-By Warner Todd Huston
Pork, pork, pork. It’s enough pork to make a Southside Chicago BBQ joint greasy with envy. Yes, it’s a bacchanalia of pork spending and earmarks in the Omnibus spending bill, for sure, and we now have the database to prove it.
Senator Tom Coburn has posted a Google Spreadsheet data base document on line and there you can see how much the earmark costs us, where it is going, and which of our congressmen asked for the earmark.
There’s One million, five hundred eighteen thousand dollars for animal vaccines in Greenport, New York. There’s three hundred grand for the study of phytoplankton in Boothbay, Maine. Millions going to various drug enforcement programs across the country. Ten mil is being shelled out to the “John P. Murtha Foundation” for… well, just because John was such a prince of a guy. There’s a mil six hundred thou for the “Brain Safety Net,” so that brains can be safe… and stuff. Lots of cash for the study of renewable energy, various road and bridge projects, and educational efforts. Even more cash to the Department of Energy for the “Office of Science” because, well, only government can do science, ya know?
So far there have been 6,715 earmarks attached to the Fiscal 2011 Omnibus Spending bill that Congress is now considering.
According to Senator John McCain (R, AZ), the earmarks total nearly $8.3 billion. They include such things as $349,000 for swine waste management in North Carolina; $413,000 for peanut research in Alabama; $235,000 for noxious weed management in Nevada; and $300,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii.
So, yes, it looks like Congress has learned its lesson about fiscal responsibility…. and is duly flaunting that lesson and the voters that schooled it.
In fact, I wonder if there is an earmark for Christmas cards from Congress? Those cards might read…
Dear American Voters,
Screw you.
We’ll spend what we want.
Love,
Your Democrat Controlled Congress
Merry Christmas, America.
Not only did they not listen, but at least one of them, Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri was going for — as Jim Hoff put it — the mother of all earmarks.
Cleaver had proposed a $48 billion earmark that was supposed to go to the inner city of Kansas City, Missouri. It was supposed to be “for the kids”… usually that is a clue right there that it is going to go to graft and corruption.
And BOY was Cleaver going for the brass ring. You see, Cleaver wanted this $48 billion to go to the not-for-profit Quality Day Campus, an organization run by Cleaver’s buddy, Lamar Mickens.
One might think that this organization must be a great effort with dozens of employees and a long list of good works that are serving thousands of Missouri’s most needy citizens… right?
Not so much. The Quality Day Campus headed by Cleaver’s buddy is run out of his house in Kansas City. He is the President and the Treasurer of the “organization.” His wife is the vice president. Yep it’s a big concern alright.
What should concern us is that Rep. Cleaver wanted to give $48 billion to a guy that runs a shady, fly-by-night “child care” center out of his own house!
Merry Christmas, America, indeed.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.