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The said Constitution shall be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

-Samuel Adams

Pork Chopped?

Even as my children have a bake sale at their school to raise a few dollars to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) says to keep your dirty paws off of his pet pork projects. And if you don't like it, you can kiss his ear. That's a direct quote. See Michelle Malkin for that story.

The question of how to pay for the massive rebuilding projects that will be necessary along the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (and probably Hurricane Rita) has brought on some interesting comments by our elected officials. Democrats want to roll back recent tax cuts. The President says that won't happen. Republicans say they want to cut the budget, but they balk over which projects should be chopped.
The Dallas Morning News discusses some of the problems with cutting various projects like Medicare, education, or the military. In an apparent attempt to offend everybody, the House Republican Study Committee has proposed cutting spending on medical care and education programs for the military and their dependents.

Thankfully, Glenn Reynolds and N.Z. Bear are organizing bloggers to have a go at the budget. They call the project PORKBUSTERS.

Identify some wasteful spending in your state or (even better) Congressional District. Put up a blog post on it. Go to N.Z. Bear's new PorkBusters page and list the pork, and add a link to your post.
Then call your Senators and Representative and ask them if they're willing to support having that program cut or -- failing that -- what else they're willing to cut in order to fund Katrina relief. (Be polite, identify yourself as a local blogger and let them know you're going to post the response on your blog). Post the results. Then go back to NZ Bear's page and post a link to your followup blog post.
The result should be a pretty good resource of dubious spending, and Congressional comments thereon, for review by blogs, members of the media, etc. And maybe even members of Congress looking for wasteful spending . . . .

The Anchoress notes that while bloggers have suggested over $40 billion in cuts, only Nancy Pelosi has committed to any cuts. But elected officials listen to voters, and the money does have to come from somewhere. If it becomes more politically expedient to cut spending on this pork than to run up more of a budget defecit, then that is what will happen. Let's apply some pressure!

Citizens Against Government Waste have named Tom DeLay and Don Young "Co-Porkers of the Month" in an attempt to help with the pressure, but I've got some bad news. Young considers that a compliment.

You'd think that a Republican like Young would at least be embarrassed about all of this. He isn't. He's shameless. Upon hearing that only one other lawmaker in the entire Congress had outdone him in securing pork barrel projects, Young told the New York Times, "I'd like to be a little oinker, myself. If he's the chief porker, I'm upset."

Have we any readers in Alaska? What say you?

Posted by Wulf on September 23, 2005 at 06:36 PM

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The said Constitution shall be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

-Samuel Adams

Pork Chopped?

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