Vote from someone in order to pass the main spending bill.
My concern is getting back as much money as you paid in, State by State, Mississippi and some others get back lots more, factor in pork barrell Military spending Texas probably does too.
Artemise Posted on Jan 4 2004, 11:17 PM
This seems to me to be the stuff of a criminal/ethical investigation more than proof of pork.
Ocean currents and otter studies sound like pork. However they are studies that probably can be argued to have interstate (or more than one state) benefits.
I'm still stuck on the Iowa rain forest issue.
Cruising Ram, does the government generally subsidize or pay for our airports?
QUOTE
*Armed with the power his committee posts give him over the Pentagon, Stevens helped save a $450-million military housing contract for an Anchorage businessman. The same businessman made Stevens a partner in a series of real estate investments that turned the senator's $50,000 stake into at least $750,000 in six years.
*An Alaska Native company that Stevens helped create got millions of dollars in defense contracts through preferences he wrote into law. Now the company pays $6 million a year to lease an office building owned by the senator and his business partners. Stevens continues to push legislation that benefits the company.
*An Alaska Native company that Stevens helped create got millions of dollars in defense contracts through preferences he wrote into law. Now the company pays $6 million a year to lease an office building owned by the senator and his business partners. Stevens continues to push legislation that benefits the company.
This seems to me to be the stuff of a criminal/ethical investigation more than proof of pork.
Ocean currents and otter studies sound like pork. However they are studies that probably can be argued to have interstate (or more than one state) benefits.
I'm still stuck on the Iowa rain forest issue.
Cruising Ram, does the government generally subsidize or pay for our airports?
I started the same thread back on dec 23, 2003 but it got lost in the holidays. Hehe Eeyore if you are stuck on the Iowa Rainforest, I am not sure if you know about the that swimming pool repair from the Nev. Rep Republican Jim Gibbons that is within the information I have given. Where he is asking us to pay for repairs, that he did to the pool back when he was 10 years old that screwed up the drains back in 1950 that he feels bad for.
Why he feels such regret he doesn't pay for it himself.Pork-Barrel Spending, Where does it need to stop
So I will repost my comments here.
QUOTE
After hearing of the bills coming out of congress lately from news shows like Joe Scarborough or Jessie Venture talking about Pork-barrel spending, got me interested in finding out what kind of pork-barrel spending congressman both republicans and democrats now and in the past have added to bills.
I will just show the recent bill... The spending bill called an omnibus bill for this year that was defeated for now in the senate
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story...3369&ran=196476
The omnibus bill, passed by the House and awaiting a Senate vote, contains a jaw-dropping $373 billion worth of goodies.
Any lawmaker who says he’s read the entire foot-high bill is either lying or delusional. But a flip through its pages reveals a spending shindig likely to set a new record for pork-barrel waste of tax dollars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/politics...&partner=GOOGLE
The spending bill, called an omnibus, is stuffed with an estimated 7,000 special interest provisions, from $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa to $150,000 for a stop light and traffic improvements in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. If the Senate approves it, total spending on pet projects — which has more than doubled in the last five years — will reach roughly $23 billion this year, the most ever, according to watchdog groups that track federal spending.
Pork barrel projects are a time-honored tradition in Washington. But observers of the Congressional efforts are surprised, and in some cases dismayed, by the size of the special-interest projects this year, at a time when the federal deficit is rising and Republicans, who fashion themselves as fiscally conservative, run both houses of Congress.
The spending bill, which the Senate will take up in January, treats the home states of powerful appropriators especially well. Alaska, home to Senator Ted Stevens, the Republican chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, would reap millions under the measure, including $1 million for the Anchorage Museum and $1 million for the Tongass Coast Aquarium. Florida, the home state of Representative C. W. Bill Young, a Republican who is Mr. Stevens's counterpart in the House, also stands to gain millions.
Every state — indeed nearly every Congressional district, no matter Democratic or Republican — is the recipient of one pork project or another. The measure includes $200,000 for the University of Hawaii to produce a documentary on the Kalahari Bushmen, $220,000 to renovate a blueberry research center at the University of Maine and, in a provision Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, called "most ironic," $500,000 for the "Exercise in Hard Choices" program at the University of Akron, which examines how Congress makes budget decisions.
"It's worse than ever, and it's even more egregious because the Republicans are in charge, and everyone thought that they would be fiscally responsible," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, an advocacy group that named Mr. Gibbons "Porker of the Month" for the pool provision. "That's the big disappointment."
Here's is John McCains site on pork-barrel spending.
http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseact...Newscenter.Pork
I will just show the recent bill... The spending bill called an omnibus bill for this year that was defeated for now in the senate
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story...3369&ran=196476
QUOTE
The omnibus bill, passed by the House and awaiting a Senate vote, contains a jaw-dropping $373 billion worth of goodies.
Any lawmaker who says he’s read the entire foot-high bill is either lying or delusional. But a flip through its pages reveals a spending shindig likely to set a new record for pork-barrel waste of tax dollars.
QUOTE
Lowlights include $50 million to build an indoor tropical rainforest in Iowa. This tidbit started life in the corporate-welfare energy bill as an example of how to use energy in the environment.
But when that bill appeared dead on arrival, the rainforest, to be located in Coralville, magically morphed into an economic development project, a way to teach children the “wonders of the jungle.”
By my calculations, for 50 million greenbacks, we’d come out ahead by buying each of Coralville’s 17,000 citizens three round-trip plane tickets to Brazil to see a real rainforest. Then taxpayers could avoid having to cough up the rest of the dough for a dubious project expected to eventually cost $225 million.
Then there’s the swimming pool in Sparks, Nev. Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons asked his colleagues for $225,000 to repair a pool that he and his friends clogged with tadpoles in the 1950s. Seems the drains haven’t worked properly since.
“I have an enormous guilty conscience for putting frogs in the swimming pool when I was about 10 years old,” Gibbons has said. And obviously no guilt whatsoever about asking us to pay for it.
It’s no coincidence that Alaska, home of Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, makes out like a bandit, including $447,000 for “halibut data collection,” and $200,000 for the city of North Pole for “recreational improvements.”
What improvements? Hop on your sled and have fun.
Then there’s $2 million for kiddie golf in St. Augustine, Fla., and $1.8 million for the Appalachian fruit laboratory in West Virginia. I could continue, but you get the point. Budget dust adds up.
But when that bill appeared dead on arrival, the rainforest, to be located in Coralville, magically morphed into an economic development project, a way to teach children the “wonders of the jungle.”
By my calculations, for 50 million greenbacks, we’d come out ahead by buying each of Coralville’s 17,000 citizens three round-trip plane tickets to Brazil to see a real rainforest. Then taxpayers could avoid having to cough up the rest of the dough for a dubious project expected to eventually cost $225 million.
Then there’s the swimming pool in Sparks, Nev. Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons asked his colleagues for $225,000 to repair a pool that he and his friends clogged with tadpoles in the 1950s. Seems the drains haven’t worked properly since.
“I have an enormous guilty conscience for putting frogs in the swimming pool when I was about 10 years old,” Gibbons has said. And obviously no guilt whatsoever about asking us to pay for it.
It’s no coincidence that Alaska, home of Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, makes out like a bandit, including $447,000 for “halibut data collection,” and $200,000 for the city of North Pole for “recreational improvements.”
What improvements? Hop on your sled and have fun.
Then there’s $2 million for kiddie golf in St. Augustine, Fla., and $1.8 million for the Appalachian fruit laboratory in West Virginia. I could continue, but you get the point. Budget dust adds up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/20/politics...&partner=GOOGLE
QUOTE
The spending bill, called an omnibus, is stuffed with an estimated 7,000 special interest provisions, from $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa to $150,000 for a stop light and traffic improvements in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. If the Senate approves it, total spending on pet projects — which has more than doubled in the last five years — will reach roughly $23 billion this year, the most ever, according to watchdog groups that track federal spending.
Pork barrel projects are a time-honored tradition in Washington. But observers of the Congressional efforts are surprised, and in some cases dismayed, by the size of the special-interest projects this year, at a time when the federal deficit is rising and Republicans, who fashion themselves as fiscally conservative, run both houses of Congress.
The spending bill, which the Senate will take up in January, treats the home states of powerful appropriators especially well. Alaska, home to Senator Ted Stevens, the Republican chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, would reap millions under the measure, including $1 million for the Anchorage Museum and $1 million for the Tongass Coast Aquarium. Florida, the home state of Representative C. W. Bill Young, a Republican who is Mr. Stevens's counterpart in the House, also stands to gain millions.
Every state — indeed nearly every Congressional district, no matter Democratic or Republican — is the recipient of one pork project or another. The measure includes $200,000 for the University of Hawaii to produce a documentary on the Kalahari Bushmen, $220,000 to renovate a blueberry research center at the University of Maine and, in a provision Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, called "most ironic," $500,000 for the "Exercise in Hard Choices" program at the University of Akron, which examines how Congress makes budget decisions.
"It's worse than ever, and it's even more egregious because the Republicans are in charge, and everyone thought that they would be fiscally responsible," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, an advocacy group that named Mr. Gibbons "Porker of the Month" for the pool provision. "That's the big disappointment."
Here's is John McCains site on pork-barrel spending.
http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseact...Newscenter.Pork
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