Earmarks ... Pork by Any Other Name Still Stinks

If I were running for President of the United States, I would be bringing up for discussion Earmarks (a.k.a. Pork Barrel Spending) a heck of a lot more often than they are being talked about during this current campaign.

One of the smokescreens put up by the Porkers is that they may be a lot of money but they are not a lot of money because they are a small part of the total budget. Don’t blame me if you can’t understand the prior sentence. You have to be a member of Congress for 6 to 8 years before you can understand such “logic”.

I am going to address the issue of Pork Barrel Spending from two related points of view.

First...

It seems to me that those who say that the amount of money spent, while big, is small are missing a major point. The real damage of Pork is the fact that Pork allows bad legislation to become law.

If a congressman Dudley Do-Right sees that a particular piece of legislation sponsored by congressman Snidely Whiplash will do great damage to our country but is persuaded to vote for Snidely’s Pork Barrel Project because he is given his own Pork Barrel Project, the end result is bad legislation has been passed. It is not a fair trade off that Dudley’s Pork is deserving of becoming the law of the land.

Why can’t our Congress pass individual laws based strictly on the merits of each individual law? Instead of Merit Based Legislation we have an entrenched system of Trade-Offs...

I’ll give you yours (no matter how good or bad it is) if you give me mine (no matter how good or bad it is).

Second...

The Trade-Off System has been established so long that even the Dudley’s up in congress are defending it as necessary.

I recently heard a member of congress (whom I admire) vehemently defend the Earmark System. To do this he recited a long list of what were to him and to me very worthwhile projects. These wonderful laws were undeniably beneficial to our Country. His point was all Pork does not stink. He was saying that some Pork smells a lot like a Shakespearean Rose.

Here is what goes through Congressman Snidely’s small mind all the time...

• Wow! That is a great piece of legislation!
• Congressman Dudley will be dying to get his great piece of legislation enacted into law.
• My Pork Legislation will never be able to stand on its own because it is bad legislation.
• I’ll tell Dudley that he can’t have his good legislation unless I get my, bad for the country but good for my re-election, bad legislation.
• This is a Win Win.
• I get re-elected and Dudley gets re-elected.
• I don’t want to lose Dudley because it took a long time to train* him to think that this Trade-Offs System is the way it has to be.

You have probably heard that making laws is like making sausage. It looks to me like the main ingredient in Congressional Sausage is Pork.

It is not uncommon to hear Congressmen Dudley and Snidely make speeches about the need to get rid of Pork. Usually they say that reductions have already taken place but more reductions are necessary. This gives us hope. We take comfort in hope. We have small minds also.

I did some research on my own to find out about recent total Pork Barrel Spending. It was not easy to find this information but here is what I came up with...

• $15,600,000,000 in 2009.
• $15,600,000,000 in 2010.

Only a highly trained* Congressional Thinking Mind would look at the two bullets above and call that a “reduction”. Here’s how they do that....

They look at the 2010 number and say, it could have been more, and therefore, it must be less because it is not more and it would have been more if it had been more.

Would I kid u?

* Congressional Dictionary...”Train” means “Corrupt”.