Pork Barrel Spending

This morning as I grabbed my morning cup of tea, FOXNEWS was interviewing someone regarding government waste.

This was once an issue on the forefront of people’s minds and was also rather newsworthy, but you don’t hear much about it anymore. The interview made me realize this kind of waste still goes on, even though people don’t talk much about it anymore.

Here some examples:

$5,786,000 – wood utilization research (Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon and Tennessee)
$4,177,000 – shrimp aquiculture research (Arizona, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas)
$645,000 – alternative salmon products research (Alaska)
$250,000 – Vidalia onion research (Georgia)
$200,000 – barley food health benefits research

Onion research?

$3,000,000 – research on the Charleston Bump, an offshore bottom feature that attracts a large number of fish

mp is a dance? Fish need to know this.em>

$12,000,000 – shipyard apprentice program (Hawaii)
$1,000,000 – National Flag Foundation in Pittsburgh; the goal of the organization is “to inspire people everywhere, but especially young people, to be more dedicated, responsible citizens and have a greater respect for the flag,” according to the foundation’s director.

I suppose next is pork spending on how to BURN the flag, *sigh*

$1,500,000 – Vulcan Monument (Alabama)
$250,000 – Rice Museum
$1,250,000 – Aleutian Pribilof church repairs (Alaska)
$1,130,000 – wood utilization laboratory in Sitka (Alaska)
$300,000 – Point Retreat Lighthouse (Alaska)
$176,000 – Reinder Herder’s Association (Alaska)

A RICE Museum????

$6,390,000 – physical fitness center at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station; sources indicate that Miramar already has a gym with a high-tech fitness equipment such as a Stairmaster with Internet access.

A stairmaster? for 6 mil?

Here is a list for 2005

Amount
Recipient

$450,000
Baseball Hall of Fame

$97,000
Franco-American Heritage Center, Lewiston , Maine

$25,000
Develop curriculum to study mariachi music, Clark County School District , Nevada

$350,000
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland , Ohio

$150,000
Therapeutic Horseback Riding Program, Lady B Ranch, California

$950,000
Please Touch Museum , Philadelphia , Pennsylvania

$250,000
Police Activities League Center , Anaheim California

$2,000,000
Kitchen Relocation, Fairbanks ( Alaska ) North Star Borough

$250,000
Alaska Statehood Celebration, University of Alaska

$250,000
Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville , Tennessee

$121,250
Demolition, Broadview Heights , Ohio

$99,000
Train students in the motorsports industry, Patrick Henry Community College

$50,000
Workforce development, Fashion Business, Inc., Los Angeles , California

$100,000
Municipal swimming pool, Ottawa , Kansas

$100,000
Amer-I-Can program for youth, Illinois

$300,000
Relocate the Waynesboro, Mississippi Police Department

$250,000
Camp Police Athletic League of New Jersey

$35,000
Alabama Sports Hall of Fame

$100,000
National Association of Promoting Success

$175,000
Love Social Services, Fairbanks, Alaska

$51,000
Robert E. Lee Community Center, Chase City, Virginia

$150,000
Grammy Foundation

$167,000
Horn Fly Research in Alabama

$72,750
Public swimming pool construction, Prescott, Alaska

$300,000
Revitalize downtown Council Bluffs, Iowa

$500,000
Beyond Missing

$75,000
Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame, New York

$100,000
High Falls Film Festival, Rochester, New York

$291,000
International Museum of Women, San Francisco, California

$300,000
Streetlights and salt dome, Markham, Illinois

$1,500,000
Transport naturally chilled water from Lake Ontario to Lake Onondaga

$250,000
City pool renovation and construction, Banning, California

$250,000
Construct the Great Falls Parking Garage, Auburn, Maine

$6,285,000
Wood utilization research across several states

$200,000
Aviation Hall of Fame

$500,000
Equipment purchases, KENW public radio station, Portales, New Mexico

$100,000
“No Workshops, No Jumpshots,” Virginia

$200,000
Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum, Greenville, Texas

$275,000
National History Museum of the Adirondacks, Tupper Alaska

$150,000
Obscenity Crimes Project

$100,000
Breedlove Dehydrated Foods, Lubbock, Texas

$50,000
Feral hog control in Missouri

$250,000
Traffic calming, Windermere, Florida

$500,000
Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City

$250,000
North Creek Ski Bowl, North Creek, New York

$1,750,000
Parents Anonymous

$1,500,000
Wood products wastewater repairs Canton, North Carolina

$150,000
Fishing Rationalization Research in Alaska

$1,500,000
Anchorage Museum/Transit intermodal depot, Alaska

$250,000
Surplus federal property study, Walla Walla, Washington

$98,000
Alaska Sea Otter Commission

$200,000
Dennison Railroad Depot Museum, Ohio

$2,500,000
Horse Springs Ranch, New Mexico

$150,000
“Parent Intern” program, Our House, Inc., Decatur, Georgia

$3,000,000
Center for Grape Genetics, Geneva, New York

$150,000
Coca-Cola Space Science Center, Columbus, Georgia

$100,000
Punxsutawney (Pennsylvania) Weather Museum

$280,000
Sidewalks, street furniture and façade improvements, Bakersfield, California

$1,000,000
B.B. King Museum Foundation, Indianola, Mississippi

$250,000
A day care center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

$268,000
Livestock waste research in Iowa

$350,000
Project Peacemaker, Turtle Mountain Community College, North Dakota

$200,000
Wallace State Center for Automotive Manufacturing and Plastics, Hanceville, Alabama

$160,000
Seafood waste in Alaska

$1,108,000
Alternative salmon products in Alaska

$796,000
Ice Age National Scientific Reserve

$42,124
Citrus waste utilization in Florida

$50,000
Wild rice research in Minnesota

$300,000
Wool research

$100,000
Trees Forever Program, Iowa

$1,800,000
Eider and sea otter recovery at Alaska Sea Life Center

$1,000,000
Trailways Station Revitalization and Visitors Center, Georgia

$3,500,000
Bus acquisition in Atlanta

$1,000,000
Clean fuel shuttle buses in Atlanta

$750,000
Broward/Palm Beach County buses, Florida

$2,000,000
Replace buses in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

$200,000
YMCA bus, Alabama

$25,000
Fitness equipment, YMCA of Bradford County, Pennsylvania

$921,000
Hardwood tree improvement and regeneration, Indiana

$350,000
Leafy spurge eradication in North Dakota

$10,000
Slickspot Peppergrass

$500,000
Chugach NF Valdez visitor center, Alaska

$2,300,000
Animal Waste Management Research Laboratory, Bowling Green, Kentucky

$515,000
Brown tree snake management in Guam

$3,000,000
Grape Genomics Research Center, Davis, California

$347,000
Grapefruit juice/drug interaction research, Florida

$63,000
Noxious Weed in the Desert Southwest, Las Cruces, New Mexico

$470,000
Swine and other animal waste management research, North Carolina

$150,000
“Check ‘Em Out” program

$750,000
Close Up Foundation

$100,000
Marine turtles program

$430,000
Automotive technology and repair workforce training, Excel Institute, Washington, D.C.

$100,000
Pennsylvania Hunting and Fishing Museum, Warren, Pennsylvania

$1,250,000
Train-to-Mountain, Washington

$500,000
Kincaid Park Soccer and Nordic Ski Center, Anchorage, Alaska

$100,000
National Railway Museum, Green Bay, Wisconsin

$900,000
Tongass Coast Aquarium, Ketchikan Alaska

Where does “pork-barrel” spending come from? JesseGordon gave this response on 5/4/2000:
“Representatives add the “crap” because they want their particular crap to pass. Big bills that are likely to pass are ripe for “amendments” for pork projects, which are added at every step of the way. Representatives won’t vote against the bill as a whole just because of some small pieces of “pork” added on, so the pork passes along with the whole bill.”

In other words, legitimate bills get voted on, and along with those our politicians add preposterous and expensive items to the bill. And where does the money go really?

– In the year 2001, Congress appropriated $340,000,000 in federal tax dollars to PBS (Public Broadcasting Services). I’m sure that Barney the purple dinosaur and Big Bird appreciate this generous gesture, but they are hardly worthy of our tax dollars! So the next time you turn on PBS (if you actually watch it) and see them asking for donations, remember that you are already a sponsor.

– The National Endowment for the Arts received $104,769,000 in the year 2001. This was an increase by $7,000,000 from the previous year. The NEA has long been a sore spot among most conservatives due to it’s sponsoring of such things as a painting of the Virgin Mary littered with elephant dung and pornographic clippings.

These few items alone (there are hundreds more similar to these) cost us $508,727,000 a year!

Section 8 of Article I opens with, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” This is very specific about the powers entrusted to Congress. Congress has clearly trampled all over these restrictions! They have gone beyond their authority.

I am not the only one bothered by these and other wasteful items: See Citizens Against Government Waste

CNN Money, where the article goes beyond describing the wasteful spending on the study of mariachi music in Nevada.

Sen. John McCain asked “Why does the U.S. taxpayer need to fund this `no shrimp left behind’ act?” He was speaking of the 1 million dollar initiative that the government must spend $1 million on “Wild American Shrimp Initiative”.

The U-Act is another group protesting against government waste.

With President Bush telling us how Social Security is in dire straits in last night’s speech, its hard to believe that American Citizens rest on our laurels while such waste continues and multiplies!

I am rather bothered. Are YOU?