The Washington Re-Post

Columnist Robert Novak writes about Senator McCain and Coburn’s efforts to fight pork.  These Senators plan to challenge earmarks setting funds aside for specific projects in their districts as a violation of Senate rules.  According to Novak, these earmarks account for $27 billion in federal spending last year.  [1]

Does that mean that without the earmarkets that federal spending would have been $27 billion less last year?  No.  The issue at dispute is whether the bureaucracy or the Congress should be deciding how appropriate money should be spent.  Thus these Senators are engaged in demagoguery, which is one of Senator McCain’s favor activities.

Forget about PORK (a.k.a. congressional earmarking), the real issue is spending.  While it is easy to complain that the bridge to nowhere should not have been build, it is far more important to attack ANY federal spending on roads, which should be a PRIVATE endeavor.

[1] Robert D. Novak, “Looking to Fry Pork,” The Washington Post, 1/30/2006, A17.

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this