The problems with pork spending

Pork Projects. Earmarks. “Wasteful” Spending. It was all the rage in the campaign last year. Obama said he’d cut wasteful pork barrel spending. McCain said he’d veto all pet projects that came across his desk. Yadda yadda yadda. Politicians are known for grandstanding on issues like this just to score political points. There was the the “outrage” over the AIG bonuses (which most of them knew about months ago), the “grilling” of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on their economic policies and the age old “denouncement and repudiation” of pork barrel spending. Pathetically, the latter issue has reared its ugly head again in recent news.

The nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste is out again with its annual “Pig Book.” The “Pig Book” is a list of lawmakers whom the watchdog group deems as the biggest panhandlers for pork. It includes members of both the House and Senate.

This year they reported that over 10,000 pet projects are stuffed into 12 appropriations bills totalling up to $19.6 billion. This is a 14 percent increase from 2008. The president of this watchdog group, Tom Schatz, is now saying that the taxpayers are ready to “revolt” and even going to the extent of awarding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the “Porkasaurus” award.

It is time for this charade to stop. Everyone moans and groans about how pet projects are irresponsible and how they are too much wasteful spending…unless it’s spending in their own state. That is when everything changes. First off, what necessarily counts as wasteful spending? What might be wasteful to one person could be employment to another. Lets take one of the most usual pet projects that end up in bills, museums. And say US Congressman John Barrow slips in a project to build a museum here in Milledgeville. Now to someone in Alaska, this could be viewed as irresponsible and wasteful spending. But in Milledgeville this is employment for who knows how many people.

If that pet project Tom Schatz is so adamant about cutting would give say, his son or daughter, a job in this troubled economy, I can almost guarantee his tune would change.

So please, lets all stop this “outcry” and “outrage” about this age old topic of pet projects. Everyone’s against them when they aren’t affecting them. But when it hits their town, it’s a totally different story.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 17 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry