Pork Spending

[Mimpy]

Found this in this week's Time magazine:

Why There's Shrimp in the Iraq Spending Bill

To entice reluctant colleagues, House Dems pumped their bill- which seeks troop withdrawal by August '08- with more than $20 billion in pork.

$20 million for the cleanup and restoration of farmland that has been damaged by freezing temperatures since January

$25 million for spinach growers and handlers to help them bounce back from the E. coli scare that began last September

$74 million to pay for the storage, handling and other unspecified costs of the 2007 peanut crop

$100 million to compensate citrus producers whose crops were destroyed and endangered by hurricanes Katrina and Rita

$120 million to the shrimp and menhaden fishing industries that were damaged by Katrina

$500 million for quick suppression of wildfires, which have recently plagued drought-stricken Western states

I mean, are they serious? $20 billion for spinach, shrimp, and peanuts?? This is what happens when the government has the power to arbitrarily help certain people because it thinks it has the right to help them. I think pork legislation is a great example of what happens when a government has loose powers and can do practically anything in the name of the "common good." Those numbers were just a bit shocking.

Edited March 26, 2007 by Mimpy

[The Wrath]

Yeah, Neal Boortz has been harping on this lately. It's nothing new. If you think this is bad, take a look at the highway bill from a couple years ago.

As a side note, I have an idea. We should start a campaign to make sure that every seat in the House and Senate is filled by a Muslim. That would be a sure-fire way to eliminate pork spending.

[utabintarbo]

...

As a side note, I have an idea. We should start a campaign to make sure that every seat in the House and Senate is filled by a Muslim. That would be a sure-fire way to eliminate pork spending.

Nice!

[DarkWaters]

It's nothing new. If you think this is bad, take a look at the highway bill from a couple years ago.

For those interested, here is an article.

We should start a campaign to make sure that every seat in the House and Senate is filled by a Muslim. That would be a sure-fire way to eliminate pork spending.

Finally then we would have nothing to worry about!

[Galileo Blogs]

Personally, I was considering making an exception from my philosophical principles for the menhaden fishing industry, so that they could get a hand-out paid for by the rest of us. It just sounded important, somehow, although I have to admit I never heard of it before.

Seriously, the pork is out of control, especially when you include everything else that is "pork" but not referred to that way by the media -- e.g.: all welfare spending, public housing, public medical care, public education, etc., etc. Those "big ticket" spending items dwarf the small-fry pork that the media talks about by orders of magnitude. That in no way diminishes the case for eliminating pork spending but, in an odd way, the media focus on pork seems to deflect attention from the much more egregious, abusive government transfers of wealth.