'Pork Barrel' Spending Hit Record High in 2005, Watchdog Says

'Pork Barrel' Spending Hit Record High in 2005, Watchdog Says
Wednesday, April 05, 2006

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Pork Barrel Projects

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Special Projects Weigh Down Highway Bill
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Alaska Gets $1.5M for Bus Stop
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Annual Pig Book Traces Taxpayer Spending
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Pork Spending Adds Up

WASHINGTON — For all the hand-wringing on Capitol Hill about larding bills with homestate projects, the latest report from a taxpayer group says lawmakers hit a record last year.

Citizens Against Government Waste, in its annual "Pig Book" released Wednesday, details $29 billion of what it calls pork-barrel spending.
For the uninitiated, "pork" means homestate and home district projects specially set aside in congressional spending measures, chiefly the 11 annual appropriations bills.

Money for roads and bridges, grants to law enforcement agencies and charity groups, and water projects is well received back home, which in turn feeds lawmakers' appetites for the projects.

Some of these earmarks are more audacious than others. For example, last year there was a "bridge to nowhere," a $223 million project connecting Alaska's Gravina Island — population 50 — to the mainland. That project drew so much ridicule from the media that an irate public successfully demanded that the bridge be shelved.

The anti-pork group has a pretty broad definition of what constitutes pork. Anything not specifically requested by President Bush automatically qualifies. Others prefer the know-it-when-you-see-it test.

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And all this from a supposedly 'Conservative Majority Congress'! Gee I'd really hate to see what would happen if the 'Far Left Spendthrifts' were in power.

If Bush & Co are 'Real Conservatives' we are in deep, deep trouble!

Of course the Dem's are no better, so we have no choice in this country except bad and very bad and that folks is no choice at all. We need a viable 3rd political party and there is not one on the horizon. I'm guessing the US will finally have to got bankrupt before the problem is ever addressed.

One thing you can't fault Americans on, we like to let our 'real disasters' become so obvious that even the dimmest bulb in the nation knows something is wrong before we attempt to fix the problem. Of course the attempted fix, usually only makes the problem worse.

Someone once said, "God looks after small children, fools, and the USA." I think the guy was on to something.